Pioneered
by the printing press developed in 1440 by Gutenberg, the printing press led to
the world’s exposure to vast amounts of knowledge. This spur of knowledge resulted
to a series of continuous innovations in science and technology particularly in
the industrial revolution characterized by the introduction of the assembly
line and mass production. Mass production is now a staple in the different
economic processes across the globe for the easy transmission of products and
information contained in software. Science and technology has come a long way
to deduce the monopolization of bits and pieces of information and products
locked away in libraries and factories – and create vast systems of trade that
extend beyond the eye could see. Beginning with cheap labor industries in
developing countries like China and Indonesia to the advent of different
communication technologies that envelope the internet, people can easily stream
through information and data, and even create their own, wherever they go.
Although
the boom of data sharing and rise of underground economies may seem to catch
the good eye of the everyday consumer, it raises the eyebrow of large corporate
industries due to the danger of lost profits and more importantly, the use of
their intellectual property in creating their goods by the consumers themselves
and active participants of the underground economy – which may well spell their
doom due to the consumer’s mindset of trying to get more for less, that is, get
cheaper imitations of their favorite goods. Considering the danger of creating
an imbalance in world trade, several organizations have advocated the rules
which govern the rights to intellectual property which will safeguard the
knowledge and information kept by corporations and individuals from
intellectual theft. Nevertheless, the ongoing development of technology
continues to take advantage of loopholes found in the systems created by these
organizations to counteract these measures and persist on the spread of
plagiarized data. Taking for example the art of fabricating vinyl records;
re-recording cassettes and burning CDs with songs, the music industry has
failed to suppress the people’s demand for pirated products which puts recording
companies in danger of going under. Moreover, any packet of data can be easily
copied and pasted from one computer to another thanks to the open-source nature
of the internet. Currently with the development of more sophisticated data sharing
media, most notably the peer-to-peer network, the proliferation of pirated
materials is at its peak, so far, which might as well yelp the hoorah of happy
consumers but in the expense of the death of industries and losing the integrity
of intellectual property owners. As part of the consuming community, majority
of us who use the internet practice file peer-to-peer sharing and can admit to
the petit crimes and continue our lifestyle as if it didn’t matter. However
this nonchalant attitude of the rapidly growing community of data sharers
strikes a certain fear in me that soon enough cause a shift in the paradigm
which may as well inevitably change the way we use data and share it. Therefore,
I question both the advocates of IPR and the sharers; once the system catches
up, again, to the trend of how we freely share our information and all-in-all
annihilate it – will these sharers be able to outrun them again?
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Third blogpost made by Jared Formalejo
