no CoPyright and no CuLtura L Cong Lomeratesnow, let us try to predict what would happen if copyright were abolished. one of
the first effects would be intriguing: all of a sudden, it would no longer be of interest
for large cultural industries to focus so heavily on bestselling books, blockbuster movies
and superstars. if, in the absence of copyright and intellectual property, these works
can be freely enjoyed and exchanged by anyone, the cultural industry giants lose their
exclusive rights to works of art. as a result, they will also lose their dominant market
position, which, in turn, keeps so many other artists out of sight.
still within the idea of the abolition of copyright, we would have to, at the same time,
cut market dominating cultural conglomerates into smaller parts. We could no longer
tolerate that just a few companies substantially control the production, distribution,
marketing, and the conditions for the reception of films, books, music, theatre and
design. abandoning copyright would remove one major pillar from the dominance of
our current cultural industries, but this does not necessarily mean that their dominance
would end. established industries would still hold the means to large- scale production,
distribution and marketing of cultural goods and services in a firm grip. indeed, this
is one of the reasons for their current success, i.e. keeping total control over artistic
works from the source to the end consumer. This distribution model is what largely
determines which films, books, theatre productions and image materials we can enjoy.
This concentration of power is undesirable in every branch of industry, but it is
particularly detrimental in the cultural field. Competition policy is the tool for cutting
up these cultural giants, but it should be done with cultural interests in mind. any
form of market domination should be driven out, so we could therefore imagine the
cultural market subjected to competition laws with a strong cultural bias. This would
relate among other things to ownership of the means of production and distribution of
cultural goods. also, legislation may be called for to force large cultural enterprises to
(re)present all of the actual cultural diversity being created by both local and foreign
artists.
The result would be that cultural markets would become normalized, which would
enable more artists to show their work, make themselves known and to make a fair
income from what they produce. This income would initially result from being the first
in the market with a specific work. But there would be another factor contributing
to the artists’ success. a more normalized cultural marketplace would offer many
more artists an opportunity to build a reputation, like a brand name, which could
subsequently be exploited to sell more works at a higher price. This would give more
artists an opportunity to keep selling their works to a larger audience in an industry-
controlled distribution model. From these changes that i propose, completely new
cultural markets would emerge. at first glance, it might be difficult to imagine such new
market constellations because we live in a world in which copyright and the dominance
of huge cultural giants seem self- evident. They are not, however difficult it may be to
envision the existence of completely different market relations. indeed, we have seen,
throughout history, that markets change continuously. Why not in the distant future?
market relations can change, radically. i discuss this further in this chapter and have
also done so, more extensively, in a co- authored essay with marieke van schijndel
(smiers and van schijndel 2009).
obviously, research of this kind is not only the responsibility of, and a challenge for,
economists, political scientists and strategic thinkers. artists themselves should do a