Freeware Cat and Mouse

            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