why we can’t sell out
More of music’s money, reaching the people who made it.
daps is a mission-locked public benefit corporation. Our mission: to cultivate a fair and thriving music ecosystem where human artistry and fandom flourish, and a continually increasing share of music’s value flows to its rights holders.
what we promise
A company commitment to choosing the artist.
An ordinary corporation has one job: return value to its shareholders. Day to day, a board has wide latitude to treat artists well and call it good business. The moment somebody offers to buy the company, that latitude narrows sharply, and the duty runs to the shareholders being bought out.
A public benefit corporation changes what the directors owe. Alongside financial return they are legally required to pursue a specific public benefit, named in the certificate of incorporation, and to weigh the interests of the people the company affects.
The commitment only means something if the named purpose is specific. Plenty of companies pick something no one could ever fail. daps designed an economic formula anyone can test: the share of music’s value reaching rights holders has to keep going up.
why it can’t break
A promise that outlasts the people who made it.
Founders leave. Founders are bought out. Founders change their minds, or turn out to be worse than anyone thought. A mission that depends on the founders staying good is not a mission that has to stay true.
Steward ownership separates two things ordinary companies bundle together: who profits from a business, and who steers it. Investors and employees keep the full economic upside of what they build. Control over what the company is for sits with people bound to that purpose, and the charter says it can never be sold, only passed on to somebody equally bound.
Three things have to be true at once. The purpose cannot be removed without the consent of the people holding it. That consent cannot be bought, however much of the company somebody acquires. And when the founders go, they do not take the veto with them: it passes to a mission guardian entity, an organization set up for nothing but this and legally unable to do anything else with it.
daps is incorporating on the model set out in Eric Ries’ Incorruptible.
the founders
We’re building the music app that should have existed all along.
Armand Perry
A public defender in Seattle, then a human rights lawyer admitted on three continents. A music fan first.
Ravi Gadad
A working musician before he was an engineer, and twenty-five years building systems since.
how we’re kept honest
A promise nobody can audit is just a nicer way of asking for trust.
Here is what daps commits to publishing.
the charter and the constitution
daps publishes the certificate of incorporation carrying the mission, and the written constitution daps builds against.
the money
How payouts are worked out, from how a pool is formed to how it divides, and the daps fees shown on every single transaction.
what daps is building next
The product roadmap, public and kept current: what daps is working on now, what is coming, and what has been dropped.
what gets removed and why
A regular report on moderation: what was taken down, under which rule, and how many decisions were appealed and overturned.
read further
None of this started with us.
Companies have been fighting mission-drift for years. Learn more about the structures daps is built on, and read about how they have been used in practice.
Incorruptible is Eric Ries on why good companies go bad, and the charter design daps is built on. Purpose Economy on steward ownership generally, and Delaware itself on what a public benefit corporation is.
For how it holds up in practice: Patagonia moved its voting stock into a purpose trust rather than sell or float. Anthropic put a long-term benefit trust in control of a majority of its board. Novo Nordisk has been foundation-controlled for over a century.
keep me posted
The future of music is open.
daps is pre-launch and building in the open.