Colorado is the Delaware of Cooperative Law.® We just proved it again.

 

For decades, artists have been forced to choose between inadequate options. Form an LLC and watch your creative work get treated like a commodity — subject to investor control, creditor claims, and buyout pressure. Form a nonprofit and surrender commercial flexibility. Stay unincorporated and leave yourself legally exposed. None of these structures were built with artists in mind.

That changes with Senate Bill 26-133, the Colorado Artist Company Act — