In 2001 I organised an alternative literary festival called “Surf Sample Manipulate” in Lucerne. I invited the American media artist Mark Amerika to make a public performance. He showed what this “new way of writing” means. He surfed the WWW, he copied interesting text samples, rewrote them and produced a new text. A text by Mark Amerika.

Since then only six years have passed. But since then the issue of copyright has become a popular issue. One thing I understood right away: The easier copying becomes the harder it will get for authors to control the use of their works.

As a consequence their long fought for right for a fair remuneration which has been granted to them by copyright legislation will become a farce. Their income will diminuish.

On the other hand the internet is a powerful and cheap tool for authors in order to publish their texts and to reach a worldwide public. How much copyright protection does an author need? Shall he give some of his rights away?