[artinfo] Economies of the Commons 2 - Conference

[Eric Kluitenberg]

Economies of the Commons 2
Paying the costs of making things free

International conference, seminar and public evening programs

Amsterdam & Hilversum
November 11 - 13, 2010

Economies of the Commons 2  is a critical 
examination of the economics of on-line public 
domain and open access resources of  information, 
knowledge, and media (the "digital commons"). 
The past 10 years have seen the rise of a variety 
of such open content resources attracting 
millions of users, sometimes on a daily basis. 
The impact of projects such as Wikipedia, Images 
of the Future, and Europeana testify to the 
vibrancy of the new digital public domain.  No 
longer left to the exclusive domains of digital 
“insiders", open content resources are rapidly 
becoming widely used and highly popular.

While protagonists of open content praise its 
low-cost accessibility and collaborative 
structures, critics claim it undermines the 
established "gate keeping" functions of authors, 
the academy, and professional institutions while 
lacking a reliable business model of its own. 
Economies of the Commons 2 provides a timely and 
crucial analysis of sustainable economic models 
that can promote and safeguard the online public 
domain. We want to find out what the new hybrid 
solutions are for archiving, access and reuse of 
on-line content that can both create viable 
markets and serve the public interest in a 
competitive global 21st century information 
economy.

Economies of the Commons 2 consists of an 
international seminar on Open Video hosted by the 
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on 
November 11 in Hilversum, a two day international 
conference and two public evening programs on 
November 12 and 13 at De Balie, centre for 
culture and politics in Amsterdam. The event 
builds upon the successful Economies of the 
Commons conference organised in April  2008.

Confirmed speakers include:

Charlotte Hess (Syracuse University - Keynote), 
Ben Moskowitz (Open Video Alliance), Simona Levi 
(Free Culture Forum), Bas Savenije (Royal Library 
The Hague), Michael Edson (Smithsonian Commons), 
Yann Moulier Boutang (Multitudes), Peter B. 
Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Harry Verwayen 
(Europeana), James Boyle (Duke University), Rufus 
Pollock (Open Knowledge Foundation), Jeff Ubois 
(DTN), Sandra Fauconnier (NIMK), Volker Grassmuck 
(USP Sao Paulo), Dymitri Kleiner 
(Telekommunisten), Jaromil (NIMK Artlab), Marco 
Sachy (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Nathaniel 
Tkacz (Melbourne University), Dolf Veenvliet 
(Blender), Michael Dale (Open Media for 
Wikipedia), Lucie Guibault (University of 
Amsterdam), a.o.

Organisers:
Images for the Future Consortium / Netherlands 
Institute for Sound and Vision / De Balie / 
Institute of Network Cultures University of 
Amsterdam, Department of New Media

For detailed program information check our website:
www.ecommons.eu