TECH BROS DEMAND RIGHT TO STEAL WRITERS’ WORK: “TYPING IS HARD AND WE HATE BOOKS”
In a move that has writers reaching for both their dictionaries and their anxiety medication, Australia’s Productivity Commission is considering allowing Silicon Valley’s finest bros to legally strip-mine the entire literary world because apparently creating original content is just too d@mn inconvenient.
TYPING IS FOR LOSERS, DECLARE MEN WHO TYPE FOR A LIVING
The proposed exemption for “text and data mining” would effectively allow tech companies to vacuum up billions of words written by actual humans with souls and feed them into their hungry algorithm monsters without compensation, permission, or even a courtesy spit.
“Look, we’ve run the numbers, and paying writers would cut into our kombucha budget by almost 3%,” explained Chad Disruptson, CEO of VoidThink, a startup valued at $4.7 billion despite having no product, revenue, or purpose. “Besides, words are just, like, in the air, man. No one really owns them.”
WRITERS SELFISHLY INSIST ON “EATING” AND “PAYING RENT”
Australian authors have responded with outrage, stubbornly clinging to the elitist notion that years of craft, education, and work should result in some form of compensation.
“I’ve spent 30 years developing my voice, only to have it stolen by a calculator on steroids,” said novelist Sarah Wordsmith. “But sure, let’s sacrifice the entire creative industry so some dude in a Patagonia vest can buy another Tesla.”
EXPERTS CONFIRM AUSTRALIA’S BOLD STRATEGY OF ECONOMIC SUICIDE
Dr. Obvious Conclusion from the Institute of F@#king Common Sense notes that 97.8% of tech bros couldn’t write a shopping list without spell-check, yet somehow believe they should own every word ever written.
“It’s like watching someone steal all the ingredients from a restaurant, blend them into a tasteless paste, and then sell it back to the chef as ‘disruption sauce,'” she explained while banging her head rhythmically against her desk.
BROGRAMMERS CONFUSED BY CONCEPT OF “CREATING” VERSUS “TAKING”
The tech industry has responded with characteristic empathy and self-awareness.
“Writers are being so dramatic,” said Brayden Algorithm, who wears flip-flops to board meetings and calls himself a “thought janitor.” “We’re not stealing their work, we’re just taking all of it without permission or payment and using it to make billions of dollars. Completely different!”
A survey conducted by the University of Who Gives a Sh!t found that 94% of tech executives believe content “just appears,” similar to how they believe their mothers still magically restock their refrigerators.
NATION EXCITED TO TRANSITION FROM CULTURAL POWERHOUSE TO DIGITAL STRIP MINE
As Australia prepares to potentially gut its copyright protections, citizens are thrilled about transforming their rich literary landscape into content mulch for the digital equivalent of factory farming.
“I’ve always said what this country needs is fewer creative voices and more synthesized garbage produced by silicon-based thinking rectangles,” said absolutely no one with a functioning brain.
At press time, the Productivity Commission was considering additional exemptions allowing tech companies to harvest authors’ organs, “but only the non-essential ones, like kidneys and hearts, because, c’mon, how important are those really when we need to train our chat thingies?”
