re:publica 25
26.-28. Mai 2025
STATION Berlin
The artists' problem isn't that we don't have enough copyright: it's that the five publishers, four studios, three labels, two ad-tech companies and single ebook/audiobook company simply take whatever copyright we're given as a condition of letting us reach the audiences they've locked inside the prisons they claim are "walled gardens."
To get artists paid, we need to disenshittify the internet and creative labor markets. We need to reduce the power of Big Tech and Big Content, to increase the power of creative workers, and to eliminate the chokepoints that let monopolists suck all the value out of creators' relationships with their audiences.
Our book explains, in detail, how to do this. Spoiler alert: it doesn't involve being a more conscientious consumer. We don't solve this problem by shopping harder: we solve it by smashing the power of the giant corporations that have captured all kinds of workers - not just creators. We've got shovel-ready proposals for technical interventions that we can all demand the next time things reach a crisis point and there's a demand that "something must be done."
Rebecca will be joining us remotely from Melbourne.