Cultural policy and copyright law

This chapter investigates two further types of policy change that have irrevocably transformed the place of the cultural industries in modern societies. The first change is in cultural policy. The cultural industries have become an object of great attention in cultural policy in recent years. There has been an increasing interest in the idea that the cultural industries are a particular type of industrial activity with their own dynamics (this, of course, is a key part of the analysis in this book —see Introduction). This concern with commercial cultural production has been evident among policymakers and analysts whose main aim is to boost cultural businesses. It has also been apparent among progressive activist and politicians whose principal concerns are questions of citizenship, identity and democracy. Policymakers have increasingly come to use the term 'creative industries' and that term has had its own role to play in transformations in cultural policy. The second type of policy change discussed in this chapter is that in copyright law and practice. Changes here are closely linked to the dynamics of internationalization and supposed 'convergence' that were discussed in the final section of the previous chapter. The international trade agreements and policy bodies introduced there ---- most notably the WTO and the EU ---- have played an important part in bringing about key changes in copyright. copyright is fundamental to the cultural industries and so changes in how it functions can really matter.