Leaving Reality Behind: Inside the Battle for the Soul of the Internet - Softcover

Adam Wishart; Regula Bochsler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841155942 ISBN 13: 9781841155944

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2003

Synopsis

In November 1999, at the height of the e-commerce gold rush, a hearing in a Los Angeles courtroom wrenched open the fault lines that ran through the Internet.

On one side was eToys.com, the billion-dollar darling of Wall Street and the brainchild of Toby Lenk, one of the hottest entrepreneurs of his generation. On the other side was etoy, a group of cutting-edge European artists, hungry for fame, who used the Internet as their canvas. The struggle between them became known as the Toywar. At stake were liberty, justice, and the speedy delivery of toys.

Leaving Reality Behind is the definitive and gripping account of a battle that shook the Internet and sharply focused attention on the conflict at its very core: Was the Internet created as entertainment for the many or for the exponential profit of the few? This riveting case reveals the larger story behind the first decade of the Web -- the conflict surrounding its creation; the invention of search engines; the battle over domain names, and the discovery of the glittering promise of online retailing -- when the capital markets left reality behind.

As the real-life thriller of the Toywar came to its climax, the online world went into meltdown. There remained one crucial question: After the Internet crash of 2000, which would prove more enduring -- an eight-billion-dollar corporation built by America's brightest businessmen or a chaotic art project created by a group of artsy rebels from Europe?

About this title

About the Author

Adam Wishart is an award-winning BBC documentary filmmaker. He was the director of a highly acclaimed documentary about the Millennium Dome, and he has written for New Statesman, New Scientist, The Guardian, and The Independent. He lives in London.

Regula Bochsler has worked for more than a decade as a reporter, producer, and anchor for Swiss National TV. She has a Ph.D. in modern history, teaches media history, and is the author of a dozen historical documentaries. She lives in Zürich.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1841155942
• ISBN 13: 9781841155944
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368