no shit

The fashion industry is a good example of how things change really quickly and everybody copies and an industry is built around this.
And there is no IP involved whatsoever.

Court, David 2009. Copyright gets it – Both barrels. Lumina (Strawberry Hills, NSW) (1):75-80.

80
“The hearts and minds of the new generation are set against copyright. The copyright industries are losing the war.”

Hall, Gary

Philosophises on “The Future of…”

  • Open Access
  • Academic Book Publishing
  • the Peer-Reviewed Journal
  • the Author
  • Intellectual Property
  • Piracy

21
“But ‘where exclusive copyright in a “work for hire” has been transferred by the author to a publisher – i.e., the author has been paid (or will be paid royalties) in exchange for the text’, as is often the case in book publishing – it may well be that the author is not legally allowed to self-archive it. This is because, although the ‘text is still the author’s “intellectual property”, … the exclusive right to sell or give away copies of it has been transferred to the publisher’ (BOAI, 2002-4: non-pag.).” This is just perverse! Like the music industry.

Montgomery, Lucy
Keane, Michael

Chapter 8 in Thomas, PN et al ~ Intellectual Property Rights and Communications in Asia

130
“Copyright reform represents a point of convergence between political, social, cultural and economic forces.” see also p147

136
“A failure to recognise economic potential makes it more difficult to manage cultural activities so as to promote capacity building and value creation.” Like the film industry today: they don’t see how to make money without copyright, so they don’t develop ideas how to make money without copyright.
“In short, the political and ideological context in which China’s filmmakers must operate is preventing copyright from playing a larger role in the film industry’s value chain.”

137
“Copyright continues to be separated from the core problems of filmmaking in the minds of many Chinese directors.”

137f
“‘the biggest problem is not piracy but the system of censorship, and the second is that there is not a film market.’”

139
“[...] many studios do in fact choose to sell master copies to pirate distributors. [...] in order to recoup some money from the practice.”

147
“Copyright represents the convergence of several highly sensitive areas: media, law, economics, politics and ideology.”
“However, as the film industry demonstrates, copyright currently plays a relatively minor role in commercial decisions made by film producers. Censorship and distribution irregularities prevent copyright from functioning more prominently within the industry’s business model. Entrenched ditribution monopolies, outdated modes of rights trading and payment and failure to enforce existing laws are all undermining copyright’s role. Pervasive piracy means that distribution on DVD is barely worth considering as a revenue stream.

Examined strategies for survival without IP:

  • TV: advertising (142f), but that has collapsed, hasn’t it?
  • Film: product placement + sale of music copyright (145), but is that anything new?

Business models adapt to IP way faster than the other way round. See Montgomery, L et al ~ Global reuse and adaptation in the creative industries.

37
IP allowed specific kinds of businesses to flourish.

38f
“As Alford (1995) discusses, China possessed no indigenous equivalent to concepts of “intellectual property”. Notions of individual creativity and ownership of ideas were not easily reconciled with Confucian concepts of creativity, knowledge and learning (Alford, 1995, p. 9). For these and various other reasons, the PRC remained without a copyright law until 1990.”
“The business models that dominated the global recorded music industry in the second half of the twentieth century were based around record labels providing artists with access to recording equipment, mass production and distribution channels, marketing and promotion services, and remunerating them on a royalty basis.
Legally enforceable intellectual property rights and physical technologies that made controlled mass production and distribution of music possible (Bettig, 1996) were key factors in the rise of a handful of highly integrated, transnational music corporations that accounted for 90% of gross sales of recorded music in 1994 (Burnett, 1995, p. 2). Although developments in physical technology, such as cassette tapes and recorders, presented challenges to the industry’s ability to control copying, these changes occurred after markets, industry structures, professional organizations and group collection infrastructures had become established. As a result, the industry was generally able to respond in a systematic way and incremental developments in analogue technologies of copying did little to disrupt its overall structure (Frith, 2002).
In China, on the other hand, technologies for mass reproduction and consumption of recorded music became available in the absence of copyright law, an organized domestic music industry, or clear legitimate channels for the distribution of most foreign content.

39
“Not only are new technologies being adopted with enormous speed across the country, they are being embraced fastest by groups traditionally considered most likely to pay for music in other markets. Young, educated city-dwellers with relatively high disposable incomes are now the group most likely to have access to broadband connections, cheap MP3 players and next-generation mobile devices.”
“So [record labels] have gone from the frying pan into the fire. They hadn’t even put a dent in pirate physical copies before P2P and MP3 downloading came along.” Kaiser Kuo quoted by Montgomery.

40
“The dominance of a few developed nations in global trades in culture has led many to question the fairness of expanding global intellectual property system. According to UNESCO, developing countries account for less than 1% share of exports of cultural goods.”

41
“While the traditional record label model isn’t exactly going through a golden age in the west, it never even had a golden age in the Middle Kingdom.” originally from The Register ~ Music in China (04.12.2009)
“While major international labels have been unwilling to invest heavily in the promotion of international artists in a market where mass-scale returns are difficult to secure, local artists and labels have been actively working to develop business strategies capable of generating income in spite of very high levels of piracy. One strategy for doing this has been to rely on personal appearances by artists, which cannot be replicated. As a result, there is less emphasis on producing popular albums, and more emphasis on gaining popularity and profile through single hits that lead to lucrative product endorsement and live appearance or performance deals”

42
“In contrast to Western markets, where artist management and music are generally separate, in China assigning a record label with management rights is considered one of the most important aspects of an artist’s contract, forming a vital income source for domestic labels.”
“However, even for Chinese labels, relying on personal appearance and advertising revenue presents practical problems. Personal appearances have limited scalability. Neither advertising nor personal appearance fit well with the “long tail” approach, which, in other markets, allows back-catalogues to continue generating revenue for labels and artists long after the artist has been eclipsed by the latest trend.”
“China’s own capacity to capture commercial opportunities associated with music is increasing as media commercialization becomes more entrenched.”
“It is extremely difficult to make money by licensing copyright in China and gaining access to the market is expensive and difficult, so Western labels have devoted few resources to promoting their products to Chinese audiences.”

43
“In China [...] unauthorized networks for the distribution of physical copies of music are well established, independent monitoring agencies do not exist and users have demonstrated low levels of willingness to pay a premium for “legitimate” content.”

44
“Unlike ring-tones, which are generally stored on individual mobile phones, CRBT [caller ring-back-tones] services are managed centrally, through mobile service providers.”

45
“[Mobile phone] service providers, distributors, labels and music publishers share an initial ‘‘sign-up fee’’ when a subscriber first signs on to a CRBT package. After the initial sign-up fee has been divided between these parties, subsequent full monthly subscription fees are kept solely by China Mobile.”
“[Music] labels are in a position to connect artists with mobile operators, manage advertising deals and to ensure that publishing and performance licences are obtained – all key components of the music business in today’s China.” But very different from the western model of a music label.
“Although there have been some amazing stories of amateur musicians who have produced a hit ring-tone from their bedroom and made millions, commercial spaces are quickly being filled by large, vertically integrated content providers.”

46
“In the case of the music industry, it appears that cultural policies that make it harder to publish foreign content, strict regulations governing foreign investment in content industries, and low levels of copyright enforcement have worked together to provide Chinese media businesses with space to develop effectively.”
“the success of new music distribution technologies and a growing capacity to provide local content in forms that satisfy the demands of local consumers, in spite of very high levels of unauthorized copying and distribution of physical media, suggests that copyright has not been the key impediment to the success of international artists and labels in the Chinese market.”
“Rather than falling victim to globally dominant exporters of intellectual property, China’s domestic music industry is successfully developing a market for local content, alongside its own capacity to provide the content and services demanded by Chinese consumers.”
“Unwillingness to adapt to an environment where ownership of intellectual property rights cannot guarantee control over how music is used and distributed, and reluctance to explore alternative approaches to music distribution and licensing have [...] contributed to [the] lack of success [of major international record labels].”
“The apparent association between this distribution bottleneck and the growth of an organized, profitable commercial music industry in China highlights the continuing role of monopoly structures in the commercialization of culture in a digital age.” It’s true but I don’t like that.

