Hi, I’m Austin. I'm working on building the artist owned internet.
Contact me: austinrobey[at]gmail.com
IG: @austinrobey_
Twitter: @austinrobey_
📍Brooklyn, NY
Current
Co-founder @ Subvert
Also:
Previous
- Metalabel builds resources, tools, and infrastructure for collectives and creative communities.
- Ampled is a web-based platform for direct community support of musicians, formed as a collectively owned co-op.
- Unnamed Friends is a NEW INC member-led, democratically-controlled creative ecosystem grant fund.
Writing
Zines
Plan for the Artist-Owned Internet
Ampled Zine II: Radical Compassion
Articles
Friends With Benefits: What co-ops and DAOs can learn from each other
Mirror: A guide for designing online community governance
Refraction: Imagining a new creator economy
Dirt: Solid(ar)ity
Dirt: Friends With Benefits
Dirt: Radical Friends
Tally: A simple guide to quadratic voting
Forefront: Ways to improve the ownership economy
The Creative Independent: How to start a cooperative
The Creative Independent: How to create community support systems
Music Ally: Artist ownership is the way to fix Spotify's broken model
Internet of Ownership: Investor-owned platforms vs. User-owned platforms
Mutual Interest: The future of tech will be an old model, the co-op
Internet of Ownership: Equity-Free Fundraising: Here are our Revenue-Share Term Sheets
Ampled: It's time to put new ideas on the table
Press/ Interviews
Pioneer Works: How to Unlearn Capitalism through Cooperative Ownership
IDEO: “Cooperatives are an old idea, but they have so much potential for shaping radical futures”
Protein Agency: Dirty Words Report #3, Ownership
Guardian Bandcamp sells to Epic: can a video game company save independent music?
Decrypt: What would Karl Marx think about crypto?
Slate: The Music Industry Is Finally Scaring Spotify
Water & Music Why AmpledDAO Doesn’t Exist (Yet)
Resident Advisor What Does Epic Games Buying Bandcamp Mean For DIY Music?
Resident Advisor: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and the Promise of Utopia
Salon: How a punk-inspired collective beat the streaming giants at their own game
AdHoc: Ampled Hopes to Make the Music Industry More Equitable for Artists
Future Laboratory: Neo-collectivism
Fast Company: Tech can still live up to its promise as a force for justice
VICE: There’s No Such Thing as Independent Music in the Age of Coronavirus
VICE: Is There Ethical Music Streaming Under Capitalism?
NEW INC: Rewriting the Rulebook: Creating in a Post-COVID World
Speaking
Square Portugal 25
Primavera Pro Madrid 2023
Trust: Will we still be asking people to like and subscribe in 15 years?
Wavelengths Summit 2023(Water & Music): Music Community Building and Decentralization: Lessons from History
Reboot: DAOs and cooperatives
Cooper Union: Artworldbuilding
WESTAF Creative Vitality Summit: Liberatory Investment Models for the Creative Economy
Betaworks Beyond Decentralization: Designing for Equity, Democracy, and Human Rights in Web3
NEW INC: Life in the speculative future
IDEO: Future Ways of Working
Center For Cultural Innovation: Creative Cooperatives In Practice
Next Gen Entrepreneurship: Platform Co-ops
Owners To Owners: Empowering Your Workers Through Employee Ownership
Cooperation Humbolt: Artists Dismantling Capitalism
Wavelengths Conference 2021: Alternate Streams
Berklee School of Music Innovation Con: Music Models For The New Creative Economy
Platform Cooperativism Conference: NYC 2019
CoCap Nourishing Community Wealth: Oakland 2019
Podcasts/ Radio
Building At The Edges (Seed Club)
Big Brother and the Hodling Company
Dublab: Peoples Portal w/ Austin Robey
FUTURE LEFT
8 Ball Radio
Everything Co-op
Teaching
I am currently facilitating a six week workshop called Codifying Care for Creative Businesses at NEW INC
From 2020-2021, I was a Visiting Fellow at The New School University for a course titled "Music and Platform Cooperativism".
I've also either spoken at or given guest lectures at:
- Columbia University
- School of Visual Arts
- University of Colorado, Boulder
- Wake Forest
- Pratt Institute
- Parsons
- New School
- Berklee School of Music
- University of Hartford
- NYU
- Cooper Union