Customer Reviews

The Creative Economy: How People Make Money From Ideas

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Overall, I see this book as a documentary treatment, aimed at a general readership. If there is any criticism of this approach, it is that in the attempt to deal inclusively with all creative/IP-related industries, the material frequently traverses already well trodden paths. Some of that material could perhaps have been jettisoned in favour of a more selective and microscopic focus on fewer industries.

Conversely, Howkin's great strength is his journalistic clarity and ability to sustain interest throughout the book without the usual impediment of overt citation disease plaguing other more pretentious and scholarly treatments. This book is ideal reading material for politicians, schoolteachers and captains of industry alike, in helping us to see the industrial world in a different way. In doing this, Howkins must stand equal to other leading popular theorists like Richard Florida, and Charles Landry.

For anyone who is involved in commercial and artistic processes which require IP protection (and obviously this becomes an obligation for those hoping to make a living from such activities) this book provides an essential wake-up call. As Howkins sums it all up on his final page: "a society that stifles or misuses its creative resources, and signs up to the wrong property contract, cannot prosper. But if we understand and manage this new creative economy, individuals will profit and society will be rewarded."

It is hard to disagree with this simple but powerful conclusion.
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