In the early days of file-sharing and the internet, experts worried that technology would gut the creative industries, leaving consumers with fewer (and lower-quality) choices than ever before. It’s clear now that this hasn’t been the case, says Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of Minnesota.
Pirating remains a problem, and traditional gatekeepers aren’t as powerful as they once were. But revenue for recorded music is growing, and there are more books, movies, television, and music than ever before. In his new book Digital Renaissance: What Data and Economics Tell Us about the Future of Popular Culture (Princeton University Press), Waldfogel argues that digital technologies haven’t killed creative industries, but they have...