A press release from the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival from the last days of the LEFF ’11 event i the capital of Portugal reads;

What if file‐sharing was legalized and access to culture on the Internet set free? Would the copyright disappear? Would it cause the downfall of creation or on the contrary foster it? What mechanisms should be instituted to funds authors and artists while fostering cultural diversity?

These are some of the main questions that were raised by international artists, academics, economic agents and institutional decision‐makers during a two-day multi-disciplinary Symposium held in the Estoril Congress Center.

“It has been an amazing opportunity to confront academic, artistic and economical perspectives” stated Jim Griffin. “The digital era offers a great visibility and fantastic opportunities for artists: the Web has become nowadays an indicator of their success”, as underlined Frederic Junqua, founder of Kitsune and the electronic musicians LOGO and PARA‐ONE. It also brings some difficulties that are not yet fully addressed.

The specificity of a cultural good is that it can be shared by an infinite number of people. This is the reason why some artists, like Yasmina Reza, have expressed their concern about economical and artistic dispossession of their work with P2P systems on the Internet. Whilst agreeing, filmmaker Bertrand Bonello insisted that it should not be forgotten that the new usages of accessing and sharing digital media can be a wonderful tool to enhance cultural diversity and the relationship between the artist and its audience.

The debates on cinema, an industry with numerous actors and high financial investments, focused on the new experience of the cinema for the audience. If the financing of cinema is still in mutation, nowadays filmmakers can find advantages in the multiplicity of the distribution methods, whether they are legal or illegal.

If Jean‐Marie Compte, Director of the Literature Department at the French National Library, considers the libraries as essential elements of the access to literature, he joined Aurélie Filippetti in saying that digital media could be an extension to this public activity. Eventually, the authors of the table agreed that finding new ways of retribution for authors to strengthen their Copyright remains a strategic issue for the future.

Whatsoever the artistic medium, “finding new paradigms for the future that go beyond repression is not synonym of sacrificing culture and creators“ concluded Paulo Branco, director of the Festival.

The symposium has been organized during the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival by the European think tank Jeune Republique in collaboration with the French platform on cultural policies Creation Public Internet.

Image Courtesy: http://www.leffest.com/en/fotos_ano

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About the author

Claudia Sondergaard
Specialised in American foreign policy media discourse, I have a real passion for media and writing and feel comfortable in subjects such as human rights, politics, environment, social issues, movies, TV and books. Reporting from Denmark. Follow me @swirlgirlversus