metadata: authors: 0: author: Kabanda,Patrick
count: World
docna: 0: docna: Creative natives in the digital age : how
            digital technology has revolutionized creative work
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Education Information &
            Communications Technologies,Educational Sciences,Educational Institutions & Facilities,Gender and Development,Educational Informatics,Education and Digital Divide,Training for ICT,Inequality,Armed Conflict
teratopic: Education,Information and Communication Technologies
abstracts: cdata!: Digital technologies have permeated
            modern life, and their impact on creative work has been
            revolutionary. This revolution, as widely noted, has
            disrupted the making, distribution, and consumption of
            creative output. On the downside, key concerns include
            Internet-induced piracy and inequality. Yet digital
            technologies also accelerate opportunities. So, how can
            these opportunities be reaped to promote creative work for
            development? Suggestions here include closing the digital
            gender gap, promoting appropriate intellectual property
            rights, and providing digital literacy. More needs to be
            done to understand the benefits and limitations of digital
            technologies on creative work for human development.
repnme: repnme: Creative natives in the digital age : how
            digital technology has revolutionized creative work
display_title: Creative natives in the digital age
            : how digital technology has revolutionized creative work
listing_relative_url: /research/2016/05/26401884/creative-natives-digital-age-digital-technology-revolutionized-creative-work
topicv3: Inequality under Law m1326002 925,ICT Literacy m1326546 1536,Education m1327048 470,Gender m1327621 615,Revolutionary Violence m1327774 2465
publishtoextweb_dt: 2016-05-24T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Education,Information and Communication Technologies
no_of_pages: 26
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1302257
model_extractions: WPS7683 Policy Research Working Paper 7683 Creative Natives in the Digital Age How Digital Technology Has Revolutionized Creative Work _Patrick Kabanda_ Development Economics Vice Presidency Operations and Strategy Team May 2016
Policy Research Working Paper 7683

# **Abstract**

Digital technologies have permeated modern life, and their impact on creative work has been revolutionary. This revolution, as widely noted, has disrupted the making, distribution, and consumption of creative output. On the downside, key concerns include Internet-induced piracy and inequality. Yet digital technologies also accelerate opportunities. So, how can these opportunities be reaped to promote creative work for development? Suggestions here include closing the digital gender gap, promoting appropriate intellectual property rights, and providing digital literacy. More needs to be done to understand the benefits and limitations of digital technologies on creative work for human development.

This paper is a product of the Operations and Strategy Team, Development Economics Vice Presidency. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The author may be contacted at pkabanda@musikaba.net.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
Creative Natives in the Digital Age* How Digital Technology Has Revolutionized Creative Work Patrick Kabanda Key words: Creative Work, Cultural Policy, Digital Technologies, Economic Diversification, Human Development, Digital Divide, Digital Literacy, Gender Divide, Intellectual Property, Technological Change JEL Codes: I25, J16, J24, O1, O2, O3, 019, K00, Z1, Z11, Z18, Z19 Original Research for this paper has been commissioned by the United Nations Human Development Report Office for the _Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development_ _____________________

* The author wishes to thank the United Nations Human Development Report Office for permission to publish this paper and to the following individuals for their comments and discussions: Amartya Sen, Selim Jahan, Shantanu Mukherjee, Astra Bonini, David Rosenblatt, Edward Mountfield; Sandra Gain for help with editing; and Mamaye Gebretsadik, Fe Juarez, Sasa Lucic, Sarantuya Mend and Chie Ri for their administrative assistance; and to Roula I. Yazigi for production assistance.

Patrick Kabanda is a consultant for the Office of the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank. He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University and his Bachelor and Masters of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. <mark>He is currently writing a book based on his working paper called</mark> _<u><mark>The Creative Wealth of Nations</mark></u>_ <mark>(with a Foreword by Amartya Sen). T</mark> he author welcomes your feedback. Contact: pkabanda@musikaba.net; www.musikaba.net.
# **Introduction**

## _<mark>What is digital technology?</mark>_

<mark>“The term Digital Technologies is used to describe the use of digital resources to effectively find, [analyze], create, communicate, and use information in a digital context. This encompasses the use of web 2.0 tools, digital media tools, programming tools and software applications.”</mark><sup>1</sup> In recent years, digital technologies have penetrated virtually all facets of modern life, and even creative work has not been spared. Historically, technology has often been associated with mechanization or industrialization. While this advancement improved productivity, some have long feared that technological expansion would cost people their jobs and even diminish artistic output. “When small hand tools first grew into big machines over 150 years ago in England, the workers of that day showed their hatred of the new monsters by fighting them,” writes William F. Ogburn. “They threw stones at the factory windows and broke the machines inside.”<sup>2</sup> “That was 150 years ago,” he adds, “but the same sort of thing happens nowadays.” With respect to creative work, for example, just “a few years ago the talking pictures took away the jobs of 10,000 American musicians. They didn’t throw stones at the movie palaces; perhaps that is part of the Progress of the Century. But they did print advertisements in newspapers, protesting against ‘canned music’ and urging people to demand that theaters keep their orchestras.”<sup>3</sup> In today’s setting such tension still exists.<sup>4</sup> Nonetheless, while digital technology can disrupt the field of creative work it can also expand it.

