Ars Electronica 2008




The age of copyright and intellectual property has reached its expiration date. Adevelopment that already manifested itself in the technical fundamentals of the Internet hasreared its head in the actual practices of a young generation of users and is bringing forth a neweconomy of sharing and open access.With this provocative formulation, Ars Electronica is placing one of the core issues of modernknowledge-based society at the focal point of this year's festival program. What’s at stake: thevalue of intellectual property, freedom of information and copyright protection, big profit-making opportunities and the vision of an open knowledge-based society that seeks to build its neweconomy on the basis of creativity and innovation. The crux of the matter is that we still lackpractical, workable rules and regulations governing this new reality and—of no small importance—that the task of coming up with them ought not to be left up to lawyers and MBAsalone. After all, regardless of the perspective from which one approaches this issue—that of the Internet pirates, the inventors of a new information commons, the pioneers of a sharing economy orthe apologists of the creative industries—one thing remains true: if knowledge and contentactually are to be the new capital of postindustrial society, then they have to circulate and beaccessible by all.
Gerfried Stocker, Christine Schöpf

Computers and the Internet have lowered the cost of communication and the creation and distribution of information so much that many fundamental notions of organizations,economics and property have completely changed or require major upgrades. There is a newgeneration of youth across the globe which is leading the charge into this changing world, modifying their basic behaviors to adapt to technology as it develops. Some businesses and artistshave been able to keep up with these trends while others struggle and fail. The much slower toadapt legal system is being pushed to its limits with organizations on all sides of the issues trying very hard to adapt outdated laws. Most of the new behaviors and organizations creatingvalue have a completely different notion of property. Intellectual property, while key to the postindustrial revolution nature of the firm, is more of an encumbrance than an asset to the sharingoriented mode of creation now central to the Internet. This year, we will bring together theusers, artists, businesses, policy makers and academics involved intentionally or beyond theircontrol in this change to understand this new world and to try to adapt to it.
Joichi Ito