OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Another option is to set up showrooms in businesses that trade in cultural
products – at least for products that lend themselves to such displays.
- Will Internet sales be the miracle solution? This is a question that transcends
the local level, but a number of possibilities would seem highly promising.
• Avoid further tragedies involving the public domain versus private property:
- Property rights are always a complicating factor in the promotion of cultural
assets. From the standpoint of local development, the real challenge today
involves a number of idiosyncratic products that are generally considered
“art crafts”. This raises the issue of whether there could not be some minimal
protection of the geographical origin of cultural products, in a manner similar
to the appellation d’origine contrôlée label used for agricultural products. Some
countries have instituted labelling systems that at least afford creators
improved visibility and enable them to invoke a number of procedures
existing in their countries. The labels then serve to attract attention to these
situations and to help preserve the uniqueness.
- Conversely, today there is also a risk that intellectual property rights can be
extended far beyond what is generally accepted. Recognising ownership of
content but not of expression can hinder the use of ideas or allusions already
in the public domain and prevent certain creators or innovators from defining
new products. At the local level, this can lead to paradoxical situations, as
when originators of musical or decorative themes find that their own “work”
has been protected by someone else, and that they now have to pay to use
it. Local governments would surely do well to conduct an inventory and take
steps themselves to protect intellectual resources in their territories.
• Formulate local creativity policies:
Culture and creativity districts are neither artificial nor automatic. But provided
one realises that such districts cannot be willed into existence, it is possible to
identify a number of factors that, if introduced into a territory, will help forge the required
links between culture and creativity:
- “Immersing” a territory’s populations and communities into both the
consumption and production of cultural goods;
- Developing cultural entrepreneurship, which can involve specific venues
and financial resources;
- Forge strong long-term partnerships between artistic and non-artistic sectors,
private enterprises and non-profit associations or enterprises, and so on.
CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005 13