[spectre] Final Program Economies of the Commons Conference, De Balie, Amsterdam April 11 & 12, + legal seminar Inst. for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, April 10

[Eric Kluitenberg]

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