Economies of the Commons
Final Program
Strategies for Sustainable Access and
Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online
Amsterdam & Hilversum 10, 11 & 12 April 2008
International Working Conference & Public Evening Programs
De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam, April 11 & 12,
2008
Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, April 10,
2008
www.ecommons.eu
TICKETS:
passepartout: 25 euro (incl. evening programs)
dayticket: 15 euro
evening programs: 5 euro
Information how to order a passepartout (via De Balie), or register
for the seminar (almost booked out):
www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?&articleid=215589
-----------
About Economies of the Common:
A wide range of actors around the globe is currently involved in the
creation of unprecedentedly rich and invaluable audiovisual cultural
and knowledge resources on the internet. These range from national
audiovisual archives, broadcasters, professional cultural producers
and institutions to civic and p2p file sharing initiatives.
De Balie in Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and
Vision in Hilversum, in collaboration with Knowledgeland, Images for
the Future, and Virtual Platform, organise a two-day international
public working conference on the economies, sustainability, and
opportunities for creative reuse of these public audiovisual resources
and archives.
While the level of activity and investment in this area is enormous,
the question of the longer-term sustainability of these audiovisual
resources remains wide open. Continued massive public investment is
one obvious solution, with equally obvious drawbacks. The conference
intends to question which alternative economic models exist, or could
be developed that can sustain invaluable public resources.
Paradoxically, we may have to ask: What is a sustainable business
model for the digital commons?
The Economies of the Commons conference will focus on three core
issues: strategies for sustainability, new modes of value creation,
and the potentials for creative reuse around the digital commons.
Our main questions are:
- What kind of strategies are available to facilitate the growth of
these emerging public knowledge resources, and guarantee their longer-
term sustainability?
- How is value created around the emerging digital commons, and how
can this value be capitalised on for the public good?
- How can these resources be activated as a creative productive force
for contemporary culture, and how can the reuse of these enormously
rich resources be facilitated and stimulated?
-----------
Legal seminar on audiovisual archives and Intellectual Property Rights
Location: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum
Thursday April 10, 2008 - 10.00 - 17.00 hrs
Subject
Legal issues on digitisation and reuse of audiovisual content. The
legal seminar includes two workshops on orphan works and clearing
rights, and secondly on archives and open content publishing.
Speakers: Hubert Best (Best&Soames / FOCAL), M.H. Elferink (Utrecht
University), Herkko Hietanen (Turre Legal), Mieke Lauwens (Netherlands
Inst. for Sound and Vision), Meike Richter (Journalist, Hamburg)
Sebastian Lütgert (Open content activist, Berlin).
9:00 Doors open
9:30 Welcome (Sem Bakker)
Lectures:
9:45 – 10:15 Lecture: Hubert Best
10:15 – 10:45 Lecture: Mirjam Elferink
10:45 – 11:15 Coffee break
11:15 – 11:45 Lecture: Herkko Hietanen
11:45 – 12:15 Lecture: Sebastian Lütgert
12:15 – 13:15 Lunch break
13:15 – 13:35 Lecture: Meike Richter
13:35 – 13:55 Lecture: Mieke Lauwers
14:00 – 16:15 Workshops:
* The problem of orphan works and clearing
rights
* Archives and open content licensing
16:15 Closing & drinks
-----------
Economies of the Commons Conference: Day I
Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam
Friday April 11, 2008 - 10 - 18.00 hrs
10.00: Opening and Welcome
10.30: Conference Keynote:
Peter Kaufman: The Economics of Film and Video Distribution in the
Digital Age
11.30: Panel 1: Audiovisual Archives
Audiovisual archives are at the beginning of a profound change in the
way that they have traditionally operated for the last fifty years.
This change is primarily the result of two key developments: [1]
Digitisation of analogue material becoming an integral part of the
working processes; and [2] New online services that emerge, such as
video on demand and online repositories for education.
Speakers:
Pelle Snickars (SLBA), Poppy Simpson (BFI Screenonline), Tobias
Golodnoff (Dansk Culturarv), Roei Amit (INA).
