Creators’ Income Situation in the Digital Age

Creators’ Income Situation in the Digital Age
Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The digital transformation imposes both opportunities and risks for creativity and for creative employment, with implications for trends in income levels and the distribution of income. First, we consider skill-biased technological change as a determinant of income and labor market outcomes in the arts. Arguably, the IT revolution has changed the demand for certain skills, with creative occupations being more in demand than general employment. Second, we consider declines in the costs of generating new works and artistic experimentation due to digital technologies, and their effect on the barriers to entry in labor markets. Third, we touch upon the rise of online contract labor in certain creative professions as a determinant of income. Here, online platforms can change creators’ access to work opportunities and it may alter the way income is distributed. We find that wage trends for creative workers in the digital age outperform general trends in the population: based on various data sources and various ways to identify creators, we see creators losing less or even gaining a better income position in relative terms. From a policy perspective, results do not lend support to the idea that creators’ income situation has systematically worsened with the rise of the internet and its intermediaries. Evidence on changing distributions of income is ambiguous as trends differ from one country to the next.

Creators' Income Situation in the Digital Age

Creators' Income Situation in the Digital Age
Author: Alexander Cuntz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre:
ISBN:

The digital transformation imposes both opportunities and risks for creativity and for creative employment, with implications for trends in income levels and the distribution of income. First, we consider skill-biased technological change as a determinant of income and labor market outcomes in the arts. Arguably, the IT revolution has changed the demand for certain skills, with creative occupations being more in demand than general employment. Second, we consider declines in the costs of generating new works and artistic experimentation due to digital technologies, and their effect on the barriers to entry in labor markets. Third, we touch upon the rise of online contract labor in certain creative professions as a determinant of income. Here, online platforms can change creators' access to work opportunities and it may alter the way income is distributed. We find that wage trends for creative workers in the digital age outperform general trends in the population: based on various data sources and various ways to identify creators, we see creators losing less or even gaining a better income position in relative terms. From a policy perspective, results do not lend support to the idea that creators' income situation has systematically worsened with the rise of the internet and its intermediaries. Evidence on changing distributions of income is ambiguous as trends differ from one country to the next.

Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age

Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age
Author: Bill Cope
Publisher: Common Ground
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2001
Genre: CD-ROM publishing
ISBN: 1863350470

Provides a snapshot of the Australian book production industry at the beginning of the new millennium. The work makes a three-fold case for the future of the book within a reinvigorated Australian book production industry: a business case, a technological case, and a cultural case.

From Paper to Platform: Publishing, Intellectual Property and the Digital Revolution.

From Paper to Platform: Publishing, Intellectual Property and the Digital Revolution.
Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9280533118

Supporting the development of a national book and reading culture through local professional writers and publishers requires an understanding of the way this sector of the creative economy works and how it is affected by the digital revolution. This publication is intended to help policymakers, particularly those in countries that are interested in promoting local publishing, to understand the publishing industry better and to understand how copyright and other policies affect the way books are being created, published and consumed.

Unpacking predictors of income and income satisfaction for artists

Unpacking predictors of income and income satisfaction for artists
Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 25
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The stereotype of the “starving artist” is pervasive in modern Western culture, but previous research on artists and income is mixed. The goal of this study is to explore how several demographic variables, along with self-reported behaviors and artistic activities associated with non-monetary and monetary motivators, predict income and income satisfaction for artists.Using unique survey data on current working artists in the United States, we provide empirical evidence on substantial reputational rewards and rewards from altruistic behaviors as important sources of artists’ utility and, arguably, sources of their motivation to create new works. Moreover, we find that the evidence on “procedural” utility from working in the arts is less straightforward, and we find that many artists are pooling and diversifying financial risks on household levels. Overall, quantitative findings indicate that artists may have different criteria and conceptualizations when it comes to income, and they may derive value from their work in a variety of ways aside from income.

The Economics of Copyright and the Internet: Moving to an Empirical Assessment Relevant in the Digital Era

The Economics of Copyright and the Internet: Moving to an Empirical Assessment Relevant in the Digital Era
Author: Sacha Wunsch-Vincent
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2013
Genre: Law
ISBN:

Technology and the Internet have triggered important changes to how creative works are created and accessed, and how creators and copyright-based industries generate their revenues. The authors reassess the economics of copyright in the light of these changes. After providing an introduction to the economics of copyright, they analyze the changes to the baseline copyright model triggered by the new technological landscape. Then, they assess the empirical economic work on copyright so far, and suggest future avenues of research and related data needs.

The Death of the Artist

The Death of the Artist
Author: William Deresiewicz
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1250125529

A deeply researched warning about how the digital economy threatens artists' lives and work—the music, writing, and visual art that sustain our souls and societies—from an award-winning essayist and critic There are two stories you hear about earning a living as an artist in the digital age. One comes from Silicon Valley. There's never been a better time to be an artist, it goes. If you've got a laptop, you've got a recording studio. If you've got an iPhone, you've got a movie camera. And if production is cheap, distribution is free: it's called the Internet. Everyone's an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there. The other comes from artists themselves. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who's going to pay you for it? Everyone is not an artist. Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support. If things don't change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable. So which account is true? Since people are still making a living as artists today, how are they managing to do it? William Deresiewicz, a leading critic of the arts and of contemporary culture, set out to answer those questions. Based on interviews with artists of all kinds, The Death of the Artist argues that we are in the midst of an epochal transformation. If artists were artisans in the Renaissance, bohemians in the nineteenth century, and professionals in the twentieth, a new paradigm is emerging in the digital age, one that is changing our fundamental ideas about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society.

WIPO Magazine, Issue 3/2019 (June)

WIPO Magazine, Issue 3/2019 (June)
Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2019-06-14
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The WIPO Magazine explores intellectual property, creativity and innovation in action across the world.

Copyright in the Digital Era

Copyright in the Digital Era
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2013-05-30
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0309278953

Over the course of several decades, copyright protection has been expanded and extended through legislative changes occasioned by national and international developments. The content and technology industries affected by copyright and its exceptions, and in some cases balancing the two, have become increasingly important as sources of economic growth, relatively high-paying jobs, and exports. Since the expansion of digital technology in the mid-1990s, they have undergone a technological revolution that has disrupted long-established modes of creating, distributing, and using works ranging from literature and news to film and music to scientific publications and computer software. In the United States and internationally, these disruptive changes have given rise to a strident debate over copyright's proper scope and terms and means of its enforcement-a debate between those who believe the digital revolution is progressively undermining the copyright protection essential to encourage the funding, creation, and distribution of new works and those who believe that enhancements to copyright are inhibiting technological innovation and free expression. Copyright in the Digital Era: Building Evidence for Policy examines a range of questions regarding copyright policy by using a variety of methods, such as case studies, international and sectoral comparisons, and experiments and surveys. This report is especially critical in light of digital age developments that may, for example, change the incentive calculus for various actors in the copyright system, impact the costs of voluntary copyright transactions, pose new enforcement challenges, and change the optimal balance between copyright protection and exceptions.

COVID-19 impact on artistic income

COVID-19 impact on artistic income
Author: Alexander Cuntz
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 23
Release:
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This paper assesses the impact of the pandemic crisis on self-employed income among artists resident in Germany. Using unique data from the latest available public insurance records, we show that musicians and performing artists are among the most vulnerable groups, and that writers, on average, are relatively less impacted. Moreover, the paper looks at the impact of the 2020 crisis on income differences by gender, career stages and regions, and it investigates the effect of specific non-pharmaceutical, public intervention implemented in German states.