There was an excellent piece written on Pitchfork several weeks ago titled How Much Is Music Really Worth?
We create the value of music through a sort of community consensus, whether in terms of its emotional impact or its monetary worth. As units of music have become difficult to price, they’ve also lost their economic value—so I agree with a recent Future of Music Coalition op-ed arguing that “the music business has a transparency problem.” Would more detail about dollars and cents restore the music economy’s spirit? Maybe. The industry has recovered before, and there are reasons for optimism, but ultimately music and business, though inextricable from each other, aren’t the same.
Music could be worthless and, for some of us, it would still be priceless. That’s why it’s worth so much.