Newly emerging business models in the creative industries in the wake of increasing digitalisation

Digitialisation has and continues to transform the value chains and operating modes within the creativeindustries(Betzler & Leuschen, 2020). Despite the fears that digitalisation could endanger creative industries,the cultural economy is connected to the digital economy ever more closely,and facilitating new business models(Ernst & Young, 2016). While some parts of the industry have taken up digitalisation due to external pressure (we call it digital-by-need, e.g., fashion-related SMEs introducing digital pre-orders and remote deliveries), many sub-sections of creative industries are born digital. Among the latter, we also see those that operate in a highly digitalised mode (e.g. gaming industry, influencers, free-sharing platforms, etc.). As the core of every creative enterprise’s product and service is their uniqueness, operating in the digital mode also means that the enterprises need to develop a solid mechanism for protecting their rights (incl. intellectual property rights, IPRs) and the rights of others online.

The main focus of the current study is to provide an overview of emerging new business models in three different sectors of creative industries (influencer economy, circular fashion economy and maker economy). While describing the business models, we are not only interested in how the new business models and their IPR-related concerns differ across the sectors but also in how the business models are related to cultural diversity, namely how they leverage the opportunities for the production, consumption, and preservation of cultural diversity offered by digitalisation in the creative industries. Studying digitalisation across the business models, this subtask focuses on the following leading research question: How does the awareness of IPRs change depending on the relationship between the creator and the product? The study is structured around two research sub-questions:(1)What is the role of IP in shaping the competitive landscape of SMEs in creative industries (RQ1), and (2) How might the linguistic and cultural background influence SMEs’ competitiveness in creative industries (RQ2)?