The functional changes of technology have generally enhanced people’s lives. For this the eighteenth-century moral philosopher Adam Smith predicted. “In reading The Wealth of <u>Nations,” as Wassily Leontief observes, “one is struck by concrete descriptions of the</u> ongoing technological change and theoretical emphasis on the role it was bound to play in economic growth and the concomitant rise of private and public welfare.”<sup>5</sup> In the creative

> 1 “Digital Technologies,” New Zealand Commerce and Economics Teacher's Association Inc., accessed March 17, 2015, <u>http://www.nzceta.co.nz/pages/digital_technologies.htm.</u>

> 2 William F. Ogburn, _You and Machines_ (Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1934), 5, accessed March 17, 2015, <u>http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063056744;view=2up;seq=14;size=150.</u> 3 Ibid.

> 4 Ryan Avent, “IT Was Fun While IT Lasted,” _Economist_ , July 7, 2014, accessed March 17, 2015, <u>http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/07/productivity.</u>

> 5 Wassily Leontief, “The Present State of Economic Science” in _Adam Smith's Legacy: His Place in the Development of Modern Economics,_ ed. Michael Fry (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 141.

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<!-- Start of picture text --> Bootes } cosHuman feealse, aa)Bad \ ~ Global DysfunctionExtremism and<br>a } mye PassionHuman ‘ ,, (sss{True one), Good\_ Sustainable ProsperityGlobal Stability and<br><!-- End of picture text -->
Consider the issue of inequality. “Technology (skill-based technological change),” as Joseph E. Stiglitz writes, “may be central to certain aspects of our current inequality problem, especially to the polarization of the labor market.”<sup>8</sup> Even more striking, the gender gap in many countries still persists under the so-called ‘Digital Divide.’<sup>9</sup> In this divide, “the difference is not necessarily determined by the access to the Internet, but by access to ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) and to Media that the different segments of society can use.”<sup>10</sup> The digital divide moreover extends to the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, including those who are active in creative work. Ultimately, the concern here may not be the Internet functionality per se—although that also deserves scrutiny. The worry is that as more and more things get done online, those who are less connected (or not connected at all) are left behind.

This has development implications. In our context, if women and girls in the developing world have less Internet access, this is likely to diminish their creative agency in the digital space. See Table 1 on selected countries across regions on women’s connectivity in <u>Women and the Web — this report is the first of its kind to compile data on “how women</u> in developing countries access and use the Internet.”<sup>11</sup>

> 8 Joseph E. Stiglitz, _The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future_ (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013), 100. See also Patrick Kabanda, “Music for Development in the Digital age,” March 2016, accessed May 9, 2016. <u>http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/pubdocs/publicdoc/2016/3/923101459255847647/WDR16-BP-Music-forDevelopment-Kabanda.pdf.</u>

> 9 “The Digital Divide, or the digital split, is a social issue referring to the differing amount of information between those who have access to the Internet ([especially] broadband access) and those who do not have access. The term became popular among concerned parties, such as scholars, policy makers, and advocacy groups, in the late 1990s.” — “The Digital Divide, ICT and the 50x15 Initiative,” Internet World Stats, accessed March 19, 2015, <u>http://www.internetworldstats.com/links10.htm.</u> 10 Ibid.

> 11  Shelly Esque, Foreword in “Women and the Web: Bridging the Internet Gap and Creating New Global Opportunities in Low and Middle-Income Countries,” Intel Corporation and Dalberg Global Development Advisors, accessed March 19, 2015, http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/technology-in- <u>education/women-in-the-web.html.</u>

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<!-- Start of picture text --> East Asia & South Sub-Saharan Europe & Latin America Middle East &<br>Pacific Asia Africa Central Asia & the North Africa<br>Caribbean<br>Women’s and girls’ ioe<br>Internet access leve!<br>Men's and boys’<br>Mereraeesies | 37 | om | ome | am | aoe om<br>|Gendergap(weisnes)| 20% | 33% | ame |e | tom |<br>Globa! gender gap<br>(144 developing<br>countries)<br><!-- End of picture text -->
<!-- Start of picture text --> Internet Users in the World<br>3,000,000,000 Ml Internet Users<br>2,250,000,000<br>1,500,000,000<br>750,000,000<br>0<br>1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013<br>1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014<br>Year (as of July 1)<br><!-- End of picture text -->
# **II. What are the positive and negative sides of the effects of digital technology on creative work (e.g., with nooks and kindles, one can read books quite easily, but the feel of pages, the smell of books are gone)?**

The list of the positive and negative effects of digital technology on creative work is extensive. This section starts by looking at the positive side in the book world.

_The Positive Effects of Digital Technology on Creative Work: Books and Beyond_ While the smell and tactile feel of book pages is lost in e-pages, the benefits of e-books like Nooks and Kindles are significant: they are easy to carry; they have a digital shelf; the content is easy to search and share; they offer a highly “customizable reading experience;” and they are readable across devices. For self-published authors, moreover, the cost of production and entry to the market is low, not to mention the affordable marketing and worldwide distribution.<sup>19</sup> And people are getting resourceful with this innovation. Consider Bookarma (book-karma) “a highly social pay-it-forward platform that allows [authors] to break through the boundaries of [their] own social network to reach new readers. Authors discover and share each [other’s] books and earn karma every time they share.”<sup>20</sup> The benefits go on and on — it could even be argued that e-books are greener than ‘p-books.’ In addition to the business side of things, as discussed earlier, digital technology can accelerate the process of creative work itself. In music, for example, software like _Sibelius_ and _Finale_ facilitate the notation of music; and digital video and audio recordings can aid performances and arts education with dazzling efficiency. In photography, the digital world has unleashed all sorts of creative possibilities. In architecture, “Whether the project is source of reflection,” as Rosalba Beliban and Anna Gadola’s conclude, “the computer is the place where the reflection finds new phases of feedback and new suggestions to the creative imaginary. There are several different ways to create architecture with the computer.”<sup>21</sup> These examples march on and on. Next, is a look at how one website is advancing African poetry in the digital age.

> 19 Chris Robley, “Ebook Vs. Print Book ...,” _Bookarma_ (blog), August 8, 2014, accessed March 30, 2015, <u>http://bookarma.net/blog/ebook-vs-print-book/.</u> 20 Bookarma, “Connecting Authors with New Audiences,” accessed March 30, 2015, <u>http://bookarma.net/.</u>

> 21 Rosalba and Anna Gadola Belibani, “On Digital Architecture,” Vienna University of Technology, accessed March 30, 2015, <u>http://info.tuwien.ac.at/ecaade/proc/belibani/belibani.htm.</u>

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# **Case Study: The Badilisha Poetry X-Change: African Poetry in the Digital Age**

_Now the largest online collective of African poets on the planet, Badilisha has showcased and archived over 350 Pan-African poets from 24 different countries. It reflects the myriad of rhythms and rhymes, voices, perspectives and aspirations from all corners of the globe._<sup>_22_</sup>

## _—_ Badilisha Poetry X-Change

_How Digital Technology is Advancing African Poetry_ Here is a startling statistic: of all the books published in the world, those by African authors comprise a measly two percent.<sup>23</sup> The reasons for this are many. They range from the tradition of passing on ideas orally to such structural issues as production and marketing, challenges also common for writers in other parts of the world. The concern here, however, is that many African literary works are at a startling disadvantage. Yet Africa is loaded with rich traditions like storytelling, languages, and poetry.

In an attempt to change this scenario — and at least advance African poetry — the Badilisha Poetry X-Change has capitalized on the power of digital technology. It launched the first-ever online catalog of African poetry that can be accessible from simple, feature phones to smartphones. The aim is to keep the flame of African creative work in poetry alive in the digital age.

# _History_

Badilisha (which means _change_ in Swahili) was initiated in 2008. It started as an annual international poetry festival to feature poets within Africa and beyond. And it also provided ventures that ranged from poetry seminars to training programs. In 2012, it “evolved into an audio archive and radio show” with the aim of addressing two key issues: “the absence of any readily accessible archive of Pan-African poets and the need for a new stage in which Pan-African poetry could reach a global audience.” Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Badilisha is funded by the South African National Lottery, the National Arts Council of South Africa, and Spier 1692 (— the last is among the oldest farm wines in South Africa). It is a project of the Africa Centre, a body “that was established in 2005 as an international centre for creativity, artistic excellence and intellectual engagement.” Among other objectives, the Centre explores how “Pan-African cultural practice can be a catalyst for social change.”<sup>24</sup> To expand its reach, Badilisha enhanced its website to be more accessible to cellphone users. The reception of Badilisha’s mobile site, a first for Africa and the world, has been unprecedented:

> 22 Badilisha Poetry X-Change, accessed March 21, 2015, http://badilishapoetry.com/. 23 Ibid.

> 24 Ibid.