13.00: Lunch break
14.00: Panel 2: Commons-based Peer Production
The digital world of internet is increasingly conceptualised as an
expanding universe of content that not just sits there to be looked
at, but that also can be re-used to create even more content. Much
research has already been devoted to user-generated content and the
processes through which that content is produced. But what are the
economies of peer production? How do new developments compare to firm
production and market-based production?
Speakers:
Felix Stalder (Open Flows), Jamie King (Steal This Film), Jon Phillips
(Creative Commons), Sebastian Lütgert (oil21.org)
Moderator: Paul Keller (Kennisland)
15.30 Coffee break
15.45: Panel 3: European Digital Library
Individual efforts cannot meet the overarching requirements leading to
ubiquitous access on a pan-European scale and do not accumulate to the
critical mass needed to steer the research and development roadmap
advocated by the industry. This gap is acknowledged by policy makers.
Now European and national governments need to take responsibility to
close the gap.
Speakers:
Paul Doorenbosch (KB - National Library of The Netherlands), Jill
Cousins (Director European Digital Library), Sonja de Leeuw (Utrecht
University/ case: Video Active), Georg Eckes (Deutsches Filminstitut /
case: European Film Gateway)
17.15: Wrap up first conference day
-----------
Public Keynotes & Responses
Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam
Friday April 11, 2008 - 20.30 - 22.30
Sustainable Images for the Future
Introduction
The Friday night of the Economies of the Commons conference is
dedicated to Images for the Future and the Commons. Edwin van Huis
(Director General of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision)
will provide the introduction about the largest digitisation project
in the Netherlands, Images for the Future.
Public Keynotes:
Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Archives): The Audiovisual Commons and the
Social Contract
Rick Prelinger will focus on the future of archives demonstrated by
the case of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 48.000 films of
which a central selection has been added to the Library of Congress.
David Bollier (On the Commons): The Commons as a New Sector of Value-
creation
David Bolier speaks on the subject of value creation in open networks
and how to link the Commons with government and industry.
Debate
We end the session with a panel discussion with the speakers, joined
by Emjay Rechsteiner of the Dutch Filmmuseum about the Commons and
Dutch audiovisual archives.
Moderator: Joeri van den Steenhoven (Chairman Knowledgeland Foundation)
This evening program is presented in association with Images for the
Future.
-----------
Economies of the Commons Conference: Day II
Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam
Saturday April 12, 2008 - 11 - 18.00 hrs
11.00: Panel 4: Uncommon Business Models
This panel will take on the subject of open business models. The
workshop will be kicked off by two experts from related media
industries that are arguably ahead of the curve.
Speakers:
Jan Velterop, CEO of Knewco and one of the leading experts on Open
Access will give us an insight in the deployment of open business
models in scientific publishing. Over the past couple of years Open
Access has been able to provide a valid and sustainable alternative in
this 7 billion dollar industry.
Jonas Woost, Head of Music at the pioneering music company Lastfm will
pick up from there. In his presentation he will highlight how his
company has successfully generated income streams in an industry that
has shown to be particularly vulnerable in the open environment of the
internet.
Followed by a panel discussion with: Peter Kaufman (Intelligent
Television), Roei Amit (INA), Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Archives) and
Eerde Hovinga (NIBG-tbc).
Moderator: Harry Verwayen (Kennisland)
12.30: Lunch Break
13.30: Panel 5: Intangible Heritage Resources in the (Non-)Western World
In our age of increasing global connectivity, cultural mobility and
digital reproduction, intangible heritage is increasingly being
appreciated, appropriated and exploited. Traditional music styles from
various parts of the world have enchanted numerous musicians, scholars
and admirers all over the world. Still, the preservation and
transmission of intangible heritage faces an abundance of challenges
and difficulties.
