November 10-12, 2016

“In conclusion of the series of events dealing with the concept of authorship and the status of the author in the 21st century, held in dialogue between artistic disciplines, philosophy, law, computer and social sciences, the Akademie Schloss Solitude will round off the two-year discourse with an emphasis on questions of authorship from economic, political and juridical as well as non-western perspectives.

The symposium Economies of Authorship: Ownership and Dispossession takes its basis from the outcomes produced in the prior two symposia. First, the still upheld and indefeasible Romantic understanding of the author as a singular, genial subject with its adjunctive property right to intellectual and creative achievements. Second, the resultant lacking of liberal rights to re-use existing material to create new work, thereby constricting cultural, intellectual and social development. Third, the consequential necessity to separate the notions of author, copyright, and ownership, which are still thought of as one, thereby allowing for a commons-based production and a reconsideration of an economical model ensuring the viability of cultural and intellectual production.

Economies of Authorship: Ownership and Dispossession will focus on a differentiated comparison between the concepts of authorship and copyright – the difference between authorship as a moral, non-alienable right versus understanding authorship as a service – with an emphasis on economic and political aspects. It will on the one hand move between a discussion on the power structure of an increasingly data-driven economy, and on the other examine the role of the Commons in relation to the notions of sovereignty and dispossession.

How do the Creative Commons movement and the possible use of free software affect the neoliberal economic system, how does it affect non-western societies? Can we imagine, as stated by the economist Jeremy Rifkin in 2014?, that capitalism simply disappears through the Creative Commons and is being replaced by a sharing economy, which revives Collaborative Commons as a contemporary solidary form of human and economic interaction? How can the Cultural Commons be related to political sovereignty, individuation and subjectivation?”

More information about this event can be found here.

Photo by Mélisande*

The post Economies of Authorship: Ownership and Dispossession (Event) appeared first on P2P Foundation.