Kenny Barr is a CREATe/AHRC Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) Research Associate who has been involved at the CREATe research centre throughout its 10-year history as a doctoral and postdoctoral researcher. His current research is part of the PEC ‘Intellectual Property, Business Models, Access to Finance and Content Regulation’ work-strand based at CREATe. These roles have been combined with a number of other research projects at Glasgow and beyond.

Most recently in 2021, working as a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, Kenny contributed to research commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) investigating aspects of Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Era. This work resulted in the publication of two reports in September 2021 on creators’ earnings from music streaming and buyout contracts in the AV sector.

Between 2017 and 2020, Kenny was a postdoctoral Research Associate on a 3-year ESPRC-funded project at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CCPR), University of Glasgow. Television Production in Transition, interrogated the effects of growing power of transnational media companies in the context of UK television production sector. In 2016 he completed his PhD examining Music Copyright in the Digital Age at Glasgow. This doctoral research across Music and Law was funded by the prestigious interdisciplinary Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Scholarship.

These doctoral and postdoctoral research experiences at Glasgow are characterised by a significant degree of cross-college and inter-school engagement and collaboration. This will be further enhanced as part of the ‘Creative Economies & Cultural Transformation’ theme at the new Advanced Research Centre (ARC) facility opening in 2022. In collaboration with colleagues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds including, Cultural Policy, Competition Law, and IP Law, Kenny has been active in drafting submissions of evidence and responses to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) inquiries into: The Future of Public Service Broadcasting, The Economics of Music Streaming and, most recently, The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Music and Streaming Market Study Statement of Scope.

Kenny has taught and supervised on PGT programmes in: Creative Industries and Cultural Policy, Media Management, and Popular Music Studies. In addition to this he was a member of the SCCA Athena Swan Committee, latterly the SCCA EDI Committee, and he is also a member of the Copyright Evidence Wiki editorial board. Prior to embarking on these academic undertakings, Kenny worked in the live music sector as a tour manager in the UK and Europe.

My research interests are principally located in the cultural industries, with a particular focus on the music industries and television production sectors in the digital era. Much of my work focuses on better understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by the digitalisation of production, dissemination and consumption of music and TV content.  The extent to which ownership and control of copyright shapes commercial and creative decision-making at all levels of these industries is a central thread that runs through my research. Of particular interest are the activities of primary creators and micro-enterprises operating on the margins industries that are increasingly dominated by integrated, transnational corporate rightsholders and digital platforms.

My current research is part of the AHRC Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) ‘Intellectual Property, Business Models, Access to Finance and Content Regulation’ work-strand based at CREATe. Central to this work is investigating the role of ‘codes of practice’, in respect of control of IP rights, might play in fostering a competitive and diverse independent screen production sector in the subscription video on demand (SVoD) era. This PEC work complements recent research commissioned by the IPO examining so-called ‘buyout’ contracts said to be increasingly pervasive in original music commissions for screen.

List by: Type | Date

• University of Glasgow Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith PhD Scholarship 2011-2015: ‘Music Copyright in the Digital Age’

Selected conference papers

‘Is Forever Longer Than Always?’ Life of Copyright Contracts in the UK Recording Industry’, MU History Conference, Glasgow, UK, 14th-15th January 2016

‘Going for a Song: Theory and Practice of Contracts in Music Publishing’ (co-authored with Professor Ruth Towse) SERCI Conference, Glasgow, UK, 2nd-4th September 2015

‘The Gift that Keeps Giving’: Copyright and Gift in the Digital Music Economy, IASPM 18th Biennial Conference, Campinas: Brazil, 29th June-3rd July 2015

‘Take it or leave it!’: Copyright, Creators and Commercial Decision-Making, IASPM Benelux 30th Anniversary Conference: Rotterdam, Netherlands, 6th-7th November 2014

Musicians and Copyright: A Digital Crisis?, IASPM 17th Biennial Conference: Gijon, Spain, 24th-28th June 2013

‘Just Got Paid’: Copyright’s Division of Musical Labour in the Digital Age, IASPM Canada Conference: Hamilton, Canada, 23rd-26th May 2013

Other publications

Barr, K. (2013) ‘Theorizing Music Streaming: Preliminary Investigations’, Scottish Music Review, Vol.3. http://www.scottishmusicreview.org/index.php/SMR/article/view/40

Barr, K. (2015) ‘PRS for Music Festival and Concert Tariff Review’, livemusicexchange.org, available at: http://livemusicexchange.org/blog/prsfor-music-festival-and-concert-tariff-review-kenny-barr/

Article Under Review

Barr, K. & Towse, R. (forthcoming) ‘For the Sake of the Song: Writer Contracts in the Contemporary UK Music Publishing Industry’

Contributing Author
Kretschmer, M. and Singh, S. (eds.) (2014) Creative Industries Hopes and Fears / September 2014, CREATe

copyrightuser.org (2017) ‘Going for a Song’, available at: http://copyrightuser.org/going-for-a-song/

Book Reviews

Barr, K. (2013) Review of Stahl, M. (2012) 'Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work' in Popular Music, 32, pp. 527-529.

Barr, K. (2013) Review of Inglis, I. (2013) 'Popular Music and Television in Britain' in Popular Music, 32, pp. 139-141.

Barr, K. (2012) Review of McLeod, K. and Kuenzli, R. (2011) 'Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage and Copyright Law' in Popular Music, 31, pp. 301-303.