{"id":1885,"date":"2014-06-25T13:57:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T20:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=1885"},"modified":"2014-06-25T13:57:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T20:57:43","slug":"working-for-free-pro-and-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2014\/06\/working-for-free-pro-and-con.html","title":{"rendered":"Working for Free, Pro and Con"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AMAZINGLY, there are still gurus urging creatives that working for free — for for-profit companies — is a good “branding” move. An article<\/a> in the Financial Times describes some who believe in the great opportunities of the digital age, and says that asking for — and receiving — free labor has continues to increase.<\/p>\n

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But as these trends have become more entrenched, the backlash has become more fierce. The blogosphere <\/a>is replete with much-tweeted tirades from those who have simply had enough. Some workers have deployed their creative talents to denounce the practice, for example by producing witty manifestos and flow-charts to help you decide<\/a> whether to accept commissions for no pay. A much-shared email exchange<\/a> by humorist David Thorne ad\u00addresses the debate. Other detractors have even embraced their own motto: \u201cIf you\u2019re good at something, never do it for free,\u201d as spoken by Batman\u2019s neme\"hoskyns-waitingsun-cover\"sis The Joker in the film The Dark Knight. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The piece describes the stop-working-for-free fight waged by British music journalist Barney Hoskyns — whose history of Los Angeles music, Waiting for the Sun<\/em>, is absolutely first-rate. Says Hoskyns: \u201cIf you allow yourself to be seduced by the myth that your unpaid labour will \u2018look good on your CV\u2019, try to see that you jeopardise not only the welfare of your replaceable elders but your own long-term future.\u201d You’ve basically said that your work has no value.<\/p>\n

The whole notion that we should give our work away — in some ways the logical end-point of the “information wants to be free” movement —\u00a0spells very bad short- and long-term implications for the creative class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”3yEpOmVWqQdiM8tHRZQ892WnlfCfPiSE”] AMAZINGLY, there are still gurus urging creatives that working for free — for for-profit companies — is a good “branding” move. An article in the Financial Times describes some who believe in the great opportunities of the digital age, and says that asking for — and receiving — free labor has continues to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[625,39,21,32,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-free","7":"category-creative-class","8":"category-culture-business-models","9":"category-internet","10":"category-rock-music","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}