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SAC8013 : Creative Industries, Policy, Intellectual Property and AI

  • Offered for Year: 2026/27
  • Module Leader(s):  Dr Adam Behr, Dr Weizheng Zhang
  • Owning School: Arts & Cultures
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 1 Credit Value: 20
Semester 2 Credit Value: 0
ECTS Credits: 10

Aims

'Policy, Intellectual Property and AI' explores the regulatory, political and industrial frameworks that underpin the production, dissemination, and management of creative and cultural outputs across the diverse industries and concerns within the creative and cultural sectors. It equips students with the critical and conceptual tools to assess how creative work is treated as property, how creative and cultural sectors are governed and funded, the priorities and tensions within cultural policy, and how regulation responds to evolving technological landscapes such as AI.

Drawing on leading academic research, industry reports and policy documentation, the module develops a deep understanding of the global, national, and sector-specific forces shaping IP and cultural policy across industries such as music, publishing, visual arts, gaming, fashion and film. Students will learn to critically evaluate research evidence and data sources to assess their relevance and implications for cultural and creative industries policy.

The module aims to enhance students' critical and professional capacities to engage with current and future developments around intellectual property, creative policy, and technology in the cultural and creative sector, including the examination of different forms of data and their relationship to historical trends and current challenges.

Outline Of Syllabus

Topics covered include:

  • Intellectual Property across creative industries: Historical developments and foundational concepts
  • Global IP frameworks and sector-specific differences: e.g. copyright, trademark, design rights, and other protections
  • The political economy of IP and creative labour: Ownership, the public domain, and industry dynamics
  • Evaluating evidence in cultural and creative policy: understanding how claims are used, supported and contested
  • Reading and interpreting data: Approaches to analysing cultural data sources and their limitations
  • Organisational infrastructures of IP: The role of collection societies, guilds, and intermediaries
  • Policy and regulatory responses to AI in creative production
  • Platformisation and the governance of IP: Streaming services, social media, and digital marketplaces
  • Technological shifts in cultural production: From mechanical reproduction to AI-generated content
  • Generative AI and evolving notions of authorship and originality
  • The implications of technological changes (from mechanical, to digital, to AI) for labour, licensing, and value creation
  • The datafication of culture: The role of metadata, rights tracking, AI-driven recommendation systems, and algorithmic curation
  • Case studies in creative reuse and the challenges to policymaking and regulation (e.g. sampling, remix, and adaptation across different industries)

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
Category Activity Number Length Student Hours Comment
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities Lecture 9 1:00 9:00 Present in person large group teaching
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities Workshops 2 2:00 4:00 Present in person large group teaching
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities Small group teaching 9 1:00 9:00 Present in person seminars
Scheduled Learning And Teaching Activities Drop-in/surgery 5 2:00 10:00 N/A
Guided Independent Study Distance Learning Advance Preparation 11 3:00 33:00 Online preparation materials
Guided Independent Study Assessment preparation and completion 1 70:00 70:00 Preparation and completion of assessment
Guided Independent Study Independent study 1 65:00 65:00 Reading and research
Total 200  
Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Asynchronous materials, alongside tailored readings, serve as an introduction to each session topic, providing a foundation for both overarching and specific topics (K1, K2, K3, K4). These are contextualised at a series of present-in-person lectures, where academic and practical aspects of the topics are developed, including work on the evaluation of evidence relevant to IP and the policy sphere (S1, S2).

In-person seminars are used to further explore specific examples from the preparatory and lecture materials, with an emphasis on assessing potential responses to industry debates (K4) and reflecting on their cultural and political variety (K2). Small group sessions also allow for exploring different socio-cultural contexts and experiences of consumption and business practice related to IP, and foster a collaborative consideration of how contexts affect creative work and policy responses to it (K3, K4).

The opening session-blocks focus on providing an organisational and conceptual framework for IP as a source of value, and its relationship to the public sphere and policy contexts (S1). The workshop series develops these to provide foundational material on data sources and forms of evidence (S2, S3). Subsequent sessions develop case-studies provided on the VLE (K2, K3, K4) that fit into this context providing further examples that work to unpack historical, present-day and future-facing trends in IP's relationship to policy, industry and society (K3, K4).

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment
Description Semester When Set Percentage Comment
Report 1 1 A 100 3,500 word report on an IP-related case-study, developing the outline, and marshalling evidence, in the 'case-study' into a substantive discussion suitable for an academic, policy, or industry audience.
Formative Assessment
Description When Set Comment
Oral Presentation 1 M Presentation outlining key debates relating to sectoral case studies (including those provided on VLE) and relevant evidence sources related to IP/AI challenges and policy ramifications.
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The formative assessment encourages students to engage with a range of case-studies and explore their various relationships to the industrial and policy frameworks set-out in lectures, preparatory materials and seminars (S1, S2). It facilitates this by structured provision on the VLE of different examples for students to examine and choose from.

The oral format is geared towards fostering participation from students from a range of geographical (and social) backgrounds, allowing them to develop their ideas – and receive feedback and feed-forward in preparation for the related written submission (S1, S3).

Summative Assessment (100%): The written report allows for a degree of flexibility in presentational style to support different cultural and academic backgrounds while developing capacity in professional communication (K4, S3). It builds on the case-study chosen for the formative assessment, developing the initial discussion into a more systematic, analytical and in-depth response to the topic while maintaining continuity of key ideas from the formative work.

Timetable