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Table 2

- The site has become the largest “archive of audio recordings by African poets in the world. It is a significant step on this “mobile first” continent where, with limited landline infrastructure, most people access the Internet through their phones rather than on computers.”<sup>25</sup>

- As of December 2014 there were “nearly 400 African poets from 24 countries in 14 languages who can now be heard reading their work via mobile phones.”<sup>26</sup>

- The site receives about 3,000 visitors a month (2015).

- Many poets have built community here; they find the site a useful place to reflect upon their own work as well as see that of other poets.

Source: Badilisha.

# _The old meets the new_

Given the tentacles of modern technology, Badilisha appears to suggest as such: “Africa’s ancient tradition of oral poetry sits more comfortably in the 21<sup>st</sup> -century technology of the podcasts than in mainstream publishing.”<sup>27</sup> Linda Kaoma, Badilisha’s project manager presents her point: A lot of publishers are not publishing poetry, but it does not have to be confined to books. It’s alive. [Since Badilisha presents the poetry with audio files, the] voice adds texture, adds a different layer to the poems. A lot of people are enjoying listening to poetry rather than reading it. We need to change the way we present ourselves to audiences and audiences need to be aware of different ways of receiving poetry.<sup>28</sup> Indeed, even many Western poets would argue that poetry should not just be read on the page; it needs to be heard.

# _Logistics_

The platform can be searched (or browsed) in the following ways: Author’s name, Country, Language, Theme, Emotion, Top 10, and Latest Uploads. (In addition to poems in text and audio, the site provides a photo and biography of each poet.) Submissions can be sent in a variety of ways: 1) by uploading the MP3 file and related material on the Badilisha site itself; 2) by sending an MP3 via _Yousendit_ ; 3) by email; or 4) by mailing a CD copy of the

> 25 Ibid.

> 26 David Smith, “Poetry in Motion: Mobile Site Brings New Audience to African Writers,” _Guardian_ , December 29, 2014, accessed March 21, 2015, <u>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/29/africa-poetry-badilisha-mobile-phone-site.</u> 27 Ibid.

> 28 Ibid.

9
work. The site appears to be operated by three women — project manager, a project administrator, and a podcast presenter (as of March 2015).

This platform is reviving African poetry via digital technology without hiring an army of staff. Moreover, the catalog can always be transcribed into the text with new voice recognition technology. Nonetheless, it could be argued that a level of ‘digital literacy’ is needed to effectively benefit from Badilisha as a contributor and also as a user. Generally speaking, however, the issue of digital literacy is a broad one; it also affects other fields where the problem of the so-called “digital divide” is prevalent. It would be useful indeed to have printed copies of African poetry. But given the current evolution of the book publishing industry and African literature in particular, Badilisha seems to be filling a gap much needed not only in Africa but also elsewhere. One can only conclude that this example shows how digital technology can be used to promote creative work. Badilisha’s effort provides lessons for organizations and policy makers who seek to promote such creative output in the developing world.

***

# _Artsy in the Digital World_

In the developed world, meanwhile, Artsy an online art resource whose “mission is to make all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection” is worth noting. Founded in 2012, Artsy “features the world’s leading galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, art fairs, and benefit auctions, all in one place.” Its “growing database of 250,000 images of art, architecture, and design by 40,000 artists spans historical, modern, and contemporary works, and includes the largest online database of contemporary art. Artsy is used by art lovers, museum-goers, patrons, collectors, students, and educators to discover, learn about, and collect art.”<sup>29</sup> Based in New York, Artsy is trying to position itself as a middleman in the global art market of more than 65 billion dollars. “The art industry is an old-school, relationship-driven one, and it won’t be easily turned on its head by software from outsiders.”<sup>30</sup> But this ‘soft gallery’ is gaining traction. The so-called “Artsy app has been downloaded by collectors 300,000 times. And while the company does not track inquiries which result into actual purchases, the figure behind the requests themselves is impressive: In 2014 “potential buyers inquired on $5.5 billion worth of art using Artsy—four times as much as the year prior.”<sup>31</sup>

# _Artsy in Education_

Money aside, Artsy is also invested in promoting arts education — in our context this strategy seems more germane to universal human development. This is because the art world itself seems to be more exclusive than inclusive, catering for those with deep pockets

> 29 Artsy, “The Art World Online,” accessed March 28, 2015, <u>https://www.artsy.net/about.</u>

> 30 Erin Griffith, “A Bold, New Direction for the Fine Art Industry: Online Sales,” _Fortune_ , accessed March 28, 2015, <u>http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/artsy-galleries/.</u> 31 Ibid.

