- Thursday 19 November, 3PM UK time
- Online via Teams webinar
Digital platforms have transformed how creators discover and reuse existing work. But what happens to creativity when access to these sources of inspiration is restricted?
This seminar explores how digital music platforms shape cumulative creativity by helping music producers discover material to draw inspiration from, for example through sampling, interpolation, and covers of earlier works. The research examines a seven-year period in which a dispute between YouTube and the German music rights organization GEMA blocked access to a large music catalogue in Germany. By comparing Germany with neighbouring countries, the study shows that reduced access to discovery platforms led to less reuse-based production, including fewer samples, interpolations, and covers. At the same time, creators who continued to reuse existing music relied more heavily on older and already well-known tracks, reducing the diversity of sources incorporated into new works.
These findings highlight that digital platforms are more than distribution channels: they are also discovery infrastructure shaping the level, direction, and diversity of cumulative creative production by influencing what creators discover, reuse, and build upon.
In this session, Alexander Cuntz (World Intellectual Property Organization) will discuss this latest research undertaken with Ruth Samson (World Intellectual Property Organization & World Bank), Christian Peukert (University of Lausanne) and Luis Aguiar (University of Zurich). There will be time for Q&A following the presentation.
This 1-hour talk is part of Creative PEC’s Seminar Series.
Speakers
Alexander Cuntz
Head of Creative Economy Section, World Intellectual Property Organization, United Nations
Alexander Cuntz heads the Creative Economy Section at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Prior to joining WIPO, Alexander worked as a senior researcher and policy advisor at the German Federal Expert Commission for Research and Innovation as well as the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. His empirical research has been published in leading economic journals and focuses on innovation and creativity, the role of intellectual property rights, as well as the impact of new technology on creative industries.
Giorgio Fazio (chair)
Professor of Macroeconomics
Newcastle University
Giorgio Fazio is an applied economist with expertise in macroeconomics, trade and investment. He has published several articles in international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited books on issues such as exchange rates determination, crises and contagion, growth, and convergence at the national and regional levels, productivity, innovation, trade and FDI, civic and cultural capital, creative industries economics.
He has been a Creative PEC researcher since 2018, leading the work on international trade, investment and migration and contributing to economic research in the creative industries in PEC Discussion papers, blogs and peer reviewed journal articles.
Giorgio is Chair of Macroeconomics at Newcastle University Business School and since 2023 is the Research Director of the Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre.
