Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option

In 2006, WIPO published National Studies on Assessing theEconomic Contribution of the Copyright-Based Industries, which presentedthe results of the first national studies carried out onthe basis of the methodology in the WIPO guide onSurveying the Economic Contribution of the Copyright-Based Industries.Interest in continuing this research has grown, and to datemore than 24 surveys have been carried out. The practicalexperience derived from using the guide is employed toadjust its application to specific country situations. It alsoopens the door for policy interventions by providing robustdata that are comparable across countries and sectors.Chart 6.27.5%Contribution of groups of copyright-based industriesto total of creative industries16.9%22.2%53.3%CorePartialInterdependentNon-dedicated66.7 Copyright, the creative industries and traditionalcultural expressionsTraditional music, designs, performances, symbols andother creative expressions of traditional cultures communicatebeliefs and values, embody skills and know-how, reflectthe history of a community and define its cultural identity.These traditional cultural expressions are valuable culturalassets of the indigenous and local communities who maintain,practice and develop them. Traditional cultural expressionscan also be economic assets: they are creations andinnovations that can, if so desired, be traded or licensed forincome generation and economic development. They mayalso serve as an inspiration to other creators and innovators,who can adapt the traditional expressions and derive newcreations and innovations from them. Traditional culturalexpressions and other elements of intangible cultural heritageis therefore a mainspring of creativity as they are in apermanent cumulative process of adaptation and re-creation.Cultural products deeply rooted in the heritage ofdeveloping countries have often crossed borders and establishedsignificant market niches in industrialized countriesbut unfortunately they rarely benefit the countries of originadequately. Developing countries should respond by leveragingtheir rich cultural heritage and creating and trading innew, distinctive and locally rooted cultural goods and services.Developing countries should put in place strategies andact to encourage and reward creativity by their own nationals,drawing from their traditional cultures and heritage.Traditional cultural expressions are also cultural assets.However, cultural heritage is not only there to be leveragedas an economic resource. In this socially, culturally and technologicallyconnected world, it is increasingly recognizedthat culture is not a mere commodity and that heritage assuch is worthy of safeguarding and protecting. Intellectualproperty tools can help prevent misappropriation and misuseof creativity, including traditional creativity. The relationshipbetween intellectual property and traditional cultural expressions,and the cognate area of “traditional knowledge”, raisescomplex legal, cultural, political and conceptual issues. 14The conventional intellectual property system hasbeen identified by some as not only inadequate to comprehensivelyand appropriately protect traditional culturalexpressions but also as positively harmful in at least twodirections. First, intellectual property rules exclude many traditionalcultural expressions from protection, consigningthem to an unprotected “public domain”. Second, follow-oninnovations and creations derived from traditional culturalexpressions receive protection as “new” intellectual property,giving the holders of the IPRs the exclusive right to determinethe conditions under which third parties (including thetraditional cultural expression-holding communities themselves)may use and benefit from the intellectual property. Asa result, many call for new, sui generis (“special”) systems toprotect traditional cultural expressions, and several countrieshave already put in place national sui generis laws and measures,such as Ghana, New Zealand, Panama and Peru.The role of intellectual property in the creative economy14 See, generally, WIPO, “Consolidated Analysis of the Legal Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions/Expressions of Folklore”, WIPO Publication No. 785.CREATIVE ECONOMY REPORT 2010181