The Pricing of Digital Goods in the Music Production Software Industry

This research paper set out to investigate the factors affecting the pricing of non-tangible, non-rivalrous, digital software goods – a uniquely modern economic phenomenon of ever-increasing prominence in the transition to more and more digital economies – from a practical standpoint. Real world data from a consumer survey of 553 respondents and a producer survey of 12 firms in the music production software market – an ideal example of general software markets due to its diversity – was analyzed to discuss the degree of the market’s conformity to a theoretical model for software goods. The findings include the ambiguous role of piracy, product-specific market structures, an argument for delayed marginal costs and an explanation for general price rigidity regardless of varying costs.

Miro Keimiöniemi

19 years