Rules
House rules
Collective Media buys finished creative work out of private hands and puts it in the public domain. These rules exist to keep that exchange clean: the creator gets paid, the donor gets what they funded, and the public gets a work it can actually use. The binding version of all this is the Terms of Use.
What you can list
- Work you made, or work whose rights you fully control.
- Work you can deliver in full — final files, not a promise of a draft.
- Work you are willing to release into the public domain on funding. This is irreversible.
What you cannot list
- Work you do not hold the rights to, including work with a live publisher, label, or studio claim on it.
- Work with unresolved co-author or estate claims. Bring every rights holder or don't bring the work.
- Work whose distribution is illegal where we operate.
- Work that exists mainly to harass or defame a real person.
Funding rules
- Donations fund a wallet; wallet funds are allocated to specific projects.
- An allocation cannot be cancelled. If a project fails to reach its goal by its deadline, the allocation returns to your wallet automatically.
- Nobody may fund their own project, or route funds through others to do so.
- Funding is not a purchase and buys no special access — everything released is free to everyone at the same moment.
After a project funds
- The creator is paid the full listed amount and signs the rights transfer.
- The deliverables are published and dedicated to the public domain.
- Credit is not legally required of anyone who reuses the work, but we name the creator everywhere we can.
What gets removed
Projects that misrepresent rights, deliverables, or the creator's identity are removed and their funds returned. Accounts that do it repeatedly are banned. Payment fraud, chargeback abuse, and attempts to launder money through donations are reported.
Reporting something
Every project page has a report control, and anything urgent can go straight to our contact page. See Trust & Safety for how reports are handled.