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in the ‘art market.’ (This appears to be the case, even if not all art pieces are, of course, valued in the millions or even thousands of dollars.) In the world of arts in education, Artsy has created “ _Teaching Art with Artsy_ , a simple PDF, which illustrates how high school teachers can use Artsy’s tools for lesson planning and classroom instruction.”<sup>32</sup> In partnership with the New York City Department of Education, _Teaching Art with Artsy_ can be used in conjunction with the Department’s “ _Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Visual Arts_ ' 12th Grade Benchmarks.”<sup>33</sup> The new _Blueprint_ provides “sections that address students with special needs and English Language Learners. It includes a glossary of art terms, classroom supply lists, a discussion on planning and assessment, an annotated bibliography and webography, as well as suggestions for integrating the museum experience into classroom instruction.”<sup>34</sup> While _Teaching Art with Artsy_ is meant for New York City public schools, it can be a resource for students and teachers across the United States and abroad.<sup>35</sup> Other Artsy’s education initiatives include:

- Explore the World’s Art: “access to art from galleries, museums, institutions, and art fairs from around the world.”

- The Art Genome Project: a “discovery tool for art, architecture and design, powered by a team of in-house art historians.”

- Additional Features: “coverage of current art world events and artists biographies, to amazing zoom and view in room features.”<sup>36</sup>

# **The Negative Side**

_Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master_ .

While technology is not entirely to blame, it has caused profound challenges in creative work. To start with books, as we have seen, there are several advantages to e-readers. But e-readers and tablets may not be a trigger of celebration. Scientific literature here provides a blurry picture. In “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens,” Ferris Jabr makes a central observation:

> “[E]vidence from laboratory experiments, polls and consumer reports indicates that modern screens and e-readers fail to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from

> 32 Artsy, “Teaching Art With Artsy,” accessed March 28, 2015, <u>https://www.artsy.net/post/artsyed-teaching-art-with-artsy.</u>

> 33 Ibid

> 34 Joel I. Klein, “Letter from the Chancellor,” New York City Department of Education, accessed March 28, 2015, <u>https://www.artsy.net/feature/artsy-education.</u>

> 35 - Artsy, “Artsy Education,” accessed March 28, 2015, <u>https://www.artsy.net/feature/artsy education.</u>

> 36 Ibid.

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navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way. In turn, such navigational difficulties may subtly inhibit reading comprehension. Compared with paper, screens may also drain more of our mental resources while we are reading and make it a little harder to remember what we read when we are done. ... An e-reader always weighs the same, regardless of whether you are reading Proust's magnum opus or one of Hemingway's short stories. Some researchers have found that these discrepancies create enough "haptic dissonance" to dissuade some people from using e-readers. People expect books to look, feel and even smell a certain way; when they do not, reading sometimes becomes less enjoyable or even unpleasant. ”<sup>37</sup> Further, with respect to people’s perception and bias, while e-books are increasingly becoming popular, the reality is this: Many publishers do not “take e-only titles seriously. Some folks also assume that if a book is only available digitally, it may not have been good enough to warrant a print run.”<sup>38</sup> Such thinking has implications on the marketability of writers who are striving to gain traction in the world of writing. The social and income gaps also, as noted below, add to the negative parcel digital tech brings to creative work.

_The Acceleration of the Gender Digital Divide_ _Over just two decades, the Internet has worked a thorough revolution. Never before has information been so widely available, business more efficient and transparent, or people better connected to one another. The Internet can be a great equalizer. And yet, access to it is not equally distributed. The Internet gender gap is particularly salient in developing countries, with very real consequences for women and girls, their communities, and their nations._<sup>39</sup> _—_ Shelly Esque Both men and women,* of course, face the same challenges that come with the Internet. But since women are more at a disadvantage (as widely cited) their creative output is likely to face more obstacles. So, if more work is Internet-based, women could lag behind — we delve into the approaches of how to tackle this issue in the policy recommendations; for now, the following discussion is worth echoing.

_Common Challenges Facing Creative Work in the Digital Age_ In the greater world of creative work, the emergence of digital technology has triggered sharp divergences. In <u>Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class,</u> Scott Timberg, concludes that in the United States the creative class — those “who make a living by inventing and curating ideas and culture”<sup>40</sup> — is in crisis. While not entirely the problem, the “Internet has, with a few exceptions, not made things easier. And often a great deal

> 37 Ferris Jabr, “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper Versus Screens,” _Scientific American_ , April 11, 2013, 1, accessed March 31, 2015, <u>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/.</u>

> 38 Chris Robley, “Ebook Vs. Print Book ...”

> 39 Shelly Esque, Foreword in “Women and the Web.”

> (* In this case men includes boys and women includes girls.)

