Luther Blisset is the online identity embodying a group of people and artists who are critisizing the fact that users of the internet have to pay for information allthought they have been providing information for companies etc. it by spending time online.
“The industry of the integrated spectacle and immaterial command owes me money. I will not come to terms with it until I will not have what is owed to me. For all the times I appeared on TV, films, and on the radio as a casual passersby or as an element of the landscape, and my image has not been compensated . . . for all the words or expressions of high communicative impact I have coined in peripheral cafes, squares, street corners, and social centers that became powerful advertising jingles, without seeing a dime; for all the times my name and my personal data have been put at work inside stats, to adjust the demand, refine marketing strategies, increase the productivity of firms to which I could not be more indifferent; for all the advertising I continuously make by wearing branded t-shirts, backpacks, socks, jackets, bathing suits, towels, without my body being remunerated as a commercial billboard; for all of this and much more, the industry of the integrated spectacle owes me money! I understand it may be difficult to calculate how much they owe me as an individual”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_(nom_de_plume)
Most people are not even aware that they are providing knowledge for a big industry when they are spending time online and engaging in mediated social activities. So the services YOU provide them are being rewarded with restrictions when it comes to information seeking and personal privacy.
This is a great example of the methods Luthor Blisset use to get the “information providing internet users” with free knowledge. The content of the book “Q”, was made available as a PDF for free online.
We like the fact that Luther Blisset are rebelling against a system which is taking more and more privacy, time and money from us internet users. They are not using any violence instead they are using words -information- and humor to “play” this battle for the free creation and sharing of information and of communication. “The tecnologies need to better the advantages of the human not the consumer”- Fracesco Lapenta. There are many other projects and platforms actually using the same strategy to crumble this represion and help and protect the user who are mostly unaware of what is actually happening . In a way each of us can help them and help ourselve. As a example; They could use the informations provided online to reveal the actions of politicians, businessmen, royal families etc. and share the information, threats and lies on social networking sites. This way they can rob of their privacy and make the problem visible.
criticalnewmediagroup 