Common Trust for Music

Shared infrastructure for local music — designed to grow without being captured.

Our Purpose

To make local music ecosystems incredible everywhere. We want more people to have more music in their lives, and that requires healthier, more resilient local music ecosystems.

To achieve this, we provide infrastructure that connects everyone who loves, relies on, or creates local music. This includes the physical spaces we see—like venues and rehearsal rooms—and the digital systems we don’t—like discovery mechanisms, funding models, and shared data. We exist to strengthen both, ensuring they remain open, accessible, and community-driven.

Where we’re starting: The Bucks Prototype

Our work is grounded in real-world application. We are currently working with the Buckinghamshire (Bucks) Music Ecosystem on our first live prototype, both online and on the ground.

Bucks is our proof of concept. Everything developed there is designed to be reusable, adaptable, and open for other local music ecosystems to adopt.

✓ Participation is voluntary.
✓ Adoption is opt-in.
✓ Exit is protected.

Visit the Bucks prototype at bucksecosystem.music

What lives in the Trust

The Bucks prototype is the first home for the shared assets we steward. Over time, the Trust will hold the essential "plumbing" required for any local music scene to thrive:

Tools for the Community For artists, venues, promoters, radio and audiences.

Open Data & Shared Schemas Standards that help different systems talk to each other, making discovery and coordination easier.

Reusable Codebases Software for discovering, booking, contacting, and financially supporting artists.

Value-Circulation Mechanisms New ways for money to flow back into the local scene rather than being extracted out.

Governance Tools Frameworks that other local ecosystems can adopt to manage themselves.

None of these tools are intended to become unavoidable. They are designed to be useful, not mandatory.

Our Approach: Stewardship, Not Ownership

Common Trust for Music exists to steward shared infrastructure. We do this by:

Holding key assets in trust, so they can’t be sold off or enclosed for private gain.
Designing tools for reuse, so they can be adapted or "forked" by other communities.
Rewarding contribution fairly, without creating permanent "rent-seeking" or extractive tolls.
Building governance in from the start, rather than trying to fix it later.

We assume that success creates the risk of corruption. So, we design to prevent that risk early.

The "Capture" Trap

We have taken this approach very deliberately to avoid a common problem. When shared infrastructure works, it tends to be captured. Tools that start out helping artists and audiences too often become closed platforms. They eventually extract value, lock users in, and quietly change the rules once the community depends on them.

This pattern isn’t about bad intentions. It’s about incentives, power without constraints, and the pressure to prioritize profit over the ecosystem.

Why This Matters

Culture depends on infrastructure. The tools we use to find, book, and fund music determine whether a local scene thrives or withers. Infrastructure shapes incentives, and incentives determine outcomes.

If we want incredible local music ecosystems everywhere, we need institutions that:

Grow without enclosure: They shouldn't be sold off to the highest bidder.
Reward contribution without extraction: They should pay people fairly without taking a permanent "cut" or toll.
Remain accountable as they scale: They must stay answerable to the artists and communities that use them.

Common Trust for Music is an experiment in building exactly that.

Dig Deeper

How the Trust Works A guide to stewardship, governance, and decision-making. Foundational Constraints The rules that bind this trust — now and in the future. Assets Held in Common What the Trust stewards, and why it matters. For Local Music Ecosystems How your community can use, adapt, or fork this infrastructure.

Music Ecosystem Fund Model (Open for consultation soon) A sustainable, non-extractive framework for circulating value back into local music ecosystems.