The peasants are revolting

In his new book, You Are Not a Gadget, musician and avant-garde computer scientist Jaron Lanier examines the downsides to the internet’s free culture, according to a new New York Times review. He calls artists the “new peasants,” saying that by freely sharing their work, they have undermined not only the traditional media that once allowed artists to be paid for contributing creatively to society but also themselves. And even their art.

He rages against “hive thinking” and “digital Maoism”: in other words, “the glorification of open-source software, free information, and collective work at the expense of individual creativity.”

From FW Weekly.