Break-through for Artists in Colorado: Artist Corporations

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:26:39 -0400

When I wrote Building a Sustainable Theater: How to Remove Gatekeepers and Take Control of Your Artistic Career, my goal was to encourage theater artists to think of themselves not as employees hired by institutions or corporations, but as owners who had control of their career and the means of production, and who had skin in the game. My goal was to empower theater artists to form theaters anywhere in the country, not just a few major cities. Over the years, I had come to see the whole nonprofit system as a mixed blessing, at best, and the commercial system as artistically bankrupt. My book was meant to serve as a lighthouse, one of many, I hoped, that described alternatives for living a sustainable, rooted, creative life.

Recently, @apoorplayer sent me a news release and website about an exciting development: the creation of a legal business structure called an Artist Corporation which is about to be made law in Colorado. The A-Corp was devised by Yancey Strickler,

“a writer and entrepreneur whose work supports creative people. He’s the cofounder of Kickstarter, The Creative Independent, Metalabel, Artist Corporations, the Dark Forest Collective, and DFOS (the Dark Forest Operating System). He’s the author of the books This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet, On the Creative Life, The Dark Forest Era, and the cohost of the New Creative Era podcast with Joshua Citarella.”

Clearly, this is someone who has devoted his life to helping artists thrive and “to make cooperation as easy as competition, especially for creative people.” The A-Corp is another important step toward that goal. What is it? Here’s a brief description, and a link to a TED Talk.

The problem that A-Corps address is that creative work doesn’t quite fit into the business structures that exist today:

“Today, when artists want to formalize their creative work — to collaborate, share ownership, protect their intellectual property, or simply get health insurance — they’re forced to use legal structures that were designed for conventional businesses. LLCs, S-Corps, and C-Corps don’t account for the unique realities of creative work — shared intellectual property, artistic mission protections, the way creative collaborations actually function, or the need to keep creative control in the hands of the people making the art. The result? Most artists either operate informally — without protections, without benefits, without building equity — or they spend thousands on lawyers to retrofit business structures that weren’t built for them.

WHAT THE LAW DOES

Artists keep control Artists must own at least 51% of all voting power at all times. This is locked into the statute and cannot be changed by an operating agreement. The people making the art always control the company.

A stated artistic mission Every A-Corp has a stated artistic mission in its founding documents. The company can specify that the mission has primacy over financial objectives, that they’re equal, or define its own balance. The mission has legal weight.

IP stays with artists Artistic work can never be transferred to non-artist investors or third parties. If the company dissolves, all artistic work reverts to the artists who created it. These “reversionary rights” are not available to creditors.

Investors without control Economic rights can be separated from governance rights. Investors can hold rights to distributions, royalties, and revenue participation without getting any voting power or creative control.

A new kind of share The A-Corp creates a new type of ownership unit — the A-Corp Share. Unlike traditional equity, A-Corp Shares can separate economic rights from creative control, be issued to artists in exchange for their creative contributions (not just cash), and be structured as fractional units that let collaborators share in the upside of work they helped create. An artist’s creative work is recognized as a capital contribution with real value, not just sweat equity. This makes it possible for a band, a film crew, or a game studio to build shared ownership that reflects who actually made the work.

Easy to form By July 2027, Colorado will provide long-form articles with check-box and fill-in-the-blank provisions covering ownership, governance, IP terms, tax treatment, and more. No expensive lawyers required for standard setups.

And the cool thing is you don’t have to live in Colorado to take advantage of this. No matter where you live, you can incorporate in Colorado. Think of banks like, say, PNC Bank, Bank of America, or Chase – each of these is incorporated in Delaware, but their headquarters are elsewhere. While it would be great to have A-Corps made law in all 50 states, artists don’t have to wait for the political process to move forward. Just incorporate in Colorado. In fact, you can pledge your intention to form an A-Corp

Are you curious about how an A-Corp might benefit your creative work? There is a “Model Your A-Corp” calculator where you can “see what an Artist Corporation could look like for your creative practice.” Give it a try!

I am strongly considering doing a new edition of Building a Sustainable Theater to include this information, because the model I described there could easily be adapted to the new A-Corp structure, and benefit from some of the elements contained in it.

Information about this breakthrough needs to be distributed throughout the US. Musicians, painters, dancers, theater artists, filmmakers, writers – anyone who does creative work – would benefit from exploring this new idea. Thank you, Yancey Strickler, for all that you have done and are doing for creative artists.

Money on Wond'ring Aloud

Break-through for Artists in Colorado: Artist Corporations