File-Sharing and Copyright
| Authors: | Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 1, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The researchers argue that file-sharing technology has not undermined the incentives of artists and entertainment companies to create, market, and distribute new works. The advent of new technology has allowed consumers to copy music, books, video games, and other protected works on an unprecedented scale at minimal cost. Such technology has considerably weakened copyright protection, first of music and software and increasingly of movies, video games, and books. While policy discussion surrounding file-sharing has largely focused on the legality of the new technology and the question of whether declining sales in music are due to file-sharing, the debate has been overly narrow. Copyright protection exists to encourage innovation and the creation of new works—in other words, to promote social welfare. This essay analyzes the landscape and identifies areas for more research.
It Is Okay for Artists to Make Money…No, Really, It's Okay
| Authors: | Robert D. Austin and Lee Devin |
|---|---|
| Published: | June 3, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
When art and commerce are mentioned in the same sentence, many people become bad tempered or think something needs fixing. This paper argues that more artists ought to make more money more often. HBS professor Robert Austin and theater dramaturg Lee Devin identify and undermine three fallacies about art and commerce, and suggest that it is necessary to carry on a more careful and less emotional conversation about the tensions between art and business and to overcome a general aversion to business common among artists and their patrons. They also stress the need to develop better theories about how art and commerce can achieve integration helpful to both.
Published in 2008
Long-Tail Economics? Give Me Blockbusters!
| Published: | September 10, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Although the Long Tail theory might argue otherwise, HBS marketing professor John Quelch believes in the power of blockbusters to excite consumers, motivate salespeople, and attract top talent.
Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
| Published: | May 14, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Business leaders must manage and support creativity just as they would any other asset. Harvard Business School professors Teresa Amabile, Mary Tripsas, and Mukti Khaire discuss where creativity comes from, how entrepreneurs use it, and why innovation is often a team sport. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Published in 2007
Dynamics of Platform Competition: Exploring the Role of Installed Base, Platform Quality and Consumer Expectations
| Authors: | Feng Zhu and Marco Iansiti |
|---|---|
| Published: | December 4, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | November 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
What factors drive platform success, long-run market structure, and market efficiency? Conventional wisdom suggests that for a new platform to be successful, either it must make its technology compatible with the incumbent, or its technical advantage must offer so much value to consumers that it exceeds the combination of functionality, installed base, and complementary goods value offered by the incumbent. Zhu and Iansiti develop a dynamic model to examine the evolution of platform-based markets. They find that a huge quality advantage may not be necessary for an entrant to be successful. Using data from the video game industry, they find support for their theoretical predications.
Exclusivity and Control
| Authors: | Andrei Hagiu and Robin S. Lee |
|---|---|
| Published: | August 31, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | August 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Music, television shows, movies, Internet and mobile content, computer software, and other forms of media often require a consumer to join a platform in order to access or utilize the media. This affiliation may take the form of a subscription to a distribution channel or purchase of a hardware device. One of the primary means of differentiation and competition between platforms for consumer adoption is the acquisition of premium or quality content. However, whether or not certain content is exclusive to one platform or is present on multiple platforms varies significantly from industry to industry. One can even view Apple's exclusive U.S. provision of the iPhone to AT&T as even more variation in the degree of exclusivity across industries. Why is it that some forms of content are available only on one platform, while others are distributed through several or all platforms available—that is, they "multihome"? This paper analyzes industry propensity for exclusivity and presents a model of platform competition. The key driving force is the nature of the relationship between the content and the platforms: outright sale (all control rights, particularly over content pricing, are transferred from the content provider to the platform) or affiliation (the content provider maintains control rights over pricing).
Understanding the 'Want' vs. 'Should' Decision
| Q&A with: | Todd Rogers and Katy Milkman |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 16, 2007 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Pizza or salad? Consumers use different approaches to buying things they want (pizza) versus items they should buy (salad). In their research on online grocery-buying habits and DVD rentals, Harvard Business School's Katy Milkman and Todd Rogers, along with Professor Max Bazerman, provide insights on the want-should conflict and the implications for managers in areas such as demand forecasting, consumer spending habits, and effective store layout.
Film Rentals and Procrastination: A Study of Intertemporal Reversals in Preferences and Intrapersonal Conflict
| Author: | Katy Milkman, Todd Rogers, Max H. Bazerman |
|---|---|
| Published: | June 28, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | June 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Throughout our lives, we face many choices between activities we know we should do and those we want to do. Examples of such choices include whether or not to visit the gym, to smoke, to order a greasy pizza or a healthy salad for lunch, and to watch an action-packed blockbuster or a history documentary on Saturday night. Using data on consumption decisions over time from an Australian online DVD rental company, this paper investigates how and why individuals make systematically different decisions when their choices will take effect in the present versus the future.
Published in 2006
Will the "Long Tail" Work for Hollywood?
| Published: | October 23, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
The "long-tail phenomenon" is well documented: Amazon.com makes significant profits selling many low-volume books. But can the long tail work for video sales as well? A new working paper by professors Anita Elberse and Felix Oberholzer-Gee suggests that it may not bring the same benefits to Hollywood.
How Kayak Users Built a New Industry
| Q&A with: | Carliss Y. Baldwin |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 24, 2006 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Customers have produced some of the most important innovations in industries ranging from oil refining to scientific instruments. But how do user innovations take place? How do they get to market? Professor Carliss Baldwin discusses research into the rodeo kayak industry to understand the world of user innovation.
