Ruth Towse

Bournemouth University | BU · Department of Law

The intervention of digital service providers (DSPs) or platforms, such as Spotify Apple Music and Tidal, that supply streamed music has fundamentally altered the operation of copyright management organisations (CMOs) and the way song-writers and recording artists are paid. Platform economics has emerged from the economic analysis of two- and multi...

http://www.copyrightuser.org/create/creative-process/going-for-a-song/

Digitization and the Internet have affected the arts, heritage organizations and cultural industries along with other information services. Digital information and communication technologies (ICT) have altered the consumption of and participation in a range of creative goods and services, including the live performing arts, recorded music, film and...

The chapter investigates the role of copyright in the economic development of music publishing in the UK from a historical perspective. Peacock and Weir’s 1975 book, The Composer in the Market Place has been a strong influence on the research on the economic survival of music publishing over its long existence. There is little economic literature s...

The paper argues that the paradigmatic shift from the sale of printed music to exploiting and managing musical rights that took place in music publishing during the early years of the twentieth century was due to the changing market rather than to changes in copyright law. On the one hand, copyright law was ineffectual in controlling piracy through...

Cultural economics has been fortunate in attracting eminent economists to contribute to it and none has made so comprehensive a contribution as Professor Sir Alan Peacock. The contributors to this book, many of whom are the current intellectual leaders of our field, honour Peacock’s legacy not directly in encomia, several of which have been publish...

This Working paper reports on discussions at three CREATe-sponsored events in which economists working in the areas of culture, media and industrial organization were invited to exchange views on the transformative impact of digitization and the internet on the creative economy and to reflect on the future of cultural production and the implication...

This book reassesses central topics in cultural economics: Public finance and public choice theory as the basis for decision-making in cultural and media policy, the role of welfare economics in cultural policy, the economics of creative industries, the application of empirical testing to the performing arts and the economics of cultural heritage....

The paper analyses the development of Alan Peacock’s theoretical and empirical work in cultural economic, based on a unique close combination of theory and practice. Starting with his early work on performing arts, the paper examines his contributions on performing rights, broadcasting and heritage.

The paper argues that the paradigmatic shift from the sale of printed music to exploiting and managing musical rights that took place in music publishing during the early years of the 20th century was due to the changing market rather than to changes in copyright law. On the one hand, copyright law was ineffectual in controlling piracy throughout t...

p>Literature reviews serve two basic functions: they provide information to non-specialists on work that has been done and they signal to specialists where the gaps are in knowledge of a particular topic. They are standard academic practice in many disciplines[1] and the conventions surrounding them are widely understood by academics but may not be...

The requirement by the UK government for evidence-based policy has recently been applied to copyright law in the context of I. Hargreaves's report, Digital Opportunity: Review of Intellectual Property and Growth (Newport, Intellectual Property Office, 2011). In this article, I focus on data that have been used to make the case for copyright with go...

The Symposium ‘What constitutes evidence for copyright policy?’ was part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2012. It was organised by Professors Ruth Towse and Martin Kretschmer as a cooperative initiative between the Centre for IP Policy and Management at Bournemouth University (CIPPM) and CREATe (the RCUK Copyright Centre at the University of...

Copyright collecting societies have attracted economists’ attention for over 30 years and the attention of government regulators for even longer. They have typically been accepted by economists and by courts of law as necessary for reducing transaction costs and enabling copyright to work. The advent of digitization has led to renewed interest in t...

There are many gaps between what economists know and what they don’t know. This article reviews this situation in the light of what policy-makers say they want to know about the economic effects of copyright. The article sets out what I see as misunderstandings on the part of policy-makers as to what economics can offer in the way of evidence on co...

'Ruth Towse is to be congratulated on assembling such a high quality range of writers on cultural economics and on orchestrating their contributions so expertly. From anthropology and auctions through copyright and superstars to visual arts and welfare economics, scholars and general readers alike will discover in this Handbook an absorbing compend...

'A Handbook of Cultural Economics is the definitive guide to cultural economics. Short, accessible articles by leading scholars in the field quickly bring the reader up to speed and point them in the right direction for future research. The new edition brings the field to the cutting edge and is a must have for anyone interested in economics and th...

The starting point of this article is the paradigm shift in cultural policy from the arts to the broader view of the creative industries that has taken place in many countries, in the European Union and in UN agencies. The emphasis on creative industries as a source of economic growth has highlighted the role of creativity and of copyright as an in...

What determines the price of a pop concert or an opera? Why does Hollywood dominate the film industry? Does illegal downloading damage the record industry? Does free entry to museums bring in more visitors? In A Textbook of Cultural Economics, one of the world’s leading cultural economists shows how we can use the theories and methods of economics...

Economists have long recognised that copyright collecting societies (CCS), i.e. organisations that specialise on administering "copyrights held by a large number of owners", play a fundamental role in the copyright system. Indeed, the economic literature explains why without such organisations, copyright law would be ineffective in some markets for...

This article is a survey of publications by economists writing on copyright law. It begins with a general overview of how economists analyse these questions; the distinction is made between the economics of copying and the economic aspects of copyright law as analysed in law and economics. It then continues with sections on research on the effects...

Many of the concerns expressed here were brought up in WIPO meetings in which I took part. Excellent work has been done on the preparation of the WIPO Handbook and by the various researchers in the classification of data and of solving measurement problems. They are a testimony to the power of rigorous economic thinking and professionalism.

