Grant Commercial Rights to Chaos Members for their Contributions

Author: Matthew Chaim, Russ Matthews Funding Cycle: 03/2023

Video explanation of proposal

Proposal Purpose

The purpose of this proposal is to make it easy for all members of Chaos to use the original art they contributed to the project, without needing approval from "the Chaos Collective” via a proposal, giving Chaos members the rights required to release the songs and visual art they created through traditional channels.

Background

Currently, all art created as a part of the Chaos project is owned by “Chaos”. This includes individual songs, visual art, and code. “Chaos” is controlled by all 77 members collectively, as outlined in the original Chaos Agreement,

As it stands today, individual chaos members cannot make commercial use of their contributions, without first passing a governance proposal that gives them the right to do so.

Proposed Solution

Our existing agreement allows “Chaos” to grant additional rights by passing proposals, including the use of songs, visual art, and code for commercial purposes.

By offering these ‘additional rights’, individual Chaos members will be able to commercially release the works they contributed without needing to go through the tedious process of submitting a governance proposal.

Voting Options

• Yes, grant commercial rights to individual Chaos members for the works they contributed
• No, do not grant commercial rights to individual Chaos members for the works they contributed, and maintain collective IP management according to our governance rules

Formal Language

Upon the passing of this proposal, “Chaos” hereby grants all rights necessary to make commercial use of ‘Songs’ and ‘Artworks’ to individual Chaos members, as set forth in Schedule A.

These commercial uses include, but are not limited to; streaming, downloads, sales of physical records, and synchronization licenses.

These commercial uses exclude the tokenizing and sale of ‘Songs’ as Non-Fungible Tokens, except for in the case of ‘Breathing Out’, ‘Dreaming’ and “Harmony” (“Hidden Songs”)

In the case of a “joint work”, in which these rights are granted to multiple individual Chaos members (“Contributing Members”), written consent must be obtained from all Contributing Members prior to any commercial use.

Upon the commercial release of these ‘Songs’ and ‘Artworks’, individual Chaos members will, wherever reasonable, include the following description:

“This work was created as part of CHAOS, The Headless Band. Learn more at chaos.build/about.”

Individual members will have the right to assign or delegate any of these rights to any third party, subject to the prior written consent of all Contributing Members.

The granting of these rights will not impact Songcamp’s rights as a service provider as described in the Chaos Agreement.

The rights granted by the passing of this proposal will be irrevocable by “Chaos”.

“Chaos” also grants all rights necessary to make commercial use of the “Chaos Media Kit” to all Chaos members.

Participants

This proposal would affect all Chaos Members, as it is proposing to change a fundamental aspect of the project. With that in mind, it is of the utmost importance to get as many members to read and weigh in on this proposal - ideally all 77 of us.

Timeline

This would be put into effect immediately after voting closes.

Resource Requirements

This proposal is not requesting any funding.

Risks / Disadvantages

The collective management of our collectively-created IP is, generally speaking, an interesting and novel aspect of the project. This action would remove that from our story moving forward.

This could also result in songs and artwork from Chaos losing their connective tissue from the Chaos narrative over time, if they are used and/or released in contexts unconnected to Chaos.

Optimal Outcome

This action would prove beneficial if it:

• frees up artists to release their songs and artwork as they wish
• removes stagnating barriers around collectively governing IP and needing to reach quorums