After many months of deliberation and fine-tuning with the splendid legal team at the solidarity economies law firm Gilmore Khandhar, we are delighted to share the final form of Mirlo's operating agreement!
What's An Operating Agreement?
This legally binding document outlines the members' commitments to each other and to the business. Crucially, it establishes the agreements around how decisions are made, and by whom—this is a fundamental aspect of any group endeavor. Mirlo has been committed from the outset to being an open source software tool, believing that decentralized protocols can help artists meet their needs. But as Aram Sinnreich and Robert W. Gehl have recently argued, "Democratized tech doesn’t guarantee democratic outcomes." Binding commitments like our operating agreement are another important aspect of our efforts to ensure democratic participation in Mirlo's ongoing development.
OK, So Who Decides Who Decides on Mirlo?
The company is managed by its members, which currently consists of two co-founders, Alex and Simon.
Decisions on behalf of the company are made by consent of members, meaning that no member objects to the decision taken. Feel free to learn more here about consent-based decision-making from our friends at Sociocracy for All.
Members can also delegate specific domains of decision-making to circles, defined teams that can include both members and non-members. Those circles can make decisions within their delegated domain by consent, without having to run it by the full members' circle. This article from Sociocracy for All offers a good introduction to the organizational logic behind circles, based on the principles of effectiveness, equivalence, and transparency.
Stay tuned for announcements soon about the new circles we're forming!
Is There Anyone Else You're Beholden To?
Nope! We didn't build Mirlo with the traditional tech startup path in mind. To us, it's more important to build something out in the open that can answer first and foremost to the needs of musicians and listeners than to achieve "scale" and extravagant returns for investors. As we see it, it's more important to get clear on how we make decisions internally to stay aligned with our values than to have startup cash to pay our bills while we get the basics in order. Still, we are aware that sustaining Mirlo beyond its current volunteer-run situation will likely require significant resources. If you'd like to help us think through that conundrum, we'd love to talk.
What About Artists and Listeners On the Platform?
Currently, the agreements for everyone who uses the platform are governed by our Terms of Use, which is separate from our operating agreement. That said, Mirlo can't run without the dedicated creativity, feedback, financial support, and experimental verve of everyone who has already been chipping in!
While we build Mirlo into a sustainable platform, we will continue to explore the legal, technical, and cultural processes we need to put into place to reach our goal of an Exit to Community. In the meantime, lots of other collaboration is happening informally, outside of these specific agreements—we are always open to trying things out. To get involved, feel free to join our discord, suggest issues in GitHub, or send us an email.
Thank You To Everyone Who Helped With This!
So much great thinking and deliberation went into getting these agreements in place. Thanks so much to Parag and Nisha at Gilmore Khandhar; Han, jodi, and LLK from the original Fun Music Place crew; Danny and Eli from E2C Collective; and everyone else who has been nerding out with us about this stuff over the past year.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://mirlo.space/team/post/224