Napsterisierung und Venterisierung von Wissen - Bausteine zu einer politischen Ökonomie des Wissens

Speakers: Rainer Kuhlen

Language: german

Where: Aula

When: Day 2, 20:00

Duration: 00:30h

Description

The alternative concepts of napsterization (information sharing) and venterization (commerzialization and control) are used as metaphors for the main trends within global information markets, particularly with respect to the organization, the production and the usage of knowledge. The divide between those who have access to knowledge and information and those who don´t has become even bigger in the last years despite the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT). Or to relate this development to our topic: the divide between those who consider universal access a human right in the information society and believe that restrictions on free access (for instance, through enforcement of copyright and intellectual property rights in general by applying digital rights management tools) is against the public interest and between those who consider the principle of universal access an invitation to electronic piratry or plagiarism and would prefer to reduce practices of fair use to a minimim, if not to zero (by entensively using digital rights management as a means of comprehensive control) is becoming bigger.

In this ongoing "information war" between "napsterizers" and "venterizers" it is extremely important to bring the discussion back to its ethical foundation and to free it from its current legal "chains" as expressed in treaties such as those from WIPO (1996), the US government (DMCA -1998) or the EU directive on copyright (2001). This, of course, is not intended to ignore or to encourage breaking existing laws but to raise awareness, concerning the rapidly changing electronic environment which sets the framework for new ethical and ultimately political and legal principles in our way of treating knowledge and information. Ethics is always based on the environment where people live and act and this is increasingly the electronic space.

An ethical foundation is needed in situations where there is a clash of interests and where all parties claims their rights and needs as equally being founded in existing societal and economic principles. Ethics cannot offer solutions or formulate legal consequences, but ethically founded arguments can encourage governments and international organizations to reconsider existing laws and rules and to contribute to the historic challenge of defining a needed new fair balance between different interests in the organization, the production and the usage of knowledge. It is also necessary in this situation to clarify the position of institutions such as libraries, information centers and information professionals as indispensable intermediaries and guarantors of universal fair access to information.

Beyond ethical consideration we wish to strip the "napsterization" concept from its polemic connotations and reinterpretate it as an adequate and innovative means for the organization of knowledge and information in electronic spaces. "Napsterization" will be described with respect to Napster itself, to the DVD conflict, to Digital Rights Management for digital products such as E-books, and to the problems and potential of information sharing in scientific environments. Assuming that knowledge cannot and should not be fully controlled in electronic spaces, we suggest that the principles of information sharing, fair balance, distributed information work, pricing for information, value-added services, and, finally, open, net-oriented organization and business models should be adopted by the information economy rather than continuing a costly and unwinnable "information war" between napsterizers and venterizers.