408
“While economies with high levels of copyright enforcement are able to protect creative output and provide a basis for its exploitation and commercialization in the marketplace through well-enforced intellectual property systems, China’s creative industries must find other ways of extracting value from their work.”
“Both Confucian and socialist concepts of creativity provide a rich tapestry for Chinese intellectual property lawyers to draw upon as they seek a balance between strict enforcement of individualized rights and mapping out limitations or exceptions to those rights, as well as promoting alterna- tive models for managing copyright in certain sectors or spaces – such as Creative Commons and Science Commons models. Confucian philosophy emphasized the transmission or passing down of creative works for others to build on, rather than learning or creation as in individualized activity. The Confucian statement: ‘I transmit rather than create – I believe in and love the Ancients’ (The Analects) is an example of this approach.”

409
“The recognition of individual proprietary rights in creative works marked a historic shift – on paper at least – away from notions of sharing, distribution and collaborative production, emphasizing instead the role of the individual author and his or her right to dictate the terms on which a work can be modified or distributed.”

411
“Reduced levels of government funding [since the early 1990s], combined with new opportunities provided by the market economy, are placing film-makers and musicians under heavy pressure to find new sources of funding and to build commercially sustain- able businesses. Complicating matters is the fact that levels of piracy in China mean that the royalty-based business models that dominate other markets are simply not yet viable in China.”

411f
Some companies are enforcing copyright legally, with some success.

412f
Huayi Brothers make extensive use of product placement.

413
advertisers whose products appear in Huayi Brothers films do not really care whether the films featuring their product are distributed legally or illegally. As long as people watch Huayi’s films and are exposed to the products being displayed within them, companies that have paid money to help develop a brand profile are satisfied. As in other markets, this strategy helps take pressure off royalty payments as the only source of income for film producers.”

413f
Mp3 downloading sites are fairly easy to fight in China, because the Internet is so strictly controlled. P2P, however, might change this entirely.

414
“The paltry income that can be derived from these sources [CDs and the Internet] leaves them with artist management and live events as their most significant sources of revenue.”

415
FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) and Creative Commons “help reduce enforcement costs and refocus copyright management on creativity and distribution, rather than control.”

416
“At present, pressure for enforcement of copyright in China is still driven to a large extent by foreign governments and corporations that wish to see their intellectual property protected. Once this motivation is more directly related to China’s own creative sector it might be expected that copyright law and enforcement will be more closely scrutinized and invested in by government and local businesses.”
“the demand for creative products – particularly by emerging upwardly mobile urban middle classes – and the successes in extracting income from content experienced by music copyright owners in relation to mobile phone ringtones, suggest that with a combination of pricing, local product, technology and legal enforcement, such a cultural shift [such changes in copyright practices] may not be impossible.”

19
“Business models that rely heavily on public performance and personal appearances by artists, and which are unlikely to produce revenue on a large scale from the sale of physical units, provide limited opportunities for international labels hoping to break into the Chinese market.”

20
“Live performances, advertising and personal appearances have emerged as important revenue sources for the domestic [music] industry.”

21
“Relying on personal appearance by artists limits scalability. Neither advertising nor personal appearance fit well with the ‘long tail’ approach, which, in other markets, allows back-catalogues to continue generating revenue for labels and artists long after the artist has been eclipsed by the latest trend.”

22f
“This paper began with an examination of the legal case for radical reformation of the copyright system. We then moved to consider the current economic theory for this case before exploring this specifically in the case of creative industries, from which we extracted three further arguments: global markets, re-use and value creation, and business model adaptation. We think these three factors have been widely overlooked, and that there (!) re-inclusion into the intellectual property value debate may be of value.”

22
strong IP encourages creation -> weak IP encourages re-use (remix?) -> they claim the benefits of re-use are way bigger than the benefits of creation (is that true?) -> weak IP is to be preferred
business models adapt to IP (not the other way round) -> businesses will always find a way to make money (which makes the economy grow which benefits the entire population) -> weak IP is to be preferred

Also see:
O’Reilly, T ~ Piracy is Progressive Taxation
The Register ~ Music in China