Speakers:
Joost Smiers (Prof. em. Political Science of the Arts), Shubha
Chaudhuri (ARCE), Anthony McCann (University of Ulster), Wim van
Zanten (ICTM)
15.00: Coffee Break
15.15: Panel 6: Professional Cultural Producers
This panel addresses the public content zone beyond that of user-
generated-content: the possibilities and problems related to making
professionally produced cultural productions publicly available on the
internet. What kind of revenue models exist for that? How is the
public interest in accessibility squared with the need of
professionals to make a living? What new and alternative distribution
models emerge for professional cultural producers and cultural
institutions?
Speakers:
Florian Schneider (Kein.tv), Kenneth Goldsmith (Ubuweb), Bauke
Freiburg (Fabchannel / Culture Player), Chai Locher (NFTVM), Rick
Prelinger (Prelinger Archives).
Moderator: Eric Kluitenberg
16.45: Coffee Break
17.00: Report from the Legal Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights
Report session of the most important results from the workshop on
orphan works & clearing rights, the workshop on open content
licensing, and the closing debate of the legal seminar on Thursday
April 10.
17.30: Closing Session / Conference wrap up
-----------
Mashup Cinema
Location: De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam
Saturday April 12, 2008 - 21.00 - 00.00
Found footage and the digital commons
Public screening, live cinema & performance program
Found Footage has always been an important source of inspiration for
experimental filmmakers. The use of 'found images' is not just
affordable, it is mostly employed to attach a different meaning
through a new composition of images to existing icons. With materials
found on the floor, in the waste baskets of montage rooms, or in a
dust bin outside the studio, filmmakers are conveying messages, which
besides being pretentious or at times politically charged, can also
simply be funny.
During this special evening about reuse of digital and analogue images
you can expect a presentation by the internet's most renown film
archivist Rick Prelinger. He will present a selection from his
monumental archive of 'sponsored' and 'ephemeral' films about media
publics and media producers from the 1930s to the 1960s, which can be
read as a historical commentary on our contemporary digital media
culture.
Next to this a short-film program has been put together with films
that attach a new meaning to existing analogue film materials.
These screenings are interspersed with short music and sound
performances in which music fragments are mixed live, sampled from
digital remix projects such as ccMixter and Freesound, and historical
sound samples presented by Kenneth Goldsmith (Ubuweb)
Films:
Outer Space
Peter Tscherkassky 10’
Suggesting a convulsive hall of mirrors, Peter Tscherkassky's
widescreen tour de force Outer Space reinvents a 1981 Barbara Hershey
horror vehicle, leaving the original's crystalline surface intact only
to violently shatter its narrative illusion.
L’Arrivée
Peter Tscherkassky 2’
L'Arrivée is Tscherkassky's second homage to the Lumiére-brothers.
First you see the arrival of the film itself, which shows the arrival
of a train at a station. But that train collides with a second train,
causing a violent crash, which leads us to an unexpected third
arrival, the arrival of a beautiful woman – the happy-end.
Light is Calling
Bill Morisson 8’
A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to
Michael Gordon’s 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting
nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an
film.
Beirut Outtakes
Peggy Ahwesh 8’
The cellars of a traditional cinema in the entertainment district of
Beirut are opened after years of being hermetically sealed. Peggy
Awash constructed a veritable time machine out of the film materials
found there, with a spoken montage of old Lebanese drama and western
action movies.
Gravity
Nicholas Provost 6’
The reassuring world of multiplied cinematographic kisses is shattered
by a stroboscopic effect that plunges and looses us into the dizzying
vertigo of the embrace where, as often in Provost’s cinema, love
becomes a passionate battle in which monsters are finally unmasked.
Bitches Brew
Heidrun Holzfeind 11’
Sampled from mostly male directed movies from the 60s to today, the
video shows women who take back control and power, fight off their
attackers or take revenge on their assailants. A man’s nightmare!
The Mashup Cinema program is presented in association with balie cinema
-----------
LOCATIONS:
De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
Amsterdam
www.debalie.nl
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
Sumatralaan 45
Mediapark
Hilversum
www.beeldengeluid.nl
Conference website and dossier with suggested reading materials:
www.ecommons.eu
______________________________________________
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
