For new work
A debut story collection
by a first-time author
A writer names the fee it takes to finish and edit a book, then lets readers commission it into existence.
$20,000 Funding goal
45 days Deadline
For creators & rights holders
Play a lead role in the 21st-century renaissance.
A new way to fund creative work: get paid your full price, once, for a specific work — then watch it become free for the whole world, forever. Whether it's new work or a catalog you already own.
The problem
Every funding avenue has a catch.
Creators have always had to trade away control, money, or reach. One of the three is almost always the price.
Crowdfunding
You raise it all up front.
But you still own the rights forever, and must keep exploiting them to see it pay. Backers get a product, not a public good.
Subscriptions
Steady income while you keep control.
A treadmill of perpetual output. Miss a month and the income stops — the work is never really finished.
Grants
Real money, no claim on your rights.
Scarce, slow, and gatekept. You compete for a committee's taste, not your own audience's.
Commissions
A patron pays you directly.
The work answers to one buyer's brief, and its benefit rarely reaches past them.
The answer
Collective Media
One fee for one work — funded by the public, freed for the public. You're paid in full and keep your name on it; the rights go to everyone.
Why this works
People give to what they use.
The proof is already in the world: fund the specific thing people value, and a small fraction of them will carry the cost for everyone.
$160M/ yr
Wikipedia
Raised in voluntary donations — no ads, no subscriptions, nothing to ship. People give because they can see what their money keeps alive.
120Mviewers / mo
PBS
Reached every month, funded largely by member donations — proof that people will pay for the work they value, directly.
It only takes a portion of an audience to keep the lights on for everyone — the core idea behind Collective Media.
How it works
Simple, transparent, fair to creators.
- 01
List the work
New work, or a finished piece you already own the rights to. Describe it, set a fair one-time price, and choose a deadline.
- 02
The community funds it
Supporters make tax-deductible contributions toward your goal. No royalties, no equity, no strings attached.
- 03
Goal met — rights transfer
When funding closes above goal, you release the work into the public domain under a CC0 dedication.
- 04
You're paid in full
Your entire asking price, in a single transaction. Collective Media takes 0% from creator pay.
- 05
The work goes free, forever
Published for anyone to read, watch, teach, or build on — with your name on it, permanently.
- 06
If it falls short, nothing happens
Every contribution returns to supporters automatically. You keep all rights and can relist whenever you like.
Two ways in
Whether you're making it or you own it.
The same platform serves a debut artist and a studio with a dormant catalog.
For an existing catalog
A 1994 cult documentary
by the estate that owns it
A rights holder frees a finished film that's sat dormant for decades — paid once, released to every screen forever.
$60,000 Funding goal
30 days Deadline
After it's freed
How a released work reaches everyone.
We don't paywall downloads — every dollar spent on bandwidth is a dollar not paid to a creator. Freed works travel on networks that carry the cost.
Peer-to-peer
TorrentsThe more people want a work, the faster it travels — at no cost to us. A link modern browsers understand, nothing to install.
Free · no account
Usenet
Server networkA global web of independent servers carries a freed work for the long term. Posted once, kept alive by the network.
Free · no account
Direct download
Optionally ad-supportedAn in-browser download for anyone. A short optional ad lets people give time instead of money to keep it hosted.
Free · no account
Take part
This could be where
your work comes to rest.
Whether you're a debut artist with a thousand fans or a studio sitting on a catalog collecting dust — list it, fund it, free it.