> 40 Andrew Keen, “'Culture Crash' Examines the Crisis in the Creative Industry,” _Los Angeles Times_ , January 22, 2015, accessed March 27, 2015, http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc- <u>scott-timberg-20150125-story.html.</u>

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<!-- Start of picture text --> Global Music Industry Turnover (1973-2009)<br>In Billions Source: RIAA year-end shipment statistics; Bain analysis<br>$15<br>$10 \ Digital<br>\<br>co<br>$5<br>LP/EP; Tape<br>so1973 1977eS1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009<br><!-- End of picture text -->
<!-- Start of picture text --> The Digital Music Revolution<br>How the U.S. music industry has changed in the past 15 years<br>Unit shipments/downloads (in millions)<br>HEcOAlbum §$ [Physical Single [BJ LP/VEP/Cassette<br>Digital Album [MJ Digital Single<br>2,000m<br>1,600m<br>1,600m,<br>1,400m<br>1,200m<br>1,000m<br>800m<br>600m<br>400m<br>200m<br>Om<br>98 39 00 O01 02 03 04 05 16 OF 08 WH 10 ‘NN “12<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> Revenue (in billion U.S. dollars)<br>HEcDAlbum [Physical Single [B) LP/EP/Cassette<br>Digital Album J Digital Single J Digital Subscription’Streaming<br>$16b<br>$14b<br>S12b<br>=<br>$10b @<br>sab =<br>:$4b scaal<br>$2b<br>30b<br>8 3 0 01 02 8 4 0 1 UF 1 0 ‘O 12<br>StatistaThe Statistics Portal a @aeaive,. O© Source: RIAA<br><!-- End of picture text -->
the mind and work of humans.” Unlike tangible property, moreover, the protection of intellectual work evolved much later in human society.<sup>49</sup> This delicate dance is further complicated by complex philosophical underpinnings (surrounding the protection of ideas). Ideas after all are generally an ultimate ‘public good;’ (they are non-rival and non-excludable). In Intellectual Property in the New Technological <u>Age, Robert P. Merges et al. table these questions: “Should the first person to discover a</u> way of performing an important task—for example, a procedure for closing a wound—be entitled to prevent others from using this procedure? Should the first person to pen a phrase or hum a melody be entitled to prevent others from copying such words or singing the song? Should such “intellectual property rights” be more limited than traditional property rights (i.e. the fee simple<sup>50</sup> )?”<sup>51</sup> In the modern economy, however, copyright and other related intellectual measures (surrounding creative work) affect the income of artists and even the larger cultural economy. So, measures have been taken to protect artistic work and other intellectual pursuits. But again, the digital revolution has made this battle costly and difficult to track.

Since the age of the player piano, and Long Play (LP) and the CD, the music industry, as one example, has gone through ‘major and minor revolutions.’ But no change perhaps revolutionized the industry as the Internet. This revolution exploded when Napster, an online music sharing business, set up as a peer-to-peer network enabled copyright infringement in a way never seen before:<sup>52</sup> The amount of content available over the Internet took a quantum leap in late 1999 with the introduction of Napster’s peer-to-peer network technology. This technology vastly expanded the effective storage and exchange capacity of the Internet by enabling computer users running Napster’s software to search the hard drives of thousands of other users for files encoded in the MP3 compression format commonly used for music files. Napster’s server contained the labels of MP3 files, typically some combination of band song titles, which could be searched by Napster users. Searches produced a list of Internet addresses of computers containing the search term. The Napster software would then form a connection through the Internet to the particular computer containing the file, establish a link, and quickly transfer the file to the searcher’s hard drive. In essence, the Napster platform converted every computer running software and connected Napster into a “servent”—enabling it to function as both a server and a client. It became the fastest adopted software application in the history of computer technology, attaining 70 million users within its relatively brief period of operation.<sup>53</sup>

> 49 Ibid.,1

> 50 A _fee simple_ is an “interest in land.  Land owned in _fee simple_ is owned completely, without any limitations or conditions. This type of unlimited estate is called <u>absolute.  A fee simple is generally created</u> when a deed gives the land with no conditions, usually using the words like "to John Doe" or "to John Doe and his heirs." ”— “Legal Information Institute,” Cornell University Law School, accessed March 18, 2015, <u>https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fee_simple.</u>

> 51 Robert P. Merges et al., _Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age_ , 1.

> 52 Patrick Kabanda, “'Where Culture Leads, Trade Follows': A Framework for Developing Uganda’s Music as International Trade in Services” (master's thesis, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2013), 60.

> 53 Robert P. Merges et al., _Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age_ , 713.

