Silicon Valley has a solution for everything, but who do its ideas really serve? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its thought leaders, and the worldview it spreads. They challenge the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. But if tech won't save us, what will? This podcast isn't simply about tearing tech down; it also presents radical ideas for tech designed for human flourishing instead of surveillance, acquisitions, or to boost stock prices. A better world is possible, and so is better technology.
How Spotify is Built On Artist Exploitation w/ Liz Pelly
Paris Marx is joined by Liz Pelly to discuss how the Spotify model of streaming music continues a long trend of exploitation in the music industry and why musicians need to organize around a vision for a different world of music.
Liz Pelly is a freelance writer and critic who has spent the past decade working with community arts spaces. She is also a contributing editor and columnist at The Baffler. Follow Liz on Twitter as @lizpelly.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.
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Also mentioned in this episode:
- Liz’s work looks at many aspects of Spotify, including the model it’s pushing on musicians and increasingly on podcasters
- Paris has written about how consolidation and the emergence of streaming is having similarly negative effects in film and television
- Naomi Klein explains how New Deal arts programs funded 225,000 musical performances which reached 150 million Americans — and much more
- Cherie Hu tweeted a diagram showing how different streaming and music companies have stakes in one another
- The Verge obtained Sony Music’s contract with Spotify
- How Galaxy 500 and Pavement had random songs take off on Spotify
- Spotify CEO says artists need to record music more frequently
- Henderson Cole’s proposal for an American Music Library
- The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers launched the Justice at Spotify campaign