Free Exchange

I awoke in a cold sweat when I realized I was yet to blog. Shaken and full of thoughts, I approached my computer, and began to type. Then I stopped to think:

Why am I giving away ideas for free anyway?

There was a time when ideas were precious and valued. Ideas collected in books, conversations converted to plays, and emotions captured as poetry could be printed, sold, and (more or less) capitalized on as a source of income. Images painted, photographed, sketched, and digitized used to be swiftly protected. Now images are being shared freely and without much concern to for who has that image and what they use it for. In the same way, blogs are delivering not only information, but pure patentable ideas.

How many books could have been written, rather than page by page of blog. How many artists wouldn't be struggling (as much) if there wasn't already a massive pile of accessible free-for-all images? The downside to this free sharing of images, writing, and ideas is that a lot of wonderful and interesting things may be lost in a sea of websites; things that might otherwise have been documented and distributed more visibly. Also, less attention may be given to blogs and online images since people click to the next web page faster than they will run to switch books.

On the other hand, blogs and image sharing allow for an online communication between writer/artist and viewer; communication that wasn't as possible, if at all, in the past. I do worry that there is not as much social impact from a blog and image sharing than there is from a book signing, a published book, or an exhibition.

All of these things aside, the hope is that blogs and image sharing compliment published books and exhibited art, and never to attempt replace it.