When you pay a door fee to see a show, you are paying for the content: a live band performing their songs.
Also: some bands sell CDs, some give them away, lately fewer are selling, but instead are giving away passes at download sites. Even those that sell the CDs give away at least half if not more of them, because they would rather people listen to them and come back for the next show, and tell their friends, making $3-10 per person per show, than make $10 on the CD one time.
No, you're not paying for the content itself, you're paying for the band's time, and the limited amount of space in the venue - like you said, the performance; but not the content. Those are both scarce resources, whereas the actual bits are not: you could stream that out on the internet to a virtually infinite number of people.
Actually, you are paying for the content too. The content is the driver for the scarce space in a venue. Ever been to a concert bar on nights without a show? They are dead, there is no reason to be there without the music. Similarly, most people don't say "will there be a band there tonight?", they say "which band will be there tonight?", implying the music is at least as important as the fact there is a band and a bar. Putting it on the internet doesn't actually matter, many venues do that, and are sold out anyway. Being on the scene is actually important to a lot of people.
As for authors, I wasn't talking about them, and I'm not going to play strawman games with you.
> As for authors, I wasn't talking about them, and I'm not going to play strawman games with you.
Authors are producers of 'information goods' too, and I hardly think such a large category of people constitutes a 'strawman'. It's an issue that to them is very real - musicians can sort of fall back on performances, but authors can't.
Also: some bands sell CDs, some give them away, lately fewer are selling, but instead are giving away passes at download sites. Even those that sell the CDs give away at least half if not more of them, because they would rather people listen to them and come back for the next show, and tell their friends, making $3-10 per person per show, than make $10 on the CD one time.