Bastard Culture

Software based products are able to get copied, modified or developed further. Competent users have the necessary skills, tools and networks to develop modified products which are originally invented by corporate companies. Reverse companies will exploit the ideas of competent users. The results are products which are developed by both, users and companies: a Microsoft X-box becomes a Linux web server, a Nintendo Gameboy can be used as a music editor and Sony’s cute little Aibo turns into an electronic pit bull. Using technology (and that includes all the stuff we call media) means defining culture. In my dissertation I describe how the specific aspects of computer, software and the Internet and their social use are constructing an extended culture industry. The cultural practice of users is embedded in a socio-technical ecosystem of the network technologies and the plurality of users. The interdependent relations between the various actors change our understanding of the culture industry and the constitution of culture.