Anne Margulies of MIT introduces the first two sessions of a conference on The Economics of Open Content. Opening welcomes from MIT Open CourseWare, the Hewlett Foundation, and Intelligent Television are followed by business analyses of scholarship and user-driven innovation from University of Michigan Professor of Economics and Public Policy and former Provost Paul Courant and MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Eric von Hippel. Consumer Federation of America Director of Research and Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Fellow Mark Cooper presents his research on the economics of emerging collaborative modes of digital production in media and communications. **Welcoming Remarks ** Anne Margulies, MIT Open CourseWare Cathy Casserly, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television **New Models of Creative Production in the Digital Age** Paul Courant, University of Michigan Eric von Hippel, MIT Sloan School of Management **Collaboration and the Marketplace** Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America and Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society On January 23-24, 2006, [ Intelligent Television](http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/) hosts the Economics of Open Content symposium at MIT to bring together representatives from media industries, cultural and educational institutions, and legal and business minds to discuss how to make open content happen better and faster. With the support of the Hewlett Foundation and MIT Open Courseware, Intelligent Television brings representatives of commercial media industries (publishing, film, music, television, video, software, education/courseware, gaming) together with representatives of cultural and educational institutions who are innovative in this area and legal and business minds in the academy who are studying how to make this happen faster and better. New Yorker economics columnist and bestselling author (*The Wisdom of Crowds*) James Surowiecki keynotes at the Cambridge meeting, with a presentation entitled 'Openness as an Ethos.' Intelligent Television has been conducting a year-long investigation into the economics of open content. This project is a systematic study of why and how it makes sense for commercial companies and noncommercial institutions active in culture, education, and media to make certain materials widely available for free, and also how free services are finding new (sometimes commercial) ways of becoming sustainable. The project builds upon written work that Intelligent Television recently completed with the support of the Mellon Foundation and Ithaka on [Marketing Culture in the Digital Age](http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/marketingculture.htm), and also upon work now being completed as part of the Mellon Foundation-supported Commission on [Cyberinfrastructure in the Humanities and Social Sciences](http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/cyber.htm). The project also informs new economic models that Intelligent Television is establishing for its documentary work. This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/).