Cultural Industries
Some artwork is not reproducible, but there are many cultural goods whose value does not depend on the individual copy. Books, recordings, movies get some of their value from the existence of many copies of the original. These are the products of cultural industries. These markets are characterized by:
- Uncertainty on value. The demand for a good (success) is hard to predict. This is a characteristic of an experience good.
- Infinite variety. You can differentiate between products, e.g. a car, on basis of its characteristics. Many products allow classification on a relatively small number of such characteristics. Cultural goods, however, have a very high number of them, which, on top of that, often are subjective. This makes them hard to compare.
- High concentration in traded products. A major part of sales is in best-sellers or block-busters.
- Short life cycle. Most items are sold shortly after introduction.
- High fixed cost. There is high cost before introduction. Making a movie is much more expensive than producing another copy.
Read more about this topic: Economics Of The Arts And Literature
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or industries:
“The sickly cultural pathos which the whole of France indulges in, that fetishism of the cultural heritage.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“All industries are brought under the control of such people [film producers] by Capitalism. If the capitalists let themselves be seduced from their pursuit of profits to the enchantments of art, they would be bankrupt before they knew where they were. You cannot combine the pursuit of money with the pursuit of art.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)