Resisting the Seductions of Success
| Published: | April 17, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
"The basic problem with the flow of success is that life can look very good when it really isn't," writes Harvard Business School's Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. His new book, Questions of Character, uses literature to look closely at issues of leadership. Here's an excerpt.
Winners and Losers at the Olympics
| Q&A with: | Stephen Greyser |
|---|---|
| Published: | March 6, 2006 |
| Feature: | Views on News |
We know which athletes won and lost in Turin, but what about the companies and individuals looking for business gold? Professor Stephen A. Greyser looks at the results—and the possibilities ahead in China.
Oprah: A Case Study Comes Alive
| Published: | February 20, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
Writing a business case on the icon of daytime television and chief executive of a major media empire was challenge enough for HBS professor Nancy Koehn and colleagues. Oprah Winfrey's visit to campus to talk with graduating students made it ample reward.
The Case of the Mystery Writer's Brand
| Published: | January 30, 2006 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Lessons from the Classroom |
A look behind how professor John Deighton developed a case study of mystery writer James Patterson. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Published in 2005
The Box Office Power of Stars
| Q&A with: | Anita Elberse |
|---|---|
| Published: | October 3, 2005 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Just how much do movie stars contribute to box office success? HBS professor Anita Elberse researched the notion of "star power" to better understand how A-list players contribute to Hollywood's bottom line.
Advertising and Expectations: The Effectiveness of Pre-Release Advertising for Motion Pictures
| Authors: | Anita Elberse and Bharat N. Anand |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 5, 2006 |
| Paper Release Date: | September 30, 2005 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
This research examines how advertising affects market-wide sales expectations for pre-release movies. The authors use data on advertising expenditures and an online stock market simulation, The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), to track more than 280 movies released between 2001 and 2003. Their findings show that advertising affects the updating of market-wide expectations prior to release, and that this effect is stronger the higher the product quality.
The Power of Stars: Do Stars Drive Success in Creative Industries?
| Author: | Anita Elberse |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 5, 2006 |
| Paper Release Date: | July 2005, revised February 2006 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The importance of star power is evident in creative industries from music and film to fashion and architecture. Star actors are paid millions of dollars, but is star talent critical to product success? What determines the value of stars? In the context of the movie business, Elberse calculated the returns in a study comparing 1,200 casting announcements on trading behavior in a simulated and real stock market setting. In a separate study, she also looked at the stars' impact on expected revenues.
The Motion Picture Industry: Critical Issues in Practice, Current Research & New Research Directions
| Authors: | Jehoshua Eliashberg, Anita Elberse, and Mark A. A. M. Leenders |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 5, 2006 |
| Paper Release Date: | March 2005 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
This paper reviews research and trends in three key areas of movie making: production, distribution, and exhibition. In the production process, the authors recommend risk management and portfolio management for studios, and explore talent compensation issues. Distribution trends show that box-office performance will increasingly depend on a small number of blockbusters, advertising spending will rise (but will cross different types of media), and the timing of releases (and DVDs) will become a bigger issue. As for exhibiting movies, trends show that more sophisticated exhibitors will emerge, contractual changes between distributor and exhibitors will change, and strategies for tickets prices may be reevaluated.
Published in 2004
Music Downloads: Pirates—or Customers?
| Q&A with: | Felix Oberholzer-Gee |
|---|---|
| Published: | June 21, 2004 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don’t hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.
Marketing Wine to the World
| Q&A with: | Michael Roberto |
|---|---|
| Published: | February 16, 2004 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
From consolidation to the growing clout of mass retailers, structural changes have hit the wine industry. Professor Michael Roberto discusses the move from elitism to mainstream appeal.
Published in 2003
Making Money Making Movies
| Q&A with: | Anita Elberse |
|---|---|
| Published: | November 3, 2003 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
HBS professor Anita Elberse talks about the state of the international motion picture industry, movie piracy, and how to capture screens in foreign markets.
Published in 2002
Unilever—A Case Study
| Published: | December 9, 2002 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
As one of the oldest and largest foreign multinationals doing business in the U.S., the history of Unilever's investment in the United States offers a unique opportunity to understand the significant problems encountered by foreign firms. Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones has done extensive research on Unilever, based on full access to restricted corporate records. This recent article from Business History Review is the first publication resulting from that research.
Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War
| Published: | January 28, 2002 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Newspapers saw a threat to their livelihood from the Internet, and aggressively put their own competing products online. Problem is, says Harvard Business School professor Clark Gilbert, they didn't take advantage of the power of disruptive technology.
Published in 2000
Linking the Globe: The Role of Media and Communications
| Published: | July 24, 2000 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
The media industry today is at its most critical juncture since an earlier rush of new technologies made mass media possible. Top executives from three global media firms—Bertelsmann, Vivendi and Reuters—joined HBS Professor Debora Spar in Berlin for a look at the industry at the crossroads of the Information Revolution.
Cable TV: From Community Antennas to Wired Cities
| Published: | July 10, 2000 |
|---|---|
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
The cable television industry has long outgrown its roots as a source of better TV reception to achieve its present place as a key player in the emerging telecommunications infrastructure. That change, writes HBS Professor Thomas R. Eisenmann in Business History Review, amid different managerial respondes to the twin—and sometimes competing—objectives of stabilty and growth. In this excerpt, Eisenmann looks at the formative years of the industry, from 1948 to 1975.