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The issue of creative piracy is so pervasive that some artists now fear putting their work online. And in places like China, the battle to curb piracy — from products like iPods to ideas like architecture — is almost futile. On the latter, “Zaha Hadid, widely regarded as one of the leading lights in the constellation of avant-garde architecture, has likewise become a superstar in China.” In this place “her latest designs radiate out through architecture schools and studios across the country.” But her appeal, “especially since the “unveiling of her glowing, crystalline Guangzhou Opera House” has unleashed dilemmas for her creative rights: “a contingent of pirate architects and construction teams in southern China is now building a carbon copy of one of Hadid's Beijing projects.” Even more arresting, “citizens of the Austrian hillside hamlet of Hallstatt were shocked when they inadvertently discovered Chinese architects had surreptitiously and extensively photographed their homes and were building a doppelgänger version of the UNESCO World Heritage site in southern China.”<sup>54</sup> Nonetheless, such commotion cannot be blamed on technology alone. Technological innovations have made remarkable contributions to human civilization. In the arts, technology has certainly fueled creative work to advance human development. What begs clarity is to match training, legal and other structural, institutional, and cultural arrangements to evolve with technological changes. As Amartya Sen said, if an engineer designs a bridge, and the bridge breaks down, blaming the science does not help; it is the bad engineer who should be blamed.<sup>55</sup> Likewise, while digital platforms efficiently enable such abuses as piracy and unfair payment options, technology is not solely at fault.

Legal systems and cultural behaviors that induce piracy may also be part of the problem. For example, “Although China has, on paper at least, a series of laws to protect intellectual property, enforcement of these rules is wildly sporadic.”<sup>56</sup> In today’s ‘winner-take-all’ or trickle-down economics, the efficient exploitation of capitalism (and markets) may also bear part of the blame.

> 54 Kevin Holden, “Zaha Hadid Vs. the Pirates: Copycat Architects in China Take Aim at the Stars,” _Spiegel_ , December 28, 2012, 1, accessed March 31, 2015, <u>http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/pirated-copy-of-design-by-star-architect-hadid-being-built-inchina-a-874390.html.</u>

> 55 Amartya Sen, “What’s the Use of Economics?” (lecture, Penthouse, Harvard Student Organization Center at Hilles, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, December 1, 2012).

> 56 Kevin Holden, “Zaha Hadid Vs. the Pirates.”

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at all.”<sup>61</sup> The upshot has been the widening Internet gap between men and women as Figure 5 shows. With respect to what can be done the following recommendations (adapted from <u>Women and the Web) provide a starting point. They could be expanded to promote women</u> in creative work as shown in Table 2.

_Strategic Interventions to Close the Digital Gender Gap in Creative Work_

# Table 2

||Possible Interventions to Close the ‘<br>|Digital Gender Gap’<br>|
|---|---|---|
|Barrier*|Recommendation*|**Action for Creative Work**|
|**Lack of**<br>**Awareness**|Provide training not only in official languages, but<br>also in local languages about the benefits of the<br>Internet.<br>In addition to donors and government agencies,|Target women in creative work via cooperative or rural<br>community arts councils and offer workshops on the<br>benefits of using the Internet to market their work, join<br>a community artist groups, form mentorship groups,<br>and so forth.|
||form training partnerships with schools, Parent<br>Teachers Associations, Girls Scouts, elders,<br>religiousleaders, and soforth.<br>Use local mediums such as radio to reach women in<br>rural areas (to inform them about the benefits and<br>even the limitations of Internet connectivity).|Showcase role models: local or even international<br>women in the field of creative work who use the<br>Internet and digital technologies to overcome barriers<br>and advance their creative output.|
|**Lack of**<br>**Affordability &**<br>**Facility**|Partner with local service providers to provide<br>women-specific content at a lower cost; the same<br>providers could offer training and workshops on<br>how women can increase their engagement with the<br>Internet and digital technologies – imagine ‘Apple<br>store’ services for women in the developing world.|Engage with such partners as the Ministries of Culture,<br>local service providers, and others to assist women in<br>the creative field with grants, subsidies, (tax incentives)<br>and with such aspects as training on how they can<br>advance their creative work in today’s technological<br>revolution.<br>Use mobile trucks with Internet connectivity and<br>training services to reach ‘creative women’ in rural<br>areas.|
|**Norms**|Emphasize the advantages of the Internet in today’s<br>global economy while also teaching about the<br>problems of sexual exploitation, pornography, and<br>so forth that can be accelerated by the Internet —<br>these tend to be among the concerns that drive<br>family members, spouses, and even friends to deny<br>women equal Internet rights.|Commission women in creative work to showcase<br>artwork that seeks to change people’s perceptions about<br>women in creative fields (on the Internet). Such works<br>could be taken to schools, places of worship, and other<br>venues (where they could reach more people and help<br>change people’s mindsets about women’s access to the<br>Internet). Mediums like Music, Plays, Sculpture,|
|**Cultural**|In addition to women (and women groups), work<br>with men, family members, elders, and others to<br>underscore the benefits of women’s access to the<br>Internet and to tackle stereotypes and suspicions<br>around this issue.|<br>Poetry, Short Stories and Photos, could be engaged<br>here.|
|* Source: Adapted|from “Women and the Web”||

