Video Killed the Radio Star? Online Music Videos and Recorded Music Sales

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kretschmer, Tobias; Peukert, Christian
• 署名单位: University of Munich; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Universidade Catolica Portuguesa; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.2019.0915
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 776-800
• 关键词: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY; recommender systems; long tail; PIRACY; welfare; IMPACT; displacement; consumption; revenues; industry

摘要

We study the heterogeneous effects of online video platforms on the sales volume and sales distribution of recorded music. Identification comes from two natural experiments in Germany. In 2009, virtually all music videos were blocked from YouTube as a result of a legal dispute. In 2013, the dedicated platform Vevo entered the market, making videos of a large number of artists available overnight. Our estimates suggest that restricting (enabling) access to online videos decreases (increases) recorded music sales on average by about 5%-10%. We show that the effect operates independently of the nature of video content, suggesting that user-generated content is as effective as official content. Moreover, we highlight heterogeneity in this effect: online music videos disproportionally benefit sales of new artists and sales of mainstream music.