Shifting Recording Costs from Labels to Markets

As part of the research program he leads on innovation and creative industries, MPI affiliate Ajay Agrawal recently presented an evening of lecture and music called Markets Making Music.

It centred on a company based on the premise that “the only music you can’t download for free is the music that hasn’t been made yet”. Dutch start-up Sellaband has built a platform that allows artists to crowd-source funding from music-lovers around the world. Watch highlights from the lecture below as Prof. Agrawal presents insights based on Sellaband data and details three hypotheses about what distinguishes the musical acts that “make it”: