A law on the development of creative industries will appear in Russia

The State Duma has prepared a draft law “On the development of creative industries,” a source close to the lower house of parliament told Vedomosti. The text of the document has been previously agreed with the presidential administration, says another Vedomosti source. The initiative will be introduced in the near future, its author, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy Denis Kravchenko (United Russia), confirmed to Vedomosti. Among the developers, in addition to deputies of all factions and senators, there were representatives of the creative industries market, who regularly proposed their ideas for discussion from the second half of 2022, he says. It is necessary to describe what the creative industry is, explains Kravchenko, bring it out of the shadows, and “at the next stage, provide support to stimulate the development of this area of ​​the Russian economy.”

The draft law affects areas of creative activity that generate income. The creative industry, in particular, is proposed to be considered “economic activity directly related to the creation, promotion in the domestic and foreign markets, distribution and (or) sale of creative products that have uniqueness and economic value.” Those operating in this market will be considered creative industries. The result of intellectual activity or a set of such results will be considered a “creative product”.

People still have to explain where the line is between different areas of activity, says Kravchenko: “We can consider the example of maestro Denis Matsuev. When he plays in the Philharmonic, this is the sphere of culture. And when a record company invites him to record a disc and sells it in millions of copies, that’s a creative industry.”

The document, as follows from its draft, “establishes the conditions for the activities and state support of creative industries.” Specific measures of state support for subjects of creative industries (legal, economic and organizational nature) are not specified in the draft law; it is noted that they can be carried out by both federal and regional authorities. They will be provided subject to a number of conditions, including:

The authors of the initiative would like to give the main powers to the regions, Kravchenko explains: “And in a couple of years we will look at the best regional practices and, if necessary, add to the law.” The framework nature of this initiative gives a greater degree of freedom to the subjects of the Federation, the opportunity to develop creative industries, which they themselves define as priorities, he notes. The authors of the bill want to set a general framework for state support, and governors interested in this will be able to identify industries that are important to them and place emphasis, says Kravchenko. For example, he says, Kaliningrad has already decided that it will focus on cinematography, and those who make films in the city have tax preferences and benefits: “And cinematographers came to them because the conditions were created there.”

The draft law also assumes that creative clusters will be identified (territories in which real estate objects intended for the activities of creative industries entities are compactly located). “The bill is a framework; it creates the legal foundation for subsequent targeted measures of state support,” says political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk. – Their recipients could be, for example, projects such as the “Kvadrat” art cluster in Ufa or the “Svoboda 2” cluster in Chelyabinsk. The creative economy is of great social importance for single-industry towns as a way to ensure an influx of young people.”

The procedure for forming and maintaining a register of subjects of creative industries will be established by the Russian government. According to one of Vedomosti’s sources, this means that even at the stage of preparing regulatory legal acts, a barrier will be established for inclusion in the register of companies that are not engaged in core activities (for example, if less than half of their revenue comes from creative activities). In addition, the White House will determine the list of property that relates to the infrastructure of the creative industries (it will not be possible to privatize it), determine the procedure for recognizing the territory as a creative cluster, etc. And the body authorized by the government will be able, among other things, to exercise “other powers” ​​in this area, defined Cabinet of Ministers Vedomosti sent a request to the government press service.

According to Kravchenko, the authors discussed that the register would be maintained by the Ministry of Energy, which would also receive authority to work with creative industries. “It’s time for the department to concentrate on areas that are innovative for the Russian economy,” the deputy believes. According to Kravchenko, now individual powers are scattered between different departments, as a result there is no one responsible for completing the task. In the regions, issues that can be attributed to the scope of regulation of the draft law are supervised by different departments, Kravchenko complains: “Somewhere the Ministry of Culture, somewhere the Ministry of Economy, somewhere the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Industry, etc.” “Our task is to systematize this,” he noted. Another Vedomosti source said that the issue of consolidating powers in the Ministry of Energy is still under discussion.

A representative of the Ministry of Energy said that the department has not yet seen the parliamentarians’ bill, but is ready to consider it.

The government and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) were instructed to ensure the introduction of the concepts of “creative economy” and “creative industries” into legislation; President Vladimir Putin gave the definition of a list of creative industries on August 15.

Representatives of federal departments and ASI got involved in the work at a certain stage and we were happy to take into account their systematic proposals, says Kravchenko.

“The bill on the development of the creative economy is long-awaited, thanks to our colleagues from the State Duma that our proposals and adjustments were taken into account during its development. We are ready to continue to work together on the development of by-laws and monitor law enforcement practices,” ASI Director General Svetlana Chupsheva told Vedomosti through a representative. According to her, the methodology, which is currently being developed with the participation of ASI, will make it possible to annually assess these industries and their contribution to the Russian economy. This approach will allow for a controlled increase in the share of creative industries to 6.5% of the country’s GDP by 2030 (currently, according to ASI estimates, this is 4.7%, taking into account the IT industry), she believes.

“Bill <...> should be not so much about regulating the work of the market, but about creating conditions and a legal framework for the work and development of creative industries in Russia,” Sofya Trotsenko, member of the board of the Union of Creative Clusters, founder of the Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, told Vedomosti. The document defines the procedure and form of accounting for subjects of the creative industries: “It is still impossible to correctly assess who the subjects of the industry are and, as a result, to keep a correct account of the share of the creative industry in the economy, and it is also impossible to assess the effect and results of support measures that will [им] determined.”

According to Trotsenko, it is important that the law defines a creative cluster, as well as the criteria that a property complex must meet in order to receive this status. “The main support measures that can contribute to the development of creative clusters in the regions,” the founder of Winzavod lists, “are the availability of special types of permitted use of land plots, a simplified procedure for including cultural heritage objects in creative clusters and their use for the purposes of supporting and developing creative industries, a simplified procedure for changing and agreeing on the functional purpose of objects for creative clusters.”

“Until now, measures to support creative industries have been carried out in a targeted manner: we have talked separately, for example, about animation, IT, music, design, etc.,” says Marina Abramova, president of the Creative Economy ANO. “Now we are uniting all these producers using a single criterion and considering them as a single subject of economic activity.” At the same time, the bill is a framework precisely because its own approaches can then be developed for each specific segment of the creative economy, says Kravchenko.

According to Abramova, at the Russian Creative Week sites “they organized discussions and explained the need for a unified approach to regulating the country’s creative industry.” “And I believe that the introduction of this law is a ideologically important moment for all of us: when economic entities producing intellectual property are identified as a separate type, they are considered as a single industry. <...> For representatives of creative industries, this is recognition of them as different from those entrepreneurs for whom intellectual property is not the main result of their activities,” Abramova said.