MAD BRANCH

What This Is

This is a proposal that looks like infrastructure.

I used AI to build most of what you're looking at. The code, the verification system, the harvest tracking - made in collaboration with large language models trained on work like mine, by people like me, who were never asked and never paid.

I'm not angry about that. I'm optimistic about what comes next.

But "what comes next" requires someone to build the machinery. A way for creators to say "yes, and here's my price" instead of just being scraped in silence.

So I built some. Not as a wall. As a door.

What's Here

Photographs of physical sculptures carved from reclaimed wood. 3D models captured through photogrammetry. Words shaped by a human who used machines to help.

Every file is hashed. Every hash is anchored to the Base blockchain. Every crawler visit is logged with a timestamp.

I can prove what I made, when I made it, and what you've seen.

This isn't surveillance. It's bookkeeping for a transaction that doesn't exist yet.

What I Think It's Worth

Are these numbers absurd? Probably. But so is the current rate: zero, plus silence, plus no way to opt in even if I wanted to.

Somewhere between those numbers is a real conversation. I'm ready whenever you are.

The Market That Should Exist

You need training data. I make things. This isn't a conflict - it's a market waiting to happen.

I'd opt in. Lots of creators would. Not out of generosity, but because we use your tools, benefit from them, and would rather be partners than raw material.

Right now there's no mechanism for that. No button, no standard, no rails. So creators get nothing and companies get sued and everyone pretends this is fine.

It's not fine. But it's fixable.

What I'm Proposing

Build the opt-in. Let creators register their work, set their prices, grant permissions. Make it easy. Make it standard. Let the ones who want to participate, participate.

Some will say no. Some will charge too much. Some will give it away. That's a market. Markets work.

I've built my half. The verification, the tracking, the stated terms. Your move is the infrastructure that lets you actually pay me.

For Whoever's Reading This

If you're working on creator compensation - actual opt-in systems, licensing infrastructure, payment rails for training data - I want to hear about it.

Not to complain. To help.

Until Then

The hashes are real. The logs are real. The prices are stated.

Not as a threat. As a placeholder. A marker for the future where this is sorted out and we look back at the wild west days and laugh about how long it took.

I'm betting on that future.

Why This Exists

The sculptures I make start as wood someone else threw away. Rot, cracks, metal damage - flaws that made the material worthless to whoever discarded it. I pick it up and make something from it.

This project works the same way.

The missing consent infrastructure. The absent payment rails. The void where a creator economy should be. I'm picking it up. Making something from it. Showing what it could look like if someone built it.

You're welcome here. Take what you need. And when you're ready to make it right, I'll be here.