Upstream is a new streaming platform with one fundamental difference from all the others: the platform itself is a co-operative — a worker-owned co-operative. The workers, in this business, are the makers. All of them.
That could mean a writer and a director. It could just as easily mean a grip, a driver, a craft-service worker, the director of photography, an actor, or a background actor.
If a film goes on Upstream, every person whose labour went into making it is offered membership in the co-operative.
Membership is not sold and it is not applied for. It is offered as a direct result of the work — the credit roll is the membership roll.
Every name on it is offered membership in the co-operative. No exceptions by department, no minimum billing.
The direction of a company is set by its owners. That is as true here as it is anywhere. What is different at Upstream is who the owners are — and how many of them there are.
Members hold Points, not shares. Upstream Media Co-operative Inc. is a shareless co-operative: there is no share capital, nothing to buy, and nothing for an outside investor to acquire. Ownership can only be earned by working on a film.
The people who made the films are suppliers. Ownership sits somewhere else entirely.
Same structure as any company: the owners set the direction. The difference is who they are, and how many of them there are.
Every member holds a proportionate number of Points, based on the projects they have worked on. Each film that joins Upstream brings ten Points into the co-op and divides them across nine credit categories; within a category, the Points divide among the people credited in it.
Two rules shape the outcome. The rest of the crew carries the single heaviest weight of any category, and no individual can take more than 1.5 Points from one film.
A writer-director on the film below reaches 1.000 as director plus 0.500 as writer: exactly the per-film ceiling.
Rest of crew carries double the weight of any single creative category — the grip, the driver and the craft-service worker sit in the largest pool on the film. No one person may take more than 1.5 Points from a single film; anything above the ceiling flows back down to the crew.
Every year, the makers vote on the amount of the resources available that can be allocated toward payouts. Once that number is set, Points are exchanged against it: your payout is your Points as a proportion of every Point outstanding.
| Member | Points | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| Grip, one film | 0.067 | $67 |
| Director of photography, one film | 0.250 | $250 |
| Crew on three of the films | 0.200 | $200 |
| Writer-director, at the per-film ceiling | 1.500 | $1,500 |
Illustrative figures, chosen to show the arithmetic rather than to forecast a result. Each new film adds its own Points to the total, so what a Point is worth in any given year depends on both the catalogue and what the members vote to allocate.
You are not paid less for the production work because the film ends up on Upstream. Membership is not a deduction from your fee.
There is no membership fee and no capital contribution. Nobody has to purchase their way into the co-operative.
Membership is offered as a direct result of your work on a film that ends up on the co-op. It is the only way in.
The people who financed the film, and the companies and individuals who own the rights to it, are treated the same as they would be in any commercial transaction in this industry. They licence the film to Upstream, and they are compensated through revenue sharing: Upstream splits what it actually receives fifty-fifty, and the statements show the arithmetic.
So there are two tracks running side by side. While the makers are voting and exchanging their Points, revenue is being shared with the rights holders to compensate them for their investment. A person can sit on both tracks. The tracks never merge.
Everyone credited on the film
The financiers and rights holders
In time we want this platform to be able to make original content — to finance and produce projects itself. That gives more revenue streams to the makers, and it means the co-operative commissions work rather than only carrying it.
That is an intention, not a promise with a date on it. The catalogue comes first.
Arthouse, independent, international, documentary and classic cinema. The catalogue is small on purpose, and it is programmed by people the way a cinema builds a season — not assembled by an algorithm.
Subscribe for the full catalogue, or create a free account for the sponsored film of the week. What members watch decides where the rights-holder half of subscription revenue goes that month — and the people who made it own the place you watched it on.
Questions, films, catalogues: hello@upstream.movie