Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option

NO DERIVATIVE WORKSAllows others to copy, distribute, display and performonly verbatim copies of the work — but not make derivativeworks based on it. If they want to alter, transform, buildupon or remix the work, they must contact the creator forpermission.For educators, this legal infrastructure gives flexibilityto the creator, protects users and makes collaboration easier,since they don’t have to worry about copyright infringementas long as they abide by the terms of use. For learners, openlylicensed materials provide access to a wealth of knowledgeand opportunities to learn in new ways. CCLearn, the educationdivision of Creative Commons, works to reduce oreliminate the legal, technical and social barriers to thegrowth of educational materials, generally referred to asopen educational resources (OER). The impact of OER forintellectual exchange among faculty, improved educationalaccess for students and opportunities for collaboration isalready significant. For example, the OpenCourseWareConsortium consists of over 150 member institutions allover the world. Similarly, regional initiatives like the SouthAfrican Siyavula Project are transforming the educationallandscape at a local level. According to the Siyavula website,“Open licences enhance innovation and lighten the load onindividual teachers and result in localised, content–specificmaterials that are immediately useful to teachers.” The OpenDatabase of Education Projects and Organizations has apartial list of projects and organizations involved with OER.This database is one of several community-engaged projectsresident on the global open education community site, calledOpenEd, hosted by CCLearn. The open education movement,like the use of CC licensing in many different domainsand industries, is only just beginning.The architecture of the Internet has flattened theinformation landscape and opened opportunities for innovationby anyone with access, especially in the developingworld and in emerging markets. CC licences ensure that thesenew opportunities built on the open web enable broad, internationalparticipation without risk of legal complications,but allow creators to retain fundamental rights to their ownwork. Creative Commons has recently enabled new toolsspecifically geared to making the most of the Internet withoutcompromising copyright including:■■■■Search by Creative Commons: A search website installed as adefault directory on the Firefox browser that allows visitorsto search for content that can be used for commercialpurposes and that can be modified, adapted and builtupon. Visit http://search.creativecommons.org.Blip.tv: A database of user-generated video content with afocus on content creators making “shows” or “serializedcontent”. Blip.tv currently distributes 2.4 million episodesproduced by more than 48,000 independently produced webshows to audiences of 22 million people. Visit http://blip.tv.Owl Music Search: Owl allows users to search for music byuploading sound files and searching the database for songsthat are similar. Owl has indexed more than 98,980 songsfrom commercial and independent song catalogues. Visitwww.owlmusicsearch.com.SpinXpress: A community site that encourages users tocollaborate by sharing video and other large files. Visithttp://spinxpress.com.6The role of intellectual property in the creative economy6.6 Contribution of the creative industries to the economyA keen interest in measuring the contribution of thecreative industries to national economies has been fuelled inrecent years by the identification of creativity as a potentialdriver in the creative economy. Many studies were undertakento evaluate and compare size, performance and competitivenessof the creative industries as well as to monitor trendsand provide policy options based on solid quantifiable evidence.These studies were based on a variety of approaches,motivated by equally diverse policy objectives: social, economicor cultural. Difficulties emerged along the way, especiallywith regard to the capture of the non-economic returnsof creativity. Clearly, a more transparent link to statisticalreporting was needed to identify the multiple effects producedby the creative sector on society.Developed by WIPO and a team of internationalexperts in 2003, the WIPO Guide on Surveying the EconomicContribution of the Copyright-Based Industries outlined a methodologyin economic terms. It provided the basis for undertakinga comparative analysis of the size of the creative sectorin various countries that is built on reliable data and com-CREATIVE ECONOMY REPORT 2010179