Leaving reality behind: The battle for the soul of the Internet - Hardcover

9781841155937: Leaving reality behind: The battle for the soul of the Internet
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In November 1999, at the height of the e-commerce gold rush, an extraordinary hearing took place in a Los Angeles courtroom. On one side, the billion-dollar darling of Wall Street, Etoys.com, the brain child of Toby Lenk, one of the hottest entrepreneurs of his generation. On the other side, eToy.com, a group of bleeding-edge European artists, hungry for fame, who used the Internet as their canvas. The conflict became known as the "Toywar". Etoys.com accused eToy.com of virtual piracy and demanded that they be shut down. American big business was being jeopardized by a European, home-spun Web group. The outcry amongst the Internet community was unprecedented. The ensuing battle sharply focused attention on the conflict at the very heart of the Internet: was it for the joy of the many or the exponential profit of the few? Was cyberspace a revolutionary public space or was the new frontier an extension of the shopping mall? Through the story for the Toywar, Adam Wishart and Regula Bochsler weave the history of the seven years that changed the world forever. "Leaving Reality Behind" is the real life thriller about the virtual struggle between commerce and liberty. In 2000, as the online world went into melt down, what would be more valuable and enduring, a ten billion dollar corporation created by the best American entrepreneurs or a chaotic art project by a group of anarchic European rebels?

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About the Author:
Adam Wishart is a 34-year-old award-winning BBC documentary film maker. He is the director of the series Trouble at the Big Top, Blood on the Carpet and Back to the Floor. He has written for New Statesman, New Scientist, Guardian and Independent. Regula Bochsler is a TV journalist, reporter and producer. She lives in Switzerland.
From Publishers Weekly:
In this penetrating examination of a seminal cyberspace turf war, Wishart and Bochsler tell a story about art imitating life and the artist being sued for trademark infringement. Documentary filmmaker Wishart and Swiss National TV reporter Bochsler recount the tale of etoy, a company of German-based avant-garde artists that held wild parties and issued stock to shareholders. It registered the name etoy.com to serve as an online gallery and virtual workspace. In September 1999, etoy was sued by the hugely popular online retailer Etoys.com, which at the time was valued at $8 billion, for trademark infringement. The authors thoroughly detail each volley in the "Toy War," including lawsuits, denial of service attacks and grassroots activism. More significantly, the battle serves as a case study for exploring the conflicting forces that have shaped the Internet's development. Backed by venture capitalists and led by CEO Toby Lenk, Etoys.com was out to make a profit by selling products. Etoy, on the other hand, was supported by a few wealthy patrons and run by media-savvy artists with shaved heads who went by code names and wanted to shake things up. The latter were much more successful. With extensive and entertaining firsthand accounts, Wishart and Bochsler reveal how the dot-com boom warped the perceptions of artist and corporate executive alike. Although Lenk was a seasoned executive, he was caught off guard by the collapse of Etoys.com, and despite etoy's subversive origins, it developed internal power struggles that rivaled those of a Fortune 500 company. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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  • PublisherFourth Estate
  • Publication date2002
  • ISBN 10 1841155934
  • ISBN 13 9781841155937
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages368
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