In "Winners take all in Rockonomics", a Princeton University economist sometimes known as "the world's first and foremost professor of rockonomics" reports that concert sales are becoming a higher proportion of stars earnings than record sales and that ticket prices are climbing much faster than the rate of inflation? His "(David) Bowie Theory" explains why:

Before the advent of illegal downloads, artists had an incentive to underprice their concerts, because bigger audiences translated into higher record sales, Professor Krueger argues. But now, he says, the link between the two products has been severed, meaning that artists and their managers need to make more money from concerts and feel less constrained in setting ticket prices. Professor Krueger says this tendency was spotted by David Bowie, who told the New York Times in 2002 that "music itself is going to become like running water or electricity". Bowie has advised his fellow performers: "You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring, because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left."

Bowie's statement appeared in the June 9, 2002 edition of the New York Times, in an article entitled "David Bowie: 21st Century Entrpreneur" I made essentially the same argument, and many others, in a New York Times interview right around same time. In the July 2, 2002 edition I was quoted as saying:

Recorded music "will be used to promote the artist, and the labels will need to find other sources of revenue," predicted Starling Hunter III, an assistant professor at MIT, who studies the impact of technology on industries.

I also recall specifically mentioning that the downloading trend would create a shift away from "recording artists" and toward "performing artists." That insight ended up on the journalists equivalent of the cutting room floor. Prior to that time I had also been teaching the Harvard Business School Napster case and for at least a year before my and Bowie's NY Times interviews, I had written in my end-of-the-class summary:

There is also an important issue of technological frames, i.e. how a new technology can bring about changes in the activities and functions that an industry undertakes and how it views or defines itself in relation to those activities. What we now call the recording industry was not always named such. It was the advent of recording technologies made that name both possible and meaningful. Ask yourself if there is a difference between a “recoding” artists and a “performing” artist? If you think there is one, then ask yourself these questions: what are the implications for the forms of strategy and organizing when you view yourself as being in the business of selling recordings rather than performances?

Now I am not accusing Bowie of getting the idea from me- by every indication his ideas have extraterrestrial sources- but how come he gets all the credit for the idea? Let's all agree, shall we, to call this the "Bowie-Starling Theory" from now on. Admittedly it doesn't have the same ring or importance as Crick and Watson, but I can settle for it...well, that and a royalty check!

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