This paper argues that the emphasis by policy-makers on creativity and economic growth in the creative industries, fostered by copyright law, is not well grounded and cultural economics gives little support for these policies.

My stance is that copyright policy should be viewed as part of cultural policy; cultural economists have had a great deal to say about subsidy and cultural policy but very little about copyright, though cultural economics is well placed to analyse copyright as an incentive to creativity in the creative industries because of its understanding of cul...

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Internet on media and mediated content industries. It explores and discusses the changes this emergent communications platform is engendering for the media and content industries and the implications of those changes. Its contents are drawn from the findings of a five-year EU sponsored...

Based on themes emerging from his popular 'conversations with economists' (1983), Arjo Klamer once again distinguishes himself from other academic economists by writing about the profession- and its foibles- in plain English. How is it that a discipline that so permeates daily life it at once 'soft' and scientific, powerful and ignored, noble and d...

Over the last century, performers gradually acquired statutory protection of their economic and moral rights. These rights are not copyright in the legal sense but neighboring rights and until recently, they were mainly remuneration rights that are collectively administered. With the WPPT (WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty), performers now have...

It is argued that human capital theory applies only weakly to artists' decisions about investment in schooling and training and about occupational choice. However, the same can be said about the sorting model. What is lacking in cultural economics is an understanding of talent and creativity, what economic factors motivate artists and how creativit...

For centuries, it was necessary for performers to be present in “real time” to supply their services, such as music, dance, or drama. Labor time and human skill and capital were inextricably related. “Reproducibility”—the ability to make copies of human services that are adequate substitutes for “live” performance—has meant performers need not be p...

Most of the standard economic literature on copyright ignores a number of aspects that have considerable significance for cultural production and for artists, the primary creators of copyright works, the supply of which copyright is supposed to stimulate. Specifically, there is little mention in that literature of moral rights, no distinction is ma...

Inaugural lecture for the personal Chair in Economics of Creative Industries, Faculty of History and Arts

Professor Sir Alan Peacock has worked in cultural economics for over 35 years and he pioneered much of what is now the core subject matter of the field. This paper traces the development of his theoretical work on the economics of the arts, heritage and broadcasting, and shows how it interacted with his role as adviser to and chairman of several pr...

Economists are frequently involved in quantitative research (ex ante and ex post) on policy changes and it should be possible to apply this competence to copyright reform. However, aspects of the EU Directive, such as technological protection measures and digital rights management, present severe challenges to empirical economic evaluation.

This innovative and insightful book, written by some of the leading academics in the field, advances research frontiers on intellectual property and copyright issues. Topics addressed include: peer-to-peer music file sharing, optimal fair use standards, the benefits of copyright collectives, copyright and market entry, alternatives to copyright, th...

Copyright, which was initially introduced for the encouragement of authors of literary and artistic works, is not able to offer artists sufficient economic incentive to create. Royalty payments to all but the top artists are typically small and firms in the creative industries are typically large, making for a very unequal bargaining situation. Alr...

The proposed development of a major new mineral resource in a country such as Canada involves a lengthy and complex process of environmental impact assessment (EIA), taking into account the interests of both developers and local communities. In this article the process of EIA is illustrated with a case study based on a proposed mine and mill develo...

This paper contributes to the economic analysis of copyright in three ways: first, it draws a distinction between the general purpose of copyright law and the administration of the royalty system of payment for the use of copyrighted material; this leads to the principal-agent analysis of modes of payment. Secondly, this approach is applied to a sp...

New and extended rights for performers have been introduced into UK copyright law as a result of EC Directives. It is widely supposed that they will make performers better off. In this article we attempt to test that assumption by analysing these changes with the focus on the music industry. We discuss the role of collecting societies in implementi...

It am grateful to David Throsby for reminding me (us) of the chapter in Baumol and Bowen on the individual artist. It has certainly survived the passage of time all too depressingly well, since every problem mentioned in it still exists. It there and then raised all the main issues about artists' earnings. The last 30 years have seen a slow-but-sur...

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the data from recent surveys of artists of various kinds in the UK - performing and creative artists and craftspeople - and to analyse the way that artists' labour markets work. Topics covered include a discussion of the problems of defining artists, the supply behaviour of artists' earnings and training is...

Economists learned long ago from Lionel Robbins’The Nature and Significance of Economic Science(1932) that the setting of policy objectives does not lie in the domain of economics; economists have no more right than other citizens to say what policy objectives should be. Where economists come into their own is in analysing the means to achieve any...

This paper is based on my study of the singing profession in Britain, which deals with classically trained singers. As far as I know, this is the only study of the market for singers, though singers’ earnings have been separately identified in studies by Throsby (1986) and Santos (1976). The earnings of artists of all types have been the subject of...

Cultural economics as a field of research involves two areas, culture and economy. These two areas have been traditionally regarded as each other's antithesis. However, the economic aspects of culture have increasingly become a matter of everyday reality for persons working in the cultural field. The economy of culture has always been in the focus...

The paper surveys the economic literature on copyright law, relating it to artists' labour markets and considers its intended and unintended effects in the cultural industries, where copyright has an important impact on the relation between creative and performing artists and the firms who produce and distribute cultural content. The paper consider...

The paper considers recent policy changes to the copyright law and its management, particularly digital rights management, and asks how they can be evaluated. Copyright law is perhaps the most important policy tool affecting the cultural industries and it provides the regulatory environment in which all enterprises in the music, film, book publishi...