61 Ibid.

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#  _Expanding Intellectual Property_

As noted earlier, the Internet facilitates the abuse of intellectual property efficiently as it also spreads knowledge. Therefore, the need to do more to promote intellectual rights is crucial. But it must be noted that this challenge is a broad one, and it involves many other aspects, not to mention cost: The minimum costs of implementing [the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)] in poor countries are about $1.5-2 million to build a rudimentary structure to enforce TRIPs-related rules, plus recurring operating costs. In contrast, the U.S. [Patent and Trademark Office] has a $1billion annual budget and 3,000 professionals. In addition, 600 judges preside over [Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)] litigations in the U.S.<sup>62</sup> As many studies suggest, the Intellectual Property debate is complex, wide-ranging, and inconclusive.<sup>63</sup> Nonetheless, with respect to creative work the following strategies, while hardly new, could be considered:

- Hold digital training workshops for artists and others in the domain of intellectual rights to understand the benefits and limitations of posting their work online.

- Enforce intellectual measures where possible, especially holding accountable public and private parties that abuse intellectual rights.

In Asia, the leading region with Internet users to date (see figure 6) — China leads here with over 600 million users<sup>64</sup> — the piracy problem is no secret. And China’s effort to curb piracy seems intractable. Though China has a long way to go, it took a step worth noting:

- China launched a “nationwide “Program for Special Campaign on Combating IPR Infringement and Manufacture and Sales of Counterfeiting and Shoddy Commodities” (“Special Campaign”). The program ran for 9 months (from October 2010 to June 2011), and it was “aimed to crack down on IP infringement and counterfeiting, raise awareness of IP rights and create a positive environment for intellectual property protection, and urge businesses to increase awareness of infringement and avoid infringing practices.”<sup>65</sup>

Such an approach is perhaps difficult to sustain. But it provides a mixture of hard and soft approaches developing countries could adopt. Moreover, by the time the “Special Campaign” ended, it had “solved 15,868 cases, bringing in 13.12 billion yuan ($2.08 billion

> 62 Minxin Pei, _Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey of the Major Issues_ (Hong Kong: Asia Business Council, September 2005), accessed March 31, 2015, <u>http://www.asiabusinesscouncil.org/docs/IntellectualPropertyRights.pdf.</u> 63 Ibid.

> 64 As of June 2014. See: “Internet Usage in Asia,” Internet World Stats, accessed March 30, 2015, <u>http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm#asia.</u>

> 65Vincent Brodbeck, “Streaming Media and Curbing Digital Piracy in China,” _Boston University Journal of Science and Technology Law_ , no. 19.1 (Winter 2013), accessed March 31, 2015, <u>http://www.bu.edu/jostl/files/2015/02/Brodbeck_Note.pdf.</u>

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by local artists organizations, government agencies — such as Ministries of Education, Information Technology, and Culture — and even private parties and development organizations:

- Provide technological training in local languages in addition official languages. This may entail starting with explaining what the Internet is to what a gigabit is, and providing content tailored for different age groups — since young people tend to have a higher ability to adopt digital skills faster than older folks.

- Explain to artists the advantages of digital marketing compared to disadvantages such as piracy.

- Digital technologies provide unlimited possibilities to produce derivative works. But artists should be trained to know the boundaries to avoid the trappings of infringing on other people’s work.

- Since online experiences can be abusive, fake, and even manipulative, artists should be trained to understand and to deal with emotional and physiological implications of negative digital experiences — this is the so-called digital “social-emotional literacy.”<sup>69</sup>

- Discuss the digital toll on personal health. For example, “prolonged reading on glossy self-illuminated screens can cause eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision. Such symptoms are so common among people who read on screens—affecting around 70 percent of people who work long hours in front of computers—that [at least in the United States] the American Optometric Association <u>officially</u> ”<sup>70</sup>

- <u>recognizes computer vision syndrome.</u>

Digital technology has changed creative work in profound ways. While it has killed some jobs, it has also created others; and while it has shifted the ‘work-life’ balance, it has also made remarkable contributions, contributions that facilitate creativity. There is more to be done, particularly in bridging the gender and other digital divides. And more needs to be done to facilitate the harvest of intellectual rights for artists, especially in the developing world. Such actions cannot be achieved overnight. But the creative world needs sound policies that will encourage more fair and inclusive creative work in the digital age. This is likely to help expand the role of creative output in expanding human development in our increasingly digitized world.

***

> 69 Yoram Eshet-Alkala, “Digital Literacy.”

> 70 Ferris Jabr, “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age.”

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