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Pricing Digital Arts and Culture Through PWYW Strategies

A Reconsideration of the Ricardian Theory of Value

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Digital Economy. Emerging Technologies and Business Innovation (ICDEc 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 395))

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Abstract

Starting from empirical observations, this paper discusses the valuation problem of digital arts and culture, exploring the potentialities of value-based pricing strategies for digital arts markets by specifically examining the case of informal art market in Lebanon. In particular, the “Pay What You Want” (PWYW, also known as “Pay As You Wish”) participative pricing strategy seems suitable for products that are largely dependent on untraditional motivations that contradict the rational choice theory, especially when the marginal costs are insignificant for producers or can’t be calculated objectively for artistic and cultural products. We suggest that the PWYW pricing strategy in the digital art markets leads to a shift from price discrimination to value discrimination, when the value in use of reproducible digital arts is determining the exchange value, and the producers are capturing the maximum customers’ surplus they are entitled to receive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculté de Sciences économiques, Observatoire Universitaire de la Réalité Socio-Economique, Université Saint-Joseph, Beirut, Lebanon

    Racquel Antoun-Nakhle, Nizar Hariri & Rim Haidar

Authors
  1. Racquel Antoun-Nakhle
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  2. Nizar Hariri
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  3. Rim Haidar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rim Haidar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Manouba, Manouba, Tunisia

    Mohamed Anis Bach Tobji

  2. University of Manouba, Manouba, Tunisia

    Rim Jallouli

  3. Institut National des Sciences Appliqué, Strasbourg, France

    Ahmed Samet

  4. NEOMA Business School, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France

    Mourad Touzani

  5. Bucharest Business School, Bucharest, Romania

    Vasile Alecsandru Strat

  6. Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

    Paul Pocatilu

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Antoun-Nakhle, R., Hariri, N., Haidar, R. (2020). Pricing Digital Arts and Culture Through PWYW Strategies. In: Bach Tobji, M.A., Jallouli, R., Samet, A., Touzani, M., Strat, V.A., Pocatilu, P. (eds) Digital Economy. Emerging Technologies and Business Innovation. ICDEc 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 395. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64642-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64642-4_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64641-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64642-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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