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Creative Development: Helping Poor Countries By Building Creative Industries, Mark F. Schultz, Alec Van Gelder

Mark F Schultz

This paper advocates a grass-roots, pragmatic approach to intellectual property and economic development in poor countries that focuses on how copyright and related institutions can support bottom-up growth. Two case studies inform this paper's analysis: The development of the country music industry in Nashville, Tennessee, and the challenges faced by the popular music industry in Africa today.

First, we consider the story of Nashville's development into "Music City, U.S.A." as a hopeful example of how a popular music industry can support economic development. Although an example drawn from one of the world's wealthiest countries may not initially seem relevant, early …