CultureBanking — A Call For Collaborators
I’ve been developing the idea of ‘CultureBanking’ (CB) for a couple of years now. It’s got some backing in Australia and the USA and a network of possible collaborators are growing in the UK as well. Now I’m searching for industry contacts to consult with on commercial applications.
What distinguishes CB is the method of using income from intellectual property to directly fund local civic work through a form of digital hypothecated taxation and using blockchains to trace assets and recoup revenue (as well as refuelling further innovation and investment). There are already many examples in place already with the UK governments plans to make tax digital; for example the financing of apprenticeship schemes by firms over a certain size paying in a percentage to their digital tax accounts. Collective Management Organisations and rights holders are beginning to see the potential of new relationships between their asset bases and new forms of monetisation. CB is also an iteration of the long overdue improved ‘digital rights exchange’ called for by Hargreaves in 2011
The difference between traditional taxes on incomes and taxes on IP is that legacy tax contributions on IP can be set at the beginning of a product, design or invention’s life span using smart contracts and therefore earn positive balances on civic taxation, whilst being directed towards specific goals. As well as being a marketing tool, it’s a developing idea to incentivise innovation and enterprise whilst encouraging communities and small businesses to make new things and trust that they will not be disqualified from state support because of their efforts. At the most basic level, this is evidenced in the decisions that many argue the poor have taken not to get jobs or innovate in case they lose access to welfare payments. This ‘poverty trap’ has been something which austerity agendas and conservative policy since 2009 has aimed to tackle resulting in aggressive cuts to welfare — with arguably little to show for them. It’s been suggested that CB as an alternative is congruent with a ‘left libertarian’ stance but in reality, it is just a pragmatic solution to intransigent problems I have faced in my own experience of ‘cultural regeneration’ and commercial art sales.
My hope for CB is that it will form a part of a Labour Party manifesto commitment to existing and potential wealth creators ( as opposed to the wealth extractors identified by JC in his successful ‘anti-establishment’ election stance) and reward innovation and trade.
My hope for that policy is that it will then enable more distributed funding and investment networks to form and incentivise local people to get together, particularly in poorer places and trade their way out of poverty. It also values ingenuity and wealth creation and locates legacy income in the place where that innovation took place, since the licensing or royalty incomes created will return to the place where they were conceived and originated. In this way creating cultures of innovation as a strategy for urban and place based renewal will have a much greater chance of success.
I have written a thesis on the subject (available on request at a printing cost of £6 each) and am searching for opportunities to trial CB and build on the results. Anyone seeking potential areas of investment in blockchain applications is most welcome to get in touch. Ideally, the project will aim to work with a limited geographical area over a five year period and will seek to attach a CB certificate to artistic and cultural production which will then be made available to commercial markets, traced and monetised via distributed ledgers to re-finance regional cultural development. Collaborators / partners are sought in publishing and blockchain based asset management systems.
Enquiries: mail@gallery133.net
Liam Murphy
