Browsing by Author "Mazziotti, Giuseppe"
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- Can online music platforms be fair? An interdisciplinary research ManifestoPublication . Mazziotti, Giuseppe; Ranaivoson, HeritianaIn this article we present a manifesto for research into the complex interplay between social media, music streaming services, and their algorithms, which are reshaping the European music industry – a sector that has transitioned from ownership to access-based models. Our focus is to assess whether the current digital economy supports a fair and sustainable development for cultural and creative industries. The manifesto is designed to pave the way for a comprehensive analysis. We begin with the context of our research by briefly examining the de-materialisation of the music industry and the critical role of proprietary algorithms in organising and ranking creative works. We then scrutinise the notion of “fairness” within digital markets, a concept that is attracting increasing policy interest in the EU. We believe that, for “fairness” to be effective, the main inquiry around this concept – especially as regards remuneration of music creators – must be necessarily interdisciplinary. This presupposes collaboration across complementary fields to address gaps and inconsistencies in the understanding of how these platforms influence music creation and consumption and whether these environments and technologies should be regulated. We outline how interdisciplinary expertise (political science, law, economics, and computer science) can enhance the current understanding of “fairness” within Europe’s cultural policies and help address policy challenges. The article details how our research plan will unfold across various disciplinary hubs of a Horizon Europe project (Fair MusE) that aims to explore the challenges and opportunities of today’s digital music landscape. The plan culminates in the integration of these hubs’ findings to deliver “key exploitable results”.
- Correction to: can online music platforms be fair? An interdisciplinary research manifesto (IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, (2024), 10.1007/s40319-023-01420-w)Publication . Mazziotti, Giuseppe; Ranaivoson, HeritianaWhen the article was published, the text of a query to the authors from the proof was inadvertently left in the text. The first paragraph of the Conclusion contained the following passage in error: “References Ferraro et al. (2021), Melchiorre et al. (2021), Van Audenhove et al. 2016., Castells et al. (2015), Noble (2018), Bozdag and Van Den Hoven (2015), Htun et al. (2021)., Mehrotra et al. (2018) are cited in text but not provided in the reference list. Please provide references in the list or delete these citations.” The original article has been corrected and the erroneous passage deleted. The Publisher apologises for this mistake.
- Remuneration of content creation in the digital space: challenges, obstacles and a common language to foster economic sustainability and cultural diversityPublication . Mazziotti, GiuseppeWhat is the role of remuneration to ensure diversity of cultural creation at a time when access to knowledge, culture, news and entertainment occurs through a great variety of sources, media, technologies and devices? Diverse cultural expressions in musical, cinematographic and other audiovisual works as well as journalism, photography and video games presuppose economic sustainability, at least when it comes to professionally created works. Content creators would not be able to author new works without relying on adequate economic incentives and rewards. Copyright is the area of law and policy where these incentives and financial rewards have been built, traditionally. However, copyright protection is not, as such, sufficient to guarantee economic sustainability and support to diverse cultural creation. Firstly, copyright has become difficult to enforce and monetize, especially by individual creators, in the context of on-demand streaming services and content-sharing platforms and even more so in decentralised forms of content distribution such as peer to peer networking. Secondly, the rights granted under copyright law and the way these rights are exercised via contract tend to protect more corporate interests than individual creators’ remuneration opportunities. Cultural industries gather as many copyright interests as possible, taking advantage of freedom of contract and of their bargaining positions and market power. In addition to that, as the paper shows, the potential ineffectiveness of copyright for the purpose of guaranteeing remuneration to creators and enhancing cultural diversity is related to how today’s online platforms have been desig ned and to the transition from markets based on permanent acquisition of copies by customers to web-based services giving access to repertoires and/or vast collection of creative works for free (as content-sharing or social media platforms do) or a monthly flat fee basis (as in the case of streaming services). In particular, social media and user-generated content platforms have blurred the distinction between professional and nonprofessional works and have significantly weakened creators’ bargaining power.