Collective (creative industries)

A collective (Sacarian: X, Fallish: Partenariat, Waldish: Håndverkerkollektiv, Ruthish: Kulturgenossenschaft, Hyacinthean: Société d'Artistes, Razanite: X, Shiraqi: X) is a particular type of entertainment, publishing and media co-operative that emerged during the mid-20th century in Solidarist states. Collectives were established as a way to promote workplace democracy in the creative and multimedia industry while preserving the artistic autonomy of creatives and subsidising their labour, and their popularity and success has led to their global prominence. Collective differ from traditional creative media enterprises in that they have historically relied on donations, subscriptions, and patron payments from their fanbases and contributors from which they bestow a wide range of perks, such as more traditional discount prices or product bundles, but often also greater integration of consumers into the creative process.

While an overwhelming of creative and multimedia firms in the Solidarist world are collectives, there has been a steady rise in the number of collectives in various Serial states since the 2000s, owing in large part to their greater interaction and participation from fans allowing for far more durable consumer bases. Operationally, collectives can be considered as hybrid co-operatives, historically with ownership split (not necessarily equally) between aesthetes and production staff with each ownership group having special purview over certain voting issues, with this variation called the "bicameral model", while in Serial state many collectives may include a third ownership class for external investors. More recently the digitalisation of media saw many collectives migrate towards self-hosted platforms during the 2000s as an alternative pathway to distribute their work. Migration to these platforms has led to far greater experimentation and integration with their fanbases―from internal forums, to participatory polls and recommendation systems, to collaborative production to even the proliferation of advisory "Enthusiast Councils". These innovations have been slow or absent from Serial collectives, in large part due to intellectual property concerns.