ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the malleable nature of music value and the way the modern system of music valuation has been established around copyright licensing, a scheme purported by the music industry. It demonstrates the inadequacy of the modern economics of music valuation and the need for a new dimension of music valuation in the digitally networked economy. The chapter provides the debate on digital music value as a continuation of the previous means of generating revenue and the belief in the copyright licensing scheme. It describes how the value of music has evolved from performance to sales of sheet music and to copyright-oriented business constructed around physical artefacts. In the context of sociotechnical, legal and institutional settings, the value of music built around copyright royalties fixed on physical artefacts, purported by the global music industry's interest, has been consolidated and validated over time in the music community.
