Creative industries, organised networks and open economies

The creative industries model initiated by the Blair government\u27s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (1998/2001) has rapidly become adopted across much of the world. Despite the recognition in much academic literature and popular media that culture is substantially shaped by local and national forces, it is surprising that there is so little variation in policy reports on the creative industries put out by countries or quasi-city-states as different as the Netherlands, Austria, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, USA, Australia and the UK. While demographic, urban, and infrastructural capacities typically feature in these policy reports (and thus function to distinguish one country from another), the reports nonetheless reproduce the creative industries founding definition set out by DCMS: namely, creative industries involve \u27the generation and exploitation of intellectual property\u27. In attributing a universal license of proprietary control to what are otherwise cultural and economic systems with considerable variation, international creative economies are reduced to a production system enframed within a juridical-based economy. It is this fundamental principle of the creative industries that sets the model up for inevitable failure within network societies and information economies. The fact of the matter is that very little new intellectual property is created. Instead, sectors within the creative industries generate income through the provision of services. A number of issues arise out of service economies and prevailing models of information economies more broadly. The precarious condition of labour for the majority working in the creative industries is a nasty feature that policy makers, investors and businesses continue to ignore. Against the creative industries model of ‘cluster’ development, this presentation sets out the concept of \u27organised networks\u27. Following this, the paper is interested in surveying a range of business models for information economies. This will include revisiting the dot.com period for the purpose of seeing whether anything constructive or useful can be salvaged from that period of spectacular failure. The open source software movements and their attendant service and \u27gift\u27 economies will also be investigated as possible options for a more sustainable creative economy