The Economics of Open Content
With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Intelligent Television has been conducting a year-long investigation into "the economics of open content." This project is a systematic study of why and how it makes sense for commercial companies and noncommercial institutions active in culture, education, and media to make certain materials widely available for free—and also how free services are morphing into commercial companies while retaining their peer-to-peer quality. The project builds upon written work that Intelligent Television completed in 2005 with the support of the Mellon Foundation and Ithaka on "Marketing Culture in the Digital Age" (http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/research2.html), and also upon work being completed by Intelligent Television’s founder Peter B. Kaufman as part of the Mellon Foundation-supported Commission on Cyberinfrastructure in the Humanities and Social Sciences (http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/cyber.htm). The project also informs new economic models that Intelligent Television is establishing for its documentary work.
With the support of the Hewlett Foundation and MIT Open Courseware, Intelligent Television recently organized a two-day symposium at MIT on "The Economics of Open Content" that took place on January 23 and 24, 2006. This event brought together a wide variety of parties interested in open content — from commercial fields such as publishing, film, music, television, video, software, education/courseware and gaming, to cultural and educational institutions, to legal and business experts in academia. People representing many new and established commercial companies attended the event which featured a keynote address by New Yorker economics columnist and bestselling author (The Wisdom of Crowds) James Surowiecki entitled "Openness as an Ethos."
"The Economics of Open Content"
A Commercial – Noncommercial Forum
Co-sponsored by
Intelligent Television
and
MIT Open CourseWare
with the support of the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
January 23-24, 2006
Hotel@MIT
20 Sidney Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/research.htm
| 8:30 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
|---|---|
| 9:00 a.m. | Welcoming remarks |
| Anne Margulies, MIT Open CourseWare Cathy Casserly, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television |
|
| 9:30 a.m. | New Models of Creative Production in the Digital Age |
| 10:15 a.m. | Collaboration and the Marketplace |
| Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America and Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society | |
| 10:45 a.m. | Keynote address: “Openness as an Ethos” |
| James Surowiecki, staff writer, The New Yorker, and author, The Wisdom of Crowds | |
| 11:15 a.m. | Coffee |
| 11:30 a.m. | Industry Study I: The Economics of Open (Free) Software |
| Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation | |
| 12:00 p.m. | Luncheon presentation: The Economics of Knowledge as a Public Good |
| John Willinsky, University of British Columbia | |
| 1:00 p.m. | Industry Study II: The Economics of Open Courseware |
| Anne Margulies, MIT Open CourseWare Steve Carson, MIT Open CourseWare Shigeru Miyagawa, MIT Open CourseWare |
|
| 2:00 p.m. | Industry Study III:The Economics of Open Text |
| Ellen W. Faran, MIT Press Fred Beshears, University of California - Berkeley John Willinsky, University of British Columbia |
|
| 3:00 p.m. | Coffee |
| 3:15 p.m. | “Convergence Culture”: Consumer Participation and the Economics of Mass Media |
| Henry Jenkins, MIT Joel Greenberg, GSD&M Sande Scoredos, Sony Pictures Imageworks |
|
| 4:15 p.m. | Industry Study IV: The Economics of the Music Industry |
| Terry Fisher, Harvard Law School | |
| 5:30 p.m. | Break |
| 6:30 p.m. | Reception and refreshments |
| The MIT Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences | |
| Ann Wolpert, MIT, presiding |
| 8:00 a.m. | Registration and coffee |
|---|---|
| 8:30 a.m. | If Only We Knew Yesterday What We Know Today |
| Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information | |
| 9:00 a.m. | Industry Study V: The Economics of Open Archives, Museums, and Libraries |
| Ellen Dunlap, American Antiquarian Society Kati Geber, Canadian Heritage Information Network David Dawson, Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council, UK Howard Besser, New York University |
|
| 10:00 a.m. | Industry Briefing: The Open Content Alliance |
| Sumir Meghani, Yahoo! | |
| 10:30 a.m. | The Economics of the Public Domain |
| David Pierce, Copyright Services | |
| 11:00 a.m. | Industry Study VI: The Economics of Film and Television |
| Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television Marsha Kinder, University of Southern California Frank Moretti and John Frankfurt, Columbia University Victor Edmonds, University of California – Berkeley |
|
| 12:00 p.m. | Luncheon presentation: “The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom” |
| Yochai Benkler, Yale Law School | |
| 1:00 p.m. | The Economics of Film and Television - II |
| Jay Fialkov, WGBH Jeff Ubois, Archival.tv |
|
| 2:00 p.m. | Industry Study VII: The New Economics of Gaming |
| Henry Jenkins, MIT David Edery, MIT |
|
| 3:00 p.m. | Business Interests in Open Content |
| Eric Saltzman, Creative Commons Dave Marvit, Fujitsu |
|
| 3:30 p.m. | Coffee |
| 3:45 p.m. | “Everything is Miscellaneous” |
| David Weinberger, Berkman Center, Harvard University | |
| 4:15 p.m. | Next Steps: Cooperation across Institutions and Industries |
| David Dawson, Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council, UK Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television Paul Courant, University of Michigan Jeff Ubois, Archival.TV |
|
| 5:00 p.m. | Meeting ends |