I was listening to a really interesting story about variable pricing in the music industry on NPR’s Morning Edition this week. The price discrepancies on Depeche Mode’s new album perfectly illustrated the concept of price discovery.  
The new album by Depeche Mode, “Sounds of the Universe” is priced at a low $3.99 on Amazon, and $9.99 on iTunes. Because of iTunes recent switch to a Digital Rights Management-free delivery model (enabling downloaded songs to be played on any type of play, not just the Apple  iPod), this is the same product.
So what’s it really worth?
That’s what Price Discovery aims to determine. Technically, the …read more

According to reports, the US music industry is seeing a growing popularity with UK artists. The BPI says that 1 in 10 albums bought n the United States are by British stars, giving UK music a 10% share of the American music market.
In 2007, UK music only represented about 8.5% of the US market. Established artists like Coldplay and Radiohead have released new albums, bumping sales, and new artists like Leona Lewis and Duffy have also helped with the jump in popularity of UK music.
Unfortunately, the music industry as a whole isn’t growing in the United States, so UK artists …read more