HI
Jon Ippolito wrote
<Then someone should definitely forward them Rick's report on intellectual
property and artists (Rick can you give a citation for "Nailing Down
Bits"?). If I recall correctly, immediately after Rick first presented the
conclusions of his study, he stepped off the podium and checked his email,
only to learn his museum was being sued by Parker Brothers because one of
its Internet art commissions used the word Ouija in the title>
Thank you Jon... The story confirms the state of things.
Just to brainstorm with the list about some topics which may resonate for
further discussion.... I have now drafted a submission to the British
Council to address their request 'how might copyright be recreated?' which
is linked to the anniversary next month of the first Copyright Act in
England. I was initially hesitant to write anything but the recent movement
on this list has reminded me of how some of the deeper challenges now relate
to the overall notion of institutional collecting and the implications this
holds in terms of determinants of value (eve within a networked society).
So the ownership issues are to the fore when one is seeking to apply formula
for collecting in a context where media and objects are not just variable
but more and more
mutable/intelligent/collaborative/co-created/co-designed/networked etc. I
question whether or not there is something that might be said by pioneering
digital artists (for want of a better term) that might influence society as
a whole as it stumbles into next phase of technological iteration (ie
branded advertising led internet of things?). Today's Observer Newspaper in
UK has a two page spread on the arrival of augmented reality in our day to
day lives to sell us numerous forms of experience...... .
Along with mutable objects we may see the need for mutable systems of
control and access...how easy are these to achieve? Is it feasible to call
for open data and open systems whilst simultaneously protecting personal
privacy against the weight of commercial interests?
In my submission to the BC I fall back on advocacy for a new kind of network
literacy which enables people to make appropriate choices based on
understanding implications of particular decisons ......having examples such
as Jon and Alison and Ken and others have developed, which may be shared
with others, is certainly part of constructing this literacy...even if ad
hoc and to a large extent informal.
So in my mind I am asking - if one is pursuing open standards for publicly
funded material in research and scientific fields then can we also gesture
towards other standards or protocols when it comes to the ways in which
networked/collaborative/sofrware based work is held, displayed, owned (etc)
by collections and museums. Might standards emerge or is this all just an
ad hoc layering of case by case examples....iterative, agile but not leading
to any conclusions which affect broader policy?
Just some thoughts to add to the mix. Would be great to see your paper
Rick.
cheers
bronac
On 21 March 2010 09:36, Jon Ippolito <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> A few responses to recent posts:
>
> > From: Bronac Ferran <[log in to unmask]>
> > The British Council is currently developing a position through
> consultation
> > with various influencers (hopefuly including some artists) on copyright
> for
> > the digital age (21st century) and they will publish some material on
> this
> > in the next few months.
>
>
> Personally I think traditional copyright for artists is almost always a
> boondoggle, though I wouldn't write off the tiered / patronage approach that
> Jon Thomson has described.
>
> > From: "Goebel, Johannes E." <[log in to unmask]>
> > (Side note: Imagine you would by your oh say van Gogh for $40 million
> > and you would already then set $12m aside for future "maintenance" -
> > actually an intriguing idea! But maybe then there would be no more money
> > left for living artists, because we can only update the old works? Maybe
> > let the old works go away to allow new works to be purchased, which in
> > turn supports living artists? Maybe that is the bliss of digital media -
> > that they simply vanish on their own? And only living artists get
> > supported - and as they die, their work slowly fades away into the
> > digital nirvana - maybe that is the "new" model - which incidentally
> > does coincide with how things were in the pre-museum and the
> > pre-art-accumulates-value world ... - which in turn leads us back to the
> > economic discussion of how to preserve works, how to sell them - and
> > that maybe indeed following the old paradigms of museums is the wrong
> > approach for "variable media". Variability always included vanishing.
> > Excuse this side note as I think it is inappropriate for this forum - I
> > simply could not resist.)
> On the contrary, I think proposing such new models for supporting
> contemporary artists is central to this forum.
>
> Except that, as you imply, they aren't new, if we look beyond Euro-ethnic
> art to indigenous practices. Creators of Papua New Guinea, for example, are
> encouraged to re-create Malanggan carvings (also mentioned in the CODE book
> cited previously) in their own fashion with each new generation:
>
> 'The new image (both original and derivative at the same time) emerges as a
> collaboration among a number of sources--the original owner, the new owner,
> the fabricator, and ultimately the owner in the next generation who will
> similarly modify it. This kind of multiple ownership creates a legal
> nightmare for IP law. But among the craftspeople of Papua New Guinea, it
> produces a dense network of relationships, as well as serving as a metaphor
> for cultural preservation and loss at each generation...As [James] Leach
> observes, ownership in these conditions connects people rather than
> separating them as it does in the West. And these connections are critical
> to the "preservation of the social conditions of creativity itself."'
>
> --Joline Blais, "Indigenous Domain: Pilgrims, Permaculture, and Perl,"
> http://thoughtmesh.net/publish/6.php#indigenousculture-indigenousculturecatchmentin
>
>
> Cheers--
>
> jon
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