export_ofoct.com (1)

[00:01.23] Eventually I got so frustrated, I started a new project to help creative people release work together.

[00:06.28] It's called Metalabel. And one of the first releases was by myself and 10 other writers who'd all independently written about the same subject.

[00:14.24] So I reached out to these people who I didn't know, and I proposed a way that we would work together.

[00:18.23] We would publish our pieces together in a book, and the initial sales would go back to paying the cost of making it.

[00:24.07] After that, 70 percent of the profits would be split equally among us, and 30 percent would go into a shared treasury that we could use for a future project if things went well.

[00:33.90] Everyone agreed, and we became the Dark Forest Collective.

[00:37.09] And now, a year later, we've sold 2,000 copies of this book.

[00:40.27] More than 70,000 dollars has automatically flowed through our arrangement.

[00:44.52] And just now we published our second book by another author, even better than the first.

[00:48.77] And our little collective is going to make six figures, which is wild.

[00:52.76] But then I realized it was kind of silly to be so legally YOLO about this, and so I should create some sort of structure to represent what we were doing.

[01:01.26] And I was surprised to find there wasn't an obvious fit.

[01:06.30] We could be an LLC, but that just puts a shield over the project.

[01:09.49] It doesn't help you grow the pie or share it.

[01:12.94] We could be a C corporation, but then you're taxed twice and you have all sorts of overhead.

[01:17.19] You could be a nonprofit and then be wrapped in red tape.

[01:21.71] So I started thinking, what if you could create a new structure for a project like ours?

[01:26.22] So I reached out to a trusted colleague, and soon we were speaking to experts in making new corporate forms.

[01:32.07] And for the last year, a small team of us have been working together, digging into this question, and I'm here representing our work because we've come up with something.

[01:41.10] A new structure for creative work. We call it the Artist corporation or A Corp.

[01:54.11] Now I realize that a new corporate structure sounds like the last thing creative people need.

[02:00.23] And that these two words are the exact opposite of each other.

[02:05.80] But the A Corp just might be the door that opens up a new path to prosperity for creative people.

[02:12.18] You could think of an A Corp as like a company but built for how creative people work.

[02:16.16] And we can imagine a band starts, and right from the beginning they have an A Corp.

[02:20.41] So not just five individuals, they're people who collectively own an organization that has the power to own their intellectual property, their gear, their business.

[02:28.91] As they start to get paid, that money can automatically flow to each of the members according to pre-set amounts, and they could even set aside money to be saved for future projects in a treasury, or pooling together with other Artist Corporations to get better healthcare or other benefits.

[02:43.26] As an Artist Corporation, they would also be able to receive both commercial revenue as well as non-profit sources of funding.

[02:50.16] And if a label or a bigger commercial entity came along, rather than just selling the rights to their intellectual property, which has been customary until now, as an artist corporation, they can issue shares.

[03:01.85] So instead, that entity would make an investment in the artist corporation, allowing it to be valued more highly and everyone to benefit if things went well.