<videovortex> Economies of the Commons: Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online - Conference announcement

[Johan Oomen]

*Apologies for cross postings and duplication*

FIRST GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Economies of the Commons: Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online

International Working Conference
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

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?

These questions will be related to current projects, such as Images of 
the Future (the largest digitisation project of audiovisual heritage 
in the Netherlands), P2P Fusion (European research project on audio 
and video sharing), BBC Creative Archives, Prelinger Archives, 
Smithsonian Global Sound and UbuWeb.

The conference brings together a highly international group of 
specialists, including Peter Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Rick 
Prelinger (prelinger Archives), Roei Amit (INA), Kenneth Goldsmith 
(UbuWeb), Anthony McCann (Hallam University), Hubert Best (Best & 
Soames / FOCAL), Lucy Guibault (University of Amsterdam), Florian 
Schneider (Kein.tv) and many others. Economies of the Commons creates 
spaces of discussion in which perspectives of mainstream audiovisual 
archives are mixed with those of market players as well as public 
domain and non-legal exchange networks (p2p). The program comprises a 
variety of formats, such as public keynote lectures, interdisciplinary 
workshops for the exchange of ideas, experiences and the formulation 
of strategies, as well as targeted seminars addressing very specific 
problems relevant to specialists, cultural and media producers, policy 
makers, and decision makers in public and private organisations.

The Economies of the Commons conference addresses a range of target 
groups that do not regularly meet each other. These include: 
(broadcast) media professionals, representatives from cultural 
heritage organisations, internet entrepreneurs, ethnomusicologists, 
musicians and representatives of the music industry, media activists, 
researchers in the domains of internet law, economy, information 
science, p2p file sharing activists, policy makers, and professionals 
from the field of art and culture.

Special public evening programs will introduce the topics of the 
conference to a wider audience and present best practice examples.

A one-day seminar at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in 
Hilversum, on Intellectual Property Rights issues in the digital 
audiovisual domain, precedes the conference on Thursday April 10, the 
results of which will feed into the conference program.

A web dossier has been set up that provides further information on the 
conference program and side events, program updates, and information 
on speakers and highlighted case studies, as well as general 
background and research materials. This dossier can be found at:
www.ecommons.eu

Enquiries about the conference program and registration can be 
directed at:

Eric Kluitenberg
De Balie
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam
www.debalie.nl
e-mail: erick at balie.nl

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