Creative entrepreneurs are rightly concerned about controlling their copyright ('not getting ripped off') and generating income from their copyright through licensing, ie being a creative entrepreneur.
It seems that we used to have only two options about what to do with our copyright material - either give it away into the 'public domain', or heavily restrict its use, quoting one of those 'all rights reserved' paragraphs often found on copyright material.
But creative people often want to be more flexible about how they restrict or permit the usage of their copyright material - writing, photographs, music, designs, video, artwork, computer programs etc.
Sometimes we want to allow people to reproduce our works, but only on certain conditions, for example that they don't change it or use it commercially. Sometimes we want others to develop the work, but still credit the original artist. We might want to apply different conditions to the use of our copyright material depending on the circumstances, the works themselves or our business strategy. Sometimes we do want to adopt the 'All Rights Reserved' policy and at other times we want to take a 'Some Rights Reserved' approach.
This is where the Creative Commons movement can help. It began when creative people got together with lawyers to explore these different options for use of copyright material and then express these different options both in straightforward language and also in the form of legal contracts. The Creative Commons now offers a range of legally-watertight but also easily understood copyright licences that creative people can use.
For example, the free eBook version of my book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity' has been made available for people to copy, print and redistribute - provided you don't change it or sell it. This is what the publisher and author wanted to do, so we selected a Creative Commons licence to suit this purpose: the "Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence".
Some people seem to think that the Creative Commons movement is telling us to release our copyright, but that's not the case. It's for us to decide what we want to do - the Creative Commons enables us to do it with a legally valid copyright licence.
More information and a range of copyright licences are available on the Creative Commons website.
Customers are more powerful than ever. Because of changes in technology, particularly the interactive internet (Web 2.0), there has been a fundamental and irreversible shift of power in favour of consumers.
The bad news is that businesses that deny or ignore these changes by continuing to regard customers as passive targets will fail.
'New Business Models in the Creative Industries' was the subject of my keynote speech to the Media and Message conference of indepedent TV producers and media professionals in Finland.
We need to be innovative about how we do business and devise new business models centred on demanding, talkative and creative customers.
Presentation by David Parrish at Media & Message, Finland. Watch the video here (if the embedded video above does not play) [or go to the Media & Message site and click "Puheenvuorot" (speeches). It's the last one.]
The Creative Business is a series of 12 modules of information about developing creative enterprises, written especially for people running businesses in the creative industries.
The information is particularly relevant to creative businesses and cultural enterprises in the fields of Advertising, Literature and Publishing, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Design, Cultural Heritage, and Crafts.
Published on the Creative Choices website, this series of 12 articles covers a range of business issues facing creative entrepreneurs:
Can you give us three top tips for running your own successful creative business, David?
1. Firstly, define what you mean by success – it could be a mixture of financial success, creative challenges, recognition, job satisfaction, quality of life, etc, and that formula will be different for everyone. Define what you mean by success, don’t let others define it for you, and know where you want to go.
2. Be clear about your market and don’t try to sell to everyone. Choose your customers. Choose customers that fit your objectives and your ethos and that deliver the financial results you want. Don’t have a scattergun approach, looking for any old customer. Choose the customers that work best for your business strategy.
3. Understand intellectual property (IP), because IP is at the core of the creative industries. It’s important to make sure you don’t get ripped off by other people, so it’s about defending and protecting intellectual property; but just as importantly, it’s also about how to commercialise that IP so you can make money from it, through sales and licensing, for example. Given that IP is so central, I think most creative businesses could do with knowing a bit more, and learning how to use it.
A useful and readable 'Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide' has been published by Business Link West Midlands
It is available in hardcopy from Business Link West Midlands and downloadable as a free eBook in PDF format below.
This creative business guide was written by David Parrish, author of the book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity'.
The 48 page publication covers a range of issues relevant to enterprises in the creative, cultural and digital sectors.
Sections include: - Strategic Planning - Understanding your Customers - Profiting from your Ideas - Organisational Structures - People and Skills - Promoting your Products / Services - Financial Management - Legal and other issues - Links to useful organisations and resources for creative enterprises
There are also four case studies featuring creative enterprises from the West Midlands region: 383 Project, Stan's Cafe, Gas Street Works, and Capsule.
Similar creative business guides can be written for other organisations in the creative, cultural and digital sectors. Contact David Parrish to discuss options and possibilities for your own version of this creative industries guide.
Thanks to Danielly Netto from Newcastle University Business School, who's researching business models in the creative industries, for including this viral video in her presentation.
This is a video from artist BLU showing the awesome MUTO 'animated graffiti' work in Buenos Aires.
Published on the internet using a Creative Commons licence, it's already had about 3,000,000 views on YouTube so far and received nearly10,000 comments.
The business model used has been categorised as 'Findability/Creative Investment'. In other words, the creator gives something away for free in order to reap financial benefits by other means. It's one of the 3 (or 14) Kinds of Free.
I often advise creative entrepreneurs who have innovative products or services. Sometimes it's a completely new idea and they are planning to open up a new market for it.
Someone asked me whether I'm ever tempted to 'steal' the ideas people tell me about when I'm advising them. My answer was firmly No, for two reasons - more later.
