Every work on Artfork carries a built-in equity ledger that governs how revenue is automatically routed to each contributor.
When a new seed is planted, the initial ledger consists of:
When a collaborator proposes a graft, the default equity split is:
These percentages are negotiable between the seed creator and the collaborating creator before signing. Once both parties sign, the split is immutable.
Example: A musician and a film director want to collaborate. The musician's seed starts at 80% / 20% Sap. When the director proposes a video graft, the default offer is 50% musician + 30% director + 20% Sap. They negotiate and agree on 55% / 25% / 20% — both sign, and those numbers never change again.
Photography seeds bypass the Nursery. When a photo publishes directly to the Stage, the equity is:
No negotiation phase — this is set at publish time.
The Sap is Artfork's platform fee. It is always 20% and can never be removed or reduced. It applies to:
| Revenue type | Sap rate |
|---|---|
| Stream / play | 20% |
| Patron (Mecene) | 20% |
| Object / edition sales | 6–8% (cap EUR 50) |
| Event / ticketing | 8–10% |
The Sap does not stack across revenue channels.
Revenue can only distribute if all equity rows for a project are signed. If any collaborator has not signed their equity agreement, the ledger is marked unsigned and no distribution can occur for that project.
Wallet distributions are executed inside a single PostgreSQL function (distribute_revenue). This function loops through signed equity holders, locks wallets to avoid concurrency races, and updates balances. A composite reference ID prevents any double-payouts if a distribution is retried.
The Sap account always receives its 20% as part of every distribution — it is included in the equity loop, not subtracted separately.
