Since Dr. Dimmick participated in the June 2007 Delphi survey on the future of the creative content industry that the European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network conducted on behalf of the European Commission, we can see the results of the study.
The Delphi report as well as additional analytical reports from the project website.
are available to be downloaded from here:
http://epis.jrc.es/Pages/deliverables.htmlHere is what the survey is about from their own Executive Report:
In a nutshell the Delphi survey revealed a number of topics where experts have no consensus
about the likely development. They will serve as an input to the subsequent scenario development. Among these issues are
• Intellectual property rights (IPR), the relevance of current IPR concept under changing
conditions, new ways to protect IPR and the issue of technical protection means like DRM
systems.
• The structure of the Creative Content Sector is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation process. Of particular importance is the question how new, innovative enterprises that experts regard as the drivers of technological and business changes can be
supported in an environment that is currently dominated by a few globally active corporations.
• An open issue is the likely development and importance of virtual worlds (like second life)
and multiplayer online-games (like World of Warcraft).
The central result is the identification of five theses with a high relevance in all considered
dimensions (economic, techno-scientific, society, quality of life). These theses include:
• Most users are able to transmit and receive large amounts of media data (e.g. streaming
of high definition TV) from the Internet even at peak times of the day without recognizable
delay. The fact that this thesis is also considered to become reality quite soon (in 2014)
underlines the outstanding importance of widespread availability of a true broadband
infrastructure with seamless and universal access for all.
• Content creation for educational purposes (e-learning) reaches a 20% share of the entire
creative content market in Europe.
• Most media (including instructional software) used in education can be copied and redistributed without payment. Though judged as very relevant, there is a controversy if educational applications can profit from the ongoing transformation in the desired way because of the dominance of economic factors in the CC sector. In this respect this could be one of the priorities for future policy measures.
• A seamless exchange of audio-visual contents between mobile devices and personal
computers (regardless of the manufacturer) is routine. Interoperability and seamless
gateways are central requirements for universal and ubiquitous access, which is an often
unuttered assumption for the future success of media.
• Most media suppliers earn money by distributing content over the Internet even without
using Digital Rights Management. This thesis’ assessment is another evidence for the
central role of IPR and its protection (see above).