My job as an adviser is to ask questions, including tough ones, to help entrepreneurs make their creative businesses even more successful. One question that goes straight to the heart of business strategy is this: "If you are successful in developing your new product or service, and open up a lucrative market for it, what is to stop other businesses (perhaps bigger businesses with more resources and power than you) following you into the marketplace and taking most of the profits?" It's a killer question that sometimes people cannot answer.
Sometimes the truth is that there is nothing at all to stop others joining the party once all the hard work has been done. In this case I fear for the business concerned. I tell them that they may end up penniless after opening up new frontiers - they may become a 'Poor Pioneer'.
Creative people take pride in being 'groundbreaking'. But breaking the ground for others to make all the profit is not so smart!
In other cases the entrepreneur's answer is that other businesses cannot enter the market and take the profits, because they have created some sort of 'barrier to entry' to prevent others joining the party. In creative enterprises the barrier to entry is often some kind of intellectual property such as a patent or copyright-protected work. In this case copycats cannot easily follow them into the marketplace with 'me-too' products or services.
Intellectual Property Rights are the creative entrepreneur's defence against commercial predators.
Which takes me back to the question of why I don't copy my clients' ideas and set up a rival business. The first answer is that it would be unethical to do so and I have a reputation to protect. However the second answer is more pertinent and more powerful; it is in two parts: 1. I don't want to steal something that in turn can be stolen from me. In other words, if there isn't a barrier to entry for me, then there isn't a barrier to entry for further competitors. I too could end up being a Poor Pioneer. 2. The business initiatives I really do envy are those that do have barriers to entry, that have some kind of monopoly rights for the owner to exploit alone. But of course these are the very ones that I cannot steal!
So I either (1) don't want to, or (2) cannot set up as a competitor to my client after hearing about their new business initiative. I'm still ethical, of course, but that's not really relevant here.
The most successful creative enterprises are capable of both (a) developing new products or services and (b) using intellectual property rights to protect their position against competitors so they can enjoy the fruits of their creativity without 'new entrants' stealing market share.
So don't be a Poor Pioneer, looking back bitterly on all the creative work you did, only to find that other people made all the money from it. Use intellectual property rights in partnership with your creativity, to devise a successful business model.
Artist Ken Walters sells his work in the virtual world Second Life, as well as in real life to galleries, individuals and companies.
I met Ken when he attended one of my training workshops for creative people in business and I was fascinated by his personal story as well as his artwork. A feature in The Guardian tells how a stroke made him into an artist, giving him another kind of 'second life' after previously working as an engineer, without any kind of artistic training. He now runs a successful creative business from his home in the North of England.
He has combined his new talents as an artist with a marketing strategy which includes a variety of online and virtual media including Second Life. Ken also publicises his work through social networking sites and has published images in the "T-Shirts and Suits (Creativity and Business)" international group for creative people in business within Facebook.
His income is derived from direct sales and through the licensing of his intellectual property. Global corporation EA Games were impressed with his work and commissioned him to design 100 digital dinosaurs for a new educational game called Spore. Ken retains ownership of the copyright in the designs and gets a cut of merchandise sales as part of the licensing agreement. In this way he is developing additional income streams as a Creative Entrepreneur.
Ken Walters can be contacted by email (mail@kwdag.biz) and his website address is http://www.kwdag.biz/. His character name in Second Life is Blunt Fhang.
The 14 business models which involve giving things away free include: 'Sell Physical Complements', 'Advertise Yourself', 'Sell Information Complements', 'Site Licences', 'Sell Other Things', 'Sell Personalised Versions' and 'Ransom'.
Another blog post by Chris Anderson is about The Three Kinds of Free, ie (1) 'Cross Subsidy', where giving away one thing leads to sales of another, (2) 'Third-Party Subsidy', where advertisers, for example, pay for free content and (3) the 'Freemium' business model, where the vast majority of consumers get the product for free and a small percentage pay a premium for some kind of enhancement which subsidises free distribution to the majority. "In this model, charging a small percentage of a large user base beats charging a large percentage of a small user base", Chris Anderson says.
There are plenty of good reasons to give things away for free - including making more money. The decision to publish my book 'T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity' as a free eBook was based on the same kind of thinking as the business models described above.
Read also 'Give it away free' which includes example of how creative enterprises in Brazil and China have given things away free for smart business reasons.
Congratulations to one of my client creative businesses, Sparkle Media on their successful projects in Australia !
The visual effects and animation company has recently worked in Australia with Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes, producing video footage for the multimedia theatrical performance Minutes of a Separation.
Sparkle Media also worked for Reebok whilst in Australia on an 'advanced fitness' website project.
It's a pleasure to work with creative entrepreneurs like Glenn Maguire and Andy Cooper, who are the company's directors. Over the several months I have been involved in their business growth, I have been able to advise them on matters such marketing, intellectual property and enterprise development.
Sparke Director Glenn Maguire said: "Since attending David's workshop and then engaging him as an adviser, Sparkle Media has gone from strength to strength. The company now operates on a global level, going head to head with world wide agencies - and beating them. We've never looked back and have a lot to thank David for."
Working internationally from their base in Liverpool, Sparkle has worked closely with creative industries support agency Merseyside ACME.
