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CRPS — Corpus Participation Rights

Public beta

CORPUS is being built in the open. Some of what you read here is live, some is still design intent — expect it to evolve.

CORPUS pays contributors in two layers: royalties for revenue, and CRPS for a permanent stake in the corpus they help build. The second layer exists because streaming proved a one-layer system isn't enough — Spotify's market cap exceeded $80 billion while the musicians who supply its catalogue debate whether streaming income covers their recording costs.

The dual currency​

  • Revenue participation. The royalty system in How Royalties Flow. Contributors receive ongoing payouts in conventional currency, proportional to their input weighting, whenever models trained on their works generate licensed revenue. Predictable, auditable, tied to real economic activity.
  • System participation. Each contribution also generates CRPS (Corpus Participation Rights) — a stake in the value of the shared corpus itself. Unlike royalties, which reflect current income, CRPS reflect the contributor's role in building a long-term asset. As the corpus grows, as more models are trained, as more industries license those models, the value of the system increases — and CRPS holders participate in that appreciation.

Why CRPS matter​

Royalties make a contributor a supplier. CRPS make them a co-owner. The distinction has concrete consequences: governance rights, a claim on the corpus's long-term value, and a permanent stake that does not expire when works are later withdrawn.

What CRPS represent​

CRPS carry two dimensions of participation:

  • Economic participation. A claim on the long-term value of the corpus — including, in a liquidity event, the appreciation of the underlying asset. This is the critical difference to streaming: contributors participate not only in the flow of revenue but in the stock of value their contributions help build.
  • Governance participation. The right to influence how the corpus is managed, how licensing terms evolve, and how the protocol develops. This can take the form of voting rights, representation on advisory bodies, or veto mechanisms on decisions that affect contributor interests. See Why Governance Matters.

Permanence and temporal dynamics​

CRPS, once issued, are permanent. They represent the historical fact of having built the system — a fact that does not change regardless of how the corpus evolves.

The diversity component of the royalty score, by contrast, decays after a five-year protection period — because the library evolves, and a contribution that filled a gap in 2026 may sit in well-represented territory by 2031. One currency is dynamic; the other is permanent. The separation is described in Temporal Dynamics.

The legal form of CRPS is under active evaluation, with several pathways being assessed in parallel:

  • Profit participation rights (Genussrechte) under German law. Well-established, can include profit and liquidation participation, can be structured as transferable. Critically, when issued as consideration for a contribution — not as a gift — they do not trigger gift tax.
  • Tokenized participation rights under Swiss DLT legislation (Ledger-based Securities framework, effective since 2021). Enables broader transferability and international scalability, but requires a Swiss entity or subsidiary and FINMA-compliant issuance.
  • Cooperative membership. Closest to the vision in spirit, but current cooperative law limits transferability and may not accommodate the speed required in the AI sector. A hybrid — cooperative membership for governance, Genussrechte for economic participation — is also under consideration.

No final structure has been selected. The decision will depend on regulatory developments, contributor feedback, and ongoing legal consultations. What is fixed is the design principle: contributing to CORPUS must generate lasting participation, not merely periodic payment.

Next: Temporal Dynamics.