Really cool:
http://lateralaction.com/articles/creative-economy/

Here’s the main nugget I read:
“The creative economy consists of the transactions in creative products.
Each transaction may have two complementary values, the value of the intangible, intellectual property and the value of the physical carrier or platform (if any). In some industries, such as digital software, the intellectual property value is higher. In others, such as art, the unit cost of the physical object is higher.
(John Howkins, The Creative Economy)

So the physical components of a DVD, laptop or Picasso are of trivial value compared to the intellectual property value of the film, design or art they embody. This means that the economic potential of the creative economy is enormous.
While data and knowledge are important resources, the creative economy represents a significant development from the familiar idea of the knowledge economy:
Today’s economy is fundamentally a Creative Economy. I certainly agree with those who say that the advanced nations are shifting to information-based, knowledge-driven economies. Yet I see creativity. as the key driver. In my formulation, ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’ are the tools and materials of creativity. (Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class)
The key difference is that in the creative economy it is not enough to store, process or analyse information – it must be creatively transformed into something new and valuable.
The Creative Industries
John Howkins describes the creative economy as consisting of 15 creative industries, including advertising, architecture, design, film, music, publishing, R & D, television and video games. In 1998 the UK government came up with this definition of the creative industries, when it identified them as critical to the country’s economic future:
[The creative industries are] those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property.
(1998 Creative Industries Mapping Document, UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
One problem with this definition is that it could apply to any industry, since it’s hard to think of an industry that does not rely on creativity, skill and talent; and copyright, trademarks and patents are becoming more prominent in a wide range of industries. According to creative industries expert Chris Bilton the creative industries cannot be divorced from the ‘old economy’ which often provides ‘the labour and the material components’ for ‘the glamorous world of creativity and culture’
(Management and Creativity).

So some writers stress the differences between the creative industries and other industries, while others emphasise their similarities and connections.
A recent report by the Work Foundation shows the creative economy as a series of concentric circles, with creative content producers at the core, surrounded by industries in which creativity plays a less prominent role.

The Creative Class
There are other ways of defining the creative economy.
Richard Florida describes it in terms of the people employed in creative occupations-what he calls the creative class.
The economic need for creativity has registered itself in the rise of a new class, which I call the Creative Class. Some 38 million Americans, 30 percent of all employed people, belong to this new class. I define the core of the Creative Class to include people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content. Around the core, the Creative Class also includes a broader group of creative professionals in business and finance, law, health care and related fields.”