Recommended Reading - Original Thread

This 65dos podcast is very good and looks at a lot of the shifts happening in music from the band’s perspective plus the impact on their creative process.

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Have already signposted this on Twitter (as Resonate are mentioned in the last article), but in case anyone hasn’t seen it, this is really very good:

P. S. There’s also a music research project going on today called Harkive, which looks like it could provide a neat snapshot of people’s daily listening habits. That’s here:

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Platform Capitalism, which already was mentioned, is really good. See also some of Srnicek’s online articles and interviews. For example:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/bigger-than-the-ussr-a-conversation-with-nick-srnicek-author-of-platform-capitalism/?fbclid=IwAR254j0gzqXZ2MuC0rXx9cEt6KnkGX97vA2w-OMz6oDcljwabMaDQOVl3rI#!

The People’s Platform, by Astra Taylor (good overview of the negative impact of platform capitalism on culture).

Ours to Hack and to Own, edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schreiber (book about platform coops, although not on music).

Anything by Mat Dryhurst and Liz Pelly.

http://www.mathewdryhurst.com/

This dissertation by Jon Davies (which I haven’t read yet, but it looks good):

Also (if I’m allowed to share my own work), I just wrote a very basic overview of culture in the era of platform capitalism:

https://modernismunbound.com/essays/digital-modernism-part-1-platform-capitalism-and-beyond/

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Great interview with the Coop’s Board Secretary

Nick Meyne Nick

, a pillar of strength and insight in this period of the coop’s transition. Nick does a great job of filling in recent history of the Coop and framing the significance of prioritizing ethical frameworks for identity protocols.

Read, comment, enjoy!

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Hi! Hope everyone is doing ok. I’m guessing a few folks will have already seeing, but this dropped in my inbox a couple of days ago and there’s a little bit about co-ops halfway down, plus some thoughts on why not everything is, or should be, scaleable.

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Thanks! I like this piece about now and future values. The mention of co-ops and community alternatives is really nice … co-operation in adversity to build something bigger, beautiful, at scale. Reminded me of the Freedom Quilting Bee. I like the quilt as a metaphor :slight_smile:

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For those who are a bit geeky on what makes a digital platform or community work, and approaches to designing such a platform, here is a link to some ideas from friends of mine at the Platform Design Toolkit team… Simone, Luca and co: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/platform-design-whitepaper/

There is also a wealth of reference material here: https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Platform+Cooperative+Development+Kit
from Trebor Scholz at the New School on platform coops
https://platform.coop/about/vision-and-advantages/

…and of course our good friend Nathan Schneider at Boulder, (his book mentioned already) whose Media Enterprise Design lab is a great resource for everyone here, with its keen focus on community and co-operative enterprise in arts and media… take a look at this piece for example https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2020/04/17/exit-community-distributed-governance
…we will be referring to that topic a lot more in order to improve the transparency and democracy of decision-making in our co-op.

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"Private Sector (For-Profit) Norms – Companies Limited by Shares (CLS)

There is a connection between business ideology and the arrangements in law by which entrepreneurs acquire share capital (ordinary shares). They register as directors, then recruit employees to operationalise their ideas. New capital is issued when more financial capital is needed, but not when more intellectual, human, social or natural capital are needed. In an unadapted CLS, employees and customers are subordinated to the interests of shareholders. They are not invited to be full members or to contribute towards decisions outside their specialist area of expertise [12]. If employees are offered share capital, voting rights are often limited or controlled by trustees who – in many cases – are under no legal obligation to vote in accordance with the wishes of their beneficiaries [13].

The intellectual property created by the workforce is acquired by the Company and controlled by executive managers and directors. In effect, majority shareholders treat intellectual, human, social and natural capital investments by others as if they were additional financial investments by themselves. They continue to acquire rights to all the property created by the interactions between employees, customers and the natural environment. This system of enterprise widens the wealth gap between those who own and govern the enterprise and those who sell their labour to it, or buy goods from it. Even in the richest countries, wealth inequalities grow wider (unless the state intervenes) [14] and the natural environment is degraded [15]. "

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And here, red in tooth and claw, is a projection of more competitive struggle in the commodity music streaming business. From Will Page, chief economist at Spotify:

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I’m happy to be here with Resonate, offering an alternative. :grin:

About this specific post it reminds me of this rather interesting piece about the slow takover of outsourced management consulting firms over the “traditional” capitalist model.

Not groundbreaking by any means but a good breakdown of widespread and extremely toxic behaviors you can now see pretty much anywhere there’s VC money involved.

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While pitching his product, I think Vinay Gupta has done a good job here encapsulating some key urgent social behavior/design issues at planetary scale. Definitely informing my sense of the value of culture as a benefit of the ‘Lean Green’ approach.

Really clarifies a lane for the co-op to federate with other service co-ops to facilitate local music habitats that joyfully reinforce Lean Green modalities.

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@jonlindblom Thanks for this post from way back in July 19 - It was before my time in Resonate - but I just wanted to show my appreciation for your work and that of others you reference here. better late than never!

Meanwhile…

In the UK we have an opportunity to be part of a strong, co-operative response to the UK Government Enquiry into Streaming and I have started a draft, but I would really appreciate some thoughts from our wider community in shaping a Resonate response… first thoughts are to make it a POSITIVE statement, with evidence, that alternative models, as illustrated by Resonate, are not only possible, but should be actively encouraged by Governments. There will be plenty of ‘knocking copy’ already about the big streamers… but not much on real alternatives. Grateful for your help on this. I’ll continue this post in the main thread…(linked above)

Another report / survey:

Politics and asymmetrical power relations
We heard from many stakeholders that:
• the failure of the GRD project showed that vested interests and asymmetrical
negotiating power can impede efforts to improve data efficiency and integrity;
• what the entire recorded and music publishing industry needs is less to do with
technological solutions and is more about improved industry-wide collaboration;
• politics driven by self- interest has hampered industry-wide collaboration and
engendered a lack of trust.

This is a brief article about different types of co-ops, comparing those with business-focused missions to co-ops grounded in more all-encompassing social, cultural and ecological work.

It felt very familiar and helpful to read this description of the social-type of co-op. These are exactly the points that have guided me in my contributions to Resonate. It is such a relief to see them written out this way. I feel like I can now I can point people toward this article and save some of my talking for something else. :wink:

Please read and share your thoughts!

(Tagging folks that have come through the Forum Governance Circle Charter draft sessions. But please, anyone can comment!) @onapoli @cosmichighness @Sam_Martyn @brndnkng @aforeigncar.cabral @Hakanto @Nick_M

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Here’s some nice intro posts about how to step up our game here in the forum and build out this space a bit.

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Fascinating guidance re: Feminist Economics and Open Value Accounting in this outline of ideas around the Distributed Co-op concept aka DisCO.

Open Value Accounting and DisCO in 7 Principles and 11 Values

Just seen this collection of ideas and orgs (including Resonate) and thought folks might enjoy reading through. :slight_smile:

Please read and share y’all’s thoughts!

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I’ve moved this thread to the new Recommended category! You’re invited to share your recommendations there as new topics.

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