iSummit Remixed
I’ve just returned from Sapporo, Japan, where iCommons held their fourth annual iSummit, an occasion for a rowdy bunch of movers and shakers from education, technology, government, business, and the arts to share ideas about promoting a free, creative online culture. I'd been invited to give a talk on a topic the Lear Center was first to explore: how the lack of copyright and patent protection in the fashion industry actually helps the industry grow and prosper. The Lear Center's Creativity, Commerce & Culture project has long sponsored research on the crippling impact that strict intellectual property protections can have on industries such as film, TV and music. The iSummit was the perfect placed for me to find out what's next on the agenda for a co-hort of researchers and activists commited to the notion that sharing culture can be more productive than putting it in a lockbox.
The moment I received the origami conference packet, which I was hesitant to unfold, I knew I was in for a unique experience. It was easily the most eclectic crew of conference-goers I’d ever encountered, and the fact that they were from 60 different countries just added to the head-spinning global verisimilitude. While the keynotes by bigwigs like Larry Lessig, Joi Ito and Jimmy Wales were engaging and inspirational, the most stimulating aspect of the event was meeting the participants. It’s always fascinating to attend in-the-flesh meetings with digital pioneers, who routinely teleport into the metaverse and conduct the better part of their lives on Skype, IM and Twitter. You know the conference must be pretty good for a bunch of geeks to pack their bags and move their fragile flesh across countless time zones. Here’s a random sampling of those intrepid souls:
