OECD Work on Digital Content

OECD Working Party on the Information Economy (www.oecd.org/sti/digitalcontent)
Work Plan on Digital Broadband Content

OECD Policy Guidance for Digital Content

The OECD’s Working Party on the Information Economy (WPIE) is undertaking analysis of the digital delivery of content. This work recognises that the rapid development of high-quality "always on" broadband Internet services is transforming high-growth industries that provide or have the potential to provide digital content.

Specifically, this work includes stocktaking studies in the following five areas: scientific publishing, music, on-line computer games, mobile content, user-created content, Digital Content and the Evolution of the Film and Video Industries and public sector information and content.

Work focuses on the changing value chain of these content industries, the development of new business models for digital content (generation of new revenue streams), drivers and barriers to growth, sectoral transformation and changing market structures, and their impacts on growth and employment. The studies are designed to identify analytical, policy and measurement issues.

As part of this work the OECD has published a study on Digital Content Strategies and Policies  which identifies and discusses a cluster of six business and public policy challenges. Pointers to future work in the area of digital content can be found in the summary of main issues raised during the Future Digital Economy: Digital Conent Creation, Distribution and Access.

Ongoing work

• OECD Information Technology Outlook 2008. Chapter 5 (“Digital Content in Transition”) focuses on user-created content, a set of creative industries (online computer and video games, film and video and music) and online advertising. It builds on OECD studies on the digital content sector and the results of the “OECD-Canada Technology Foresight Forum on the Participative Web: Strategies and Policies for the Future”.
• OECD-Canada Technology Foresight Forum on the Participative Web: Strategies and Policies for the Future. This first international policy forum on the participative web brought together experts from around the world to address related questions on 3 October 2007 in Ottawa, Canada.
• OECD Workshop on Access to Public Sector Information and Content. The OECD held a workshop on increasing the access to public sector information (PSI, e.g., geographical and meteorological data, libraries, archives, museums). The public sector is a large producer of content with major potential for digitisation and new commercial and non-commercial applications and value-added services. A summary of this workshop is available here.
• In September 2006 the OECD held a workshop on Online Audiovisual Services, Film and Video:  Issues for Achieving Growth and Policy Objectives. A summary of the workshop can be found here.
• A conference on the Future Digital Economy: Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access, jointly organised by the OECD and the Italian Minister for Innovation and Technologies, took place in Rome on 30-31 January 2006. The conclusions of the conference are available here.
• The OECD held a Roundtable on Communications Convergence, co-hosted by the UK OFCOM (Office of Communications) and UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Please click here for the Roundtable website. 
• A one-day workshop on digital broadband content was held on 1 December 2004. The agenda and presentations are available here.
• The WPIE drafted a scoping paper for this project, and an expert panel including business representatives, analysts and government was held on 3 June 2004. The panel agenda and presentations are available here. Results from the OECD’s “Expert Panel on Digital Broadband Content” are available (document in PDF).

For further information on this project, please write to econtent@oecd.org.