Creators’ Organizations
– Dr Smita Kheria
– Ms Nevena Kostova
Summary
Creators’ organisations perform a myriad of functions (representative, advisory, educational, etc.), which significantly shape the framework within which creators operate in practical as well as legal terms. One of the objectives of these organisations is to ensure that copyright is an economic asset not just for the content exploiters but also for the original creators. In recent years, copyright law itself has been undergoing numerous changes in an attempt to address some of the challenges which have emerged with the shift from analogue to digital content creation, dissemination and consumption. Many of these changes are still at the stage of implementation and several issues pertaining to new business models in the creative industries have yet to be addressed. It is therefore a particularly important time to focus on the role that creators’ organisations play in furthering the interests of creators in this changing landscape and on the various challenges that these organisations may face.
The aim of this project was to explore the role that creators’ organisations play in the way copyright law is operationalised and exploited within existing and emerging business models; and, specifically examine how creators’ organisations represent creators, how they extract value for creators in the way copyright law is interpreted and applied, what challenges they encounter in the process and what steps they take.
Doctoral research
Ms Kostova, carried out her doctoral research, as part of the project, between 2013 – 2017. The objectives of her doctoral research were to study creators’ organisations (COs) as participants and shapers of copyright policy: to understand how these actors behave, what environment they operate in and what effects this environment and organisations’ workings produce on the nature and substance of copyright law and policy. The research comprised a socio-legal study of the Musicians’ Union (MU), the Performing Right Society (PRS), the Society of Authors (SoA), and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS): one trade union and one collective management organisation (CMO) from the music and publishing industries respectively. The analysis was carried out on a combination of primary data generated through 24 semi-structured interviews with CO operatives and documentary data. The latter included consultation responses, policy briefings, reports, online news publications, IP reviews, academic studies, and other literature. The analysis was structured around the policy work of the four studied COs on three copyright issues of contemporary relevance: the contractual terms for authors and performers, the UK private copying exception, and the implementation of the EU Collective Rights Management Directive.
Outputs
- Briefing paper outlining the objectives and key findings of the doctoral research, along with a set of recommendations for creators’ organisations
- Video resource on the doctoral research conducted for Creators’ Organisations research project
- N Kostova, Creators’ Organisations as Actors in Copyright Policy: Mapping the complexity of stakeholder behaviour, dynamics and differences (PhD thesis, The University of Edinburgh 2017)
- N Kostova, ‘UK developments in private copying: A case study of organisational stakeholders and their impact on copyright law and policy’ (forthcoming) (2018) Intellectual Property Quarterly
- ‘Opportunities and Challenges for Authors in a Dynamic Publishing Industry’ Presentation for CopyCamp, Warsaw, 28-29 September 2017
- ‘Effects of new business models on creators and challenges associated with creators’ capacity to influence copyright policy’s response to new developments’ Presentation for the MAPPING Conference on the Future of IPR, Sofia: 1-2 June 2017
- ‘Stakeholder Dynamics and the Illegality of Private Copying: A story of an undesired, yet tolerated outcome’ Presentation for the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Conference, Newcastle, 4-7 April 2017
- ‘All that glitters is not gold, all that flickers is not good’ Conference Blog, Post for the Edinburgh Law Postgraduate Conference 2016, Edinburgh, January 2016
- Contributions to the Copyright and Creators Blog