In August 2023, amid ‘Hot Labor Summer,’ the Creators Guild of America (CGA) made its debut with a lot of promise, attracting high-profile members like YouTuber Justine Ezarik and TikToker Mitchell Crawford. The CGA claimed to be “the” up-and-coming “nonprofit organization that protects and promotes the interests of digital creators.”
Despite its “guild” title that is reminiscent of labor unions like the Writers Guild, the CGA made clear it is not a union. It, therefore, won’t collectively bargain against corporations (like tech platforms, talent agencies, production studios, etc.) on creators’ behalf.
Instead, it is a “service organization.” It aims to join together like-minded individuals (including people working with the aforementioned not-so-labor-friendly corporations, like Triller, Microsoft, and Disney) to provide several professional resources for those working in the creator economy.
Specifically, the organization aimed to eventually become the “IMDb” for digital accreditation. For context, in traditional Hollywood productions, rolling credits at the end of movies, TV shows, and video games list out the names of the cast and crew. These credits populate IMDb, an online database of notable entertainment productions.
Most people in the industry know these official credits are hard to come by. (Shoutout to all the production assistants in the audience!) Still, getting an IMDb credit is a stamp of approval. And a flex. Once the review team at IMDb approves your credit, you can show everyone online that you’re legitimate.
But these kinds of traditional credits don’t exist in the creator age. Much of the work of video editors, producers, artists, designers, and other creators goes completely uncredited. Brand campaigns, TikToks, YouTube videos, and live streams typically don’t have credits. Not only that, but creators’ work often gets plagiarized or ripped off.
Occasionally, a responsible creator or brand will list the folks who worked on a video in its description. But most of the time, they don’t. (When did you last see a cast and crew listing on a MrBeast video?)
The idea of a public ledger of creator-made work — verified by a team of independent fact-checkers — seems largely beneficial. So, this week, the CGA sent out an email letting members know that it is partnering with one of its sponsors, Mosaic, to try to offer this service. CGA members will now get free lifetime memberships to Mosaic.
Mosaic, currently in a beta testing phase, is a social media platform where users can acknowledge and “authenticate” projects. Users can create “blocks” that contain descriptions of creative work completed, dates finished, and the company or brand you did it for. Someone from that company (with an official company email address) must then approve that block and say you indeed did the work.
“We utilize three layers of authentication,” Mosaic co-founder and CGA’s creative director Joshua Hoy told Passionfruit. “The first is a company email address. The second is human peer-proofing. The third is a root authentication with the company, which we have not surfaced yet in our beta.”
Mosaic opened its doors to the public on Feb. 12 for beta testing. The platform is currently free for anyone to use.
Eventually, however, it plans to add monthly fees. These fees will be added as it develops new features over the “coming weeks and months,” according to its FAQs. All accounts created before paid memberships launch will have a “free subscription for life.” (Although it’s unclear if this is just a free tier, and certain features will be paywalled off.)
It currently appears that the service only covers work with companies or brands — so an ad campaign, or social media work done by a larger media company. There are no steps currently available to authenticate independent art or social media projects, which is, you know… what a lot of creators are known for.
When I asked a Mosaic representative whether they plan to introduce authentication services for independent content productions, they declined to comment. But they hinted the company will be announcing new features soon.
Mosaic’s functionality is also quite limited for the time being. For example, I tried out its search bar and couldn’t find anything or anyone on it (including the accounts it advertises on its homepage.) When I reached out to a representative for Mosaic, they declined to comment on whether this was a site-wide issue or just an issue on my end. They didn’t share when search and discoverability features would become available.
So, is this the new IMDb for creators? Maybe eventually, but we have some lingering questions…
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