۱- Shaking off the dependence on IP

۲- Link between copyright and creative industries

۳- Innovation without IP: Private collectives

۴- Research method: Locating creative firms

۵- Findings: Characterizing business models

۶- Discussion: PCI in creative firms

۷- Final summary

References

Abstract

Accounts of the copyright industries in national reports suggest that strong intellectual property (IP) rights support creative firms. However, mounting evidence from sectors such as video game production and 3-D printing indicate that business models based on open IP can also be profitable. This study investigates the relationship between IP protection and value capture for creative industry firms engaged in collective/open innovation activities. A sample of 22 businesses interviewed in this study did not require exclusive ownership of creative materials but instead employed a range of strategies to compete and capture value. Benefits for some firms resemble those for participants in private-collective innovation (PCI), originally observed in open-source software development. Advantages of PCI include the ability to commercialize user improvements and a reduction in transaction costs related to seeking and obtaining permission to innovate existing ideas. Some creative firms in this study were able to generate and capture value from PCI in two directions: upstream and downstream. These dynamics offer a mechanism to understand and articulate the value of openness for creative industries policy and management of creative organizations.

Shaking off the dependence on IP

Widespread practices of sharing and follow-on innovation have introduced new management concerns for creative firms (Bechtold, Buccafusco, & Springman, 2016; Boudreau & Lakhani, 2015). As creative firms seek to engage audiences by making it possible to digitally reshape and share content, they risk losing control over intellectual property (IP) assets they own (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013). An unanswered question in creative industries management research relates to the strategic conditions under which firms should adopt open approaches to developing and marketing products. Mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that however beneficial the exclusive rights provided by intellectual property law, certain firms have found it possible to limit reliance on protections such as copyright, raising the question of how such creativity is sustained (Boyle, 2003). Examples of openness include Microsoft’s fan license for video games, which permits derivative reuse of video game content by its users, and the open hardware-licensed Prusa i3 consumer 3-D printer that innovates upon the collective RepRap hardware project and is fully openly licensed, including for use by commercial competitors. Since the protection offered by copyright is considered necessary for subsequent investment–—being directly implied in the policy definition of copyright industries–—the ability to sustainably generate and capture value from public domain inputs is a puzzling feature ofthe digital economy (Alexy & Reitzig, 2013; Raasch & Herstatt, 2011). Examples of public domain inputs include the works of Shakespeare, books published by Charles Darwin, and folk songs with origins that predate the modern copyright framework. Anyone may use and distribute expressions residing in the public domain, including competing firms.