"Transparency Rights": Chapter 13 of Chokepoint Capitalism

A Kindle/Audible Exclusive

De: Rebecca Giblin, Cory Doctorow

Narrado por: Stefan Rudnicki

Chapter 13 of Chokepoint Capitalism, "Transparency Rights".

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media.

Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both.

In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism”, with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three record labels’ use of inordinately long contracts to up their own margins at the cost of artists, chokepoints are everywhere.

By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio, and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct “anti-competitive flywheels” designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.

In the book’s second half, Giblin and Doctorow then explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.

Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that’s being heisted away—before it’s too late.

©2022 Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow (P)2022 Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow

Read this section and then get the book

Just do it. Informative. Makes you feel kind of gross since I’m playing in to it by listening on Amazon. Better to be aware than not!

well-argued expose offers no solution?

The information shared in this chapter 13 seems likely to exacerbate the problem described and the authors offer no solution? I came to buy and listen to the whole book after Cory’s appearance on the Pivot podcast, and now I don’t know how to.

ironic wisdom

Rebecca and Corey have written an urgent and important book and of course part of it is about Audible, and of course, Audible won't listen to this book... but they should because it helps all of us understand how creators are being left out of our future.


The systems that are being solidified hurt all of us.

Insightful analysis of corporate malfeasance

The story of how authors discovered they were being screwed and decided to fight back. Definitely worth a listen.

Great

Looking forward to the entire book! Really gets to the core of the problem. Highly recommend

So I just spent a credit on this?

Okay I 100% agree with the author, ur I just spend a damn credit on this “preface?” Audible shouldn’t list what they don’t actually have the rights to sell, what a load of shit!
On a side note the book itself is worth this price, but since the author would only get a negligible fraction of the list price and Amazon keeps the rest, while also capturing the market (at a high price e for consumer) I m not sure how to leave a review that both praises the author and condemns the ass hat tech platform that sells digital copies.