Abstract
This chapter examines the economic accomplishments of individual members in a performing rights organization (PRO), sometimes referred to as a performing rights society. Skewness and heavy tail of returns in the form of member royalty payments are estimated using the skew-normal and skew-t distributions in a parametric approach . We found strong evidence of the so-called ‘superstar effect’ in which the average royalty payment made by a PRO is still dominated by extreme outcomes in which a few members earned a substantial share of royalty payments from blockbuster hits that have endured over time. There is little evidence of smaller niche members dominating or replacing the ‘superstars’. Economists and others will benefit from this empirical study which emphasizes a new understanding of the music industry from a PRO, member royalty payment and performance copyright perspective.
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Pitt, I.L. (2010). Estimation of Skewness, Heavy Tails, and Music Success in a Performance Rights Organization. In: Economic Analysis of Music Copyright. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6318-5_6
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