>> Presenations Americans for the Arts Conference 1998 June 6, 1998 Internet Policy: The Art Part   Thesis: 1. Arts and culture need to be involved in policy decisions at the Federal/Government level and the local institutional level as policy controls priorities, attitude and funding. 2. Internet issues are especially important where change is the order of the day (organizational, relationships, jobs, creation and use of knowledge) and where almost anything can happen. Sub-Thesis: The arts, as in so many areas, have been playing catch-up; it's time for some thinking ahead of the game in terms of visioning and modeling the future.   1. Internet policy: What is it, why do we need it and why is it important to us/why should we care. What do we know? That the internet is unwieldy, has immense reach and power, is very flexible. As Al Gore puts it, "The Internet is being used to reinvent government and reshape our lives and our communities in the process." While the Internet and the Web were created by scientists with major investments by Defense and NSF and although now big business (esp Big Content--the intellectual property owners) is trying to figure it out, one of its essential hallmarks is its essential anarchy, decentralized and grassroots. Its tiresome but true to say that the playing field is levelled in many arenas on the Internet, that "on the Internet no-one knows you're a dog." The Govt has been very confused about it. Clinton and Gore realize its imptce and moved the 1993 Agenda for Action and created the Information Infrastructure Task Force to examine the implications of the Internet on different aspects of society. But still there is no clear Federal Policy on the Internet--rather bits and pieces. Last year, Ira Magaziner, Senior Advisor to the President for Policy Development announced that the White House was attempting to coordinate a more coherent approach to the Internet. Despite the Information Infrastructure Task Force, there are now 18 government agencies that have an interest in Internet policy and until now, Magaziner said, the Administration had responded very much in an ad hoc manner. Commerce has been leading and Magaziner was steering "Framework for Global Electronic Commerce" that enunciated basic principles and policy recommendations: i) that the Internet be fostered as a non-regulatory, market-driven medium (in which government plays the role of international facilitator, not regulator); ii) that a transparent and harmonized global legal environment be created using a new uniform commercial code for cyberspace; and iii) that it allow for competition and consumer choice, but protect privacy. 2. Where do the arts and culture come into the picture? Although the arts were not included or referenced in the Agenda for Action or the IITF did commission a report (mostly written by the NEA) on "Arts, Humanities and Culture on the NII," <http://nii.nist.gov/pubs/sp868/arts.html> that was one chapter in the IITF's 1994 report, "The Information Infrastructure: Reaching Society's Goals." I want to quote several parts of this report to give you a flavor of how the authors saw the role of the arts and culture in the formation of the NII: "Because humanists and artists are experts at using symbols, managing data, and making the presentation of data and complex ideas "user friendly," engaging, interactive, and even fun, they should be involved from the outset in efforts to design an expanded NII." "Increasingly, the nonprofit cultural sector functions as the "research and development" arm for the for-profit industry. The role of the federal government is limited but crucial: national policies must provide incentives for the artistic and intellectual creativity and research essential to the development of content for the NII." "The cultural sector needs public and private investment to digitize collections, so that the building blocks of knowledge... are freely available to the public. Without a continued investment, the public will receive only such cultural information as the commercial sector chooses to present. Ultimately this would hamper the ability of specialists and the public to do original research and to create new works." "The NII challenges us to determine how best to use technology to foster the growth and dissemination of knowledge and to link communities of informed citizens. This challenge will require imagination, content, context, and interpretation, which are essential ingredients of the arts and humanities. With foresight we can use the integrative powers of the NII to build communities, improve our educational system and reach the youth who are currently alienated by formal education, and preserve our cultural heritage for future generations. The powers of this new technology must be matched by bold thinking." This was as much a challenge to the community as to the government. 3. What are the areas that we've worked on and should continue to work on and how should we be seriously re-grouping and re-thinking so we can get ahead of the game? Federal Level 1. INCLUSION/EDUCATION (or not) in the Clinton Administration's 1993 Agenda for Action for creating the NII. Awareness of culture as integral part of NII. Seeds of NINCH and awareness of the need for the cultural community to act together NINCH: to create a sense of a community; census; issues; create a voice; share best practices; coordinate an integrated networked cultural heritage. >organizations representing museums, libraries, scholarly societies, research and educational institutions. 2. ACCESS/Telecommunications Act of 1996 (see Benton page <www.benton.org/Policy/96act/> ACCESS as key demand for the Telecommunications Act: museums were particularly active progress of E-rate; Benton/NEA Initiative on access: its potential. Re-addressing Universal Access in the digital Age: what is included Access + Education 3. FAIR USE/Copyright Legislation 1998 as key demand for current Copyright Legislation --Issues of the Public Domain and new forms of protection. Re-addressing Fair Use in the digital Age: what is included Again Commerce (Big Content) is running the show... >Currently the issue of fair use v. a pay-per-view future [WIPO; Boucher-Campbell & Ashcroft v. Senate Digital Millennium Copyright Act and HR 2281 Wipo Copyright Treaties Implementation Bill] 4. FUNDING (TIIAP; NEH; IMLS; NSF getting interested *Institutional Level*: Universities, Museums, our own organizations 1. INCLUSION/EDUCATION on the impact of Internet; internal organization changes; relations with other institutions and other communities change; be prepared for change (museums the curators and collection management system and educators beginning to work together more; CHS: "exhibition, publication, and education functions." 2. funding needs and re-allocation of funding 3. Copyright: Principles for management and use of online intellectual property Other issues : access, preservation   PARADIGM B) The Envisioned Reality & the Public Domain. Before we can really affect policy, we need to imagine the future we want and articulate our needs. The Internet as the new common medium: for composing/creating, performing, learning, teaching, research. It makes things easier but it makes things different. [Public Domain; a new economy focusing on service and value-added context rather than objects themselves; inventorying our heritage And we have to start getting the computer to do what we want rather our doing what it seems to want us to do. New Creative Spaces New Economy New integration/collaboration (The Walls Come Down) New Possibilities in inventorying, describing and sharing cultural resources: the power that will come from integrated resources New connections to libraries/archives; humanities and universities How do we design our future? What can we Imagine (the small things/the large things) The current environment designed by computer scientists and engineers, where are the sites for voices that can describe what we want?