Schaefer’s article only reiterated a lot of things I have already discovered on my own about a lot of companies now and how they put their users to work for them, without pay or credit to improve their software. Thank goodness I’m not a technological genius–I would be committing a heinous amount of online terrorism over this.
Why? As a writer/someone who creates (what I feel to be art) on a regular basis-I value my work too much to be giving it away for free to a bunch of executives who laugh all the way to the bank with my hard work and dedication to something. Sure–I had to come to terms a long time ago with the fact that no one is likely to give me millions of dollars for my short stories and whiny poetry–but giving credit costs NOTHING! That is the least that anyone or any corporation can do, right?
This reminds me of Atari and how they wouldn’t allow their programmers rights or credit to any of the games they designed.
Is this internet Karma? Is this what consumers get for all those music and movie downloads that they didn’t pay for? Now they have to take a turn at being victims of internet thievery? Maybe. I just can’t help but wonder how much longer it will be before nothing belongs to anyone anymore.
This blog made a couple of great points. I was particularly interested by the last paragraph’s point about “internet thievery”. When it is done against a corporation by individuals it is considered stealing. (Napster is a case in point.) But when it is committed against individuals by corporations it is considered fair game.
I alsl loved the last point:
“…How much longer will it be before nothing belongs to anyone anymore?”
This is a great point, that I personally see as a real possibility. The internet makes everything (that can be made into a digital artifact) available to everyone. P2P sharing, in particular, blurs the lines of what is considered “stealing” and what is considered “sharing”.
It’s too bad that capitalism is a “for profit” venture because creativity suffers. Lately, I have developed a negative attitude about forms of control. Corporations and large organizations in general epitomize this control. Maybe Marx wasn’t too wrong with his socialist philosophy.
Mariana, have you published any stories or poetry?
Yeah, a few short stories. See the last two issues of Penumbra