Economic Characteristics
Thus, for example, the plans for the newly invented machine are an information good. They are symbolic (perhaps pictorial as much as verbal) and their usefulness is the same whether they are on paper or some electronic form. Similarly, the utility of the travel guide is about the same whether it is from the original print run, a Xerox copy, or scanned and mounted on a computer disk. The utility of the travel guide may also be nearly as great when it is borrowed, and has to be taken back in a month, as when it is bought -- after all, by that time, the traveller is likely to have planned her trip and made her reservations. Yet again, the utility of the financial advice will be similar whether it is obtained orally or printed on a "market letter," -- assuming it is the same advice, that is, that the symbols are arranged in the same way. The photographs of the museum pictures are coded in a symbolic form -- one of the electronic picture standards, such as JPEG, TIFF or GIF -- and the utility of the coded photographs is pretty much the same whether they are on CD, downloaded from a Web site, or broadcast on cable TV. Anyway, the coded photographs are worth much less than the originals because the originals are physically the paintings the great master painted. That is, the originals are not information goods because their utility comes from the material form they have, as much as from any arrangement of symbols. Similarly, the performance of "The Marriage of Figaro" was not itself an information product, since its utility depended on the material circumstances, including the vibration of air molecules set in motion by Terfel's extraordinary tenor voice. However, the score and libretto (script) of the opera are information products. They can be performed again and again, and what gives them value is the arrangement of symbols to guide the future performances (and to aid in the enjoyment of the music by those who buy the CD set). Also, the CD's themselves are an information product, since the music is coded and the particular arrangement of digital codes is what produces music from the CD player, giving the CD's their value. Had the same digital codes been encoded on digital audio tape, they would have given the same utility (to those who have digital audio tape players, of course).
We may extend this definition of information products by observing that information services are services that provide or involve the manipulation of information products.
Economic Characteristics
Copyright