Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce

Caves, Richard E.

ISBN 10: 0674008081 / ISBN 13: 9780674008083

Published by Harvard University Press, 2002

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0674008081I3N00

Synopsis:

This text explores the organisation of creative industries, including the visual and performing arts, movies, theatre, sound recordings, and book publishing. In each, artistic inputs are combined with other, "hundrum" inputs. But the deals that bring these inputs together are inherently problematic artists have a strong views; the muse whispers erratically, and consumer approval remains highly uncertain until all costs have been incurred. To assemble, distribute, and store creative products, business firms are organised, some employing creative personnel on long-term contracts, others dealing with them as outside contractors; agents emerge as intermediaries, negotiating contracts and matching creative talents with employers. Firms in creative industries are either small-scale pickers that concentrate on the selection and development of new creative talents or large-scale promoters that undertake the packaging and widespread distribution of established creative goods. In some activities, such as the performing arts, creative ventures facing high fixed costs turn to non-profit firms. To explain the logic of these arrangements, the author draws on the analytical resources of industrial economics and the theory of contracts. He addresses the winner-take-all character of many creative activities that brings wealth and renown to some artists while dooming others to frustration; why the "option" form of contract is so prevalent; and why even savvy producers get sucked into making "ten-ton turkeys" such as "Heaven's Gate". However different their superficial organisation and aesthetic properties, whether high or low in cultural ranking, creative industries share the same underlying organisational logic.

About the Author: Richard E. Caves is Nathaniel Ropes Research Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art ...
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 2002
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket