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Media, Culture & Society
2015, Vol. 37(3) 339 –341
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0163443714567021
mcs.sagepub.com
Editorial: IP, copyright and
cultural production
Raymond Boyle
University of Glasgow, UK
Anastasia Kavada
University of Westminster, UK
Abstract
This editorial outlines the important role that IP issues are increasingly playing across
the media industries. It identifies some of the key sectors discussed in this issue of the
journal and why particular media industries face specific IP challenges even in an age of
converging media.
Keywords
IP, music, football, television, Olympics, software, China, publishing
The shift from analogue to digital has transformed the role of rights and intellectual prop-
erty (IP) across different areas of the media and creative industries. This issue of Media,
Culture & Society examines some of the shifting debates about the impact of IP regimes
on issues of access, control, innovation, policy intervention and the production and dis-
semination of cultural content in the digital environment. This is an area often character-
ized by, on one hand, those organizations calling for ever greater policing and protection
of the rights of content producers and, on the other, by those arguing that existing IP
regimes are a barrier to innovation and creativity in the digital age of sharing content.
Corresponding authors:
Raymond Boyle, University of Glasgow, 9 University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK.
Email: raymond.boyle@glasgow.ac.uk
and
Anastasia Kavada, University opf Westminster, Watford Road, Northwick Park Harrow MIDDX HA1 3TP.
Email: a.kavada@westminster.ac.uk
567021MCS0010.1177/0163443714567021Media, Culture & SocietyBoyle and Kavada
research-article2015
Special Issue Editorial: IP, Copyright and Cultural Production
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340 Media, Culture & Society 37(3)
This Special Issue contributes to this central debate by investigating a wide range of
cultural arenas including music, sport, academic publishing, as well as software and
hardware production. It addresses questions such as ‘To what extent are existing regimes
of copyright actually a blockage to innovation and development?’ ‘Does the international
nature of the digital environment render national intervention in cultural markets increas-
ingly redundant?’ and ‘Can we simply read across experiences from different sections of
the creative and cultural industries or are we entering a much more complex environment
that requires a “fleetness of foot” from policymakers seeing to intervene in the IP arena?’
The focus of authors in this issue is on empirically grounding and testing what is actually
going on. In so doing, they suggest that we move beyond the somewhat polarized debate
to investigate positions located between those of the two opposing camps, one calling for
more rigid enforcement, the other for the abolition of regulation.
This issue finds three themed articles at the front of the journal, accompanied by two
specially commissioned pieces in the CrossCurrents section of the journal. The first arti-
cle by Philips and Street offers a snapshot of the frontline experience of musicians, often
working at the margins of the industry, and the role that copyright plays in their working
lives. While focused on the United Kingdom, the findings of this article resonate more
widely as they highlight the complex and nuanced ways in which the existing copyright
framework fits into the actual daily reality of working as a musician. In so doing, they
raise questions for both policymakers and policy shapers about the actual impact of atti-
tudes towards copyright on the material lives of musicians. Given the extent to which the
music industry has been disrupted by the digital environment, this study highlights
important issues for those policymakers engaged in attempting to sustain and build the
creative practice element of the economy.
If Philips and Street’s article focused on those at the frontline of creative practice,
then Boyle’s article shifts our gaze to that of the rights holders. In the examination of
the role that copyright plays in the landscape of European football rights, he argues that
the polarization of the debate has masked a range of issues and challenges for those
across the rights value chain, from governing bodies of sport through to fans and sup-
porters. This article draws on original access to key rights holders and those cultural
intermediaries who often utilize or develop rights across a range of digital platforms
from television to mobile apps. What emerges is a terrain that highlights tensions
between national and international access to cultural content, as well as one in which
policy intervention at both national and, in this case, European Union level often has
unintended consequences. It also highlights the extent to which this area of study can
bring together a range of concerns around aspects of the law, technological innovation,
tensions between commercial and cultural values and the challenges faced by those
involved in policy intervention.
By way of contrast, Alison Powell’s article examines the important debate around the
development of open source hardware and software and its ramifications in terms of
public access to key areas of knowledge. Powell’s socio-technical framework of analysis
is a welcome addition to this issue as it helps to broaden the conversation with other
disciplines with regards to copyright and cultural production. Political and social science
approaches must engage with research emerging from systems and computing analysis
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Boyle and Kavada 341
and vice versa as a more open dialogue and interaction between disciplines can only aid
our understanding of what is a complex and fast moving environment.
The two themed CrossCurrents pieces of research offer some important reflection on a
range of these issues from an international perspective. Ren and Montgomery focus on the
case of China and on debates around the changing role that copyright is playing in the
reform of China’s academic publishing system. It focuses, in particular, on the tension
between the closed publisher-mediated credentialing system and open access dynamics in
facilitating knowledge communication in the Chinese context. In so doing, it highlights
both the connected nature of international cultural relations and the ongoing importance
of national and regional cultures in shaping this engagement. Ren and Montgomery offer
a fascinating insight into how a very specific global power is both seeking to enhance its
cultural influence abroad, while retaining political power at home.
Finally, Erickson and Wei’s study looks at the global event that was the 2012 London
Olympics. In their study, they examine the growing issue of ‘cultural enclosure’ that
through particular IP legislation effectively commoditizes aspects of cultural expression
that previously remained in the public domain. In this case study, the authors examine the
tension between economic and political justifications for hosting the Olympics and the
IP enclosures that are imposed upon host nations. At the core of these tensions lies a
conflict between the political, cultural and economic goals associated with public cul-
tural events in the digital age.
Offering empirically grounded research and critical reflection on a wide range of case
studies, this Special Issue of Media, Culture & Society will hopefully constitute a valu-
able contribution to some of the key debates around copyright and intellectual produc-
tion in the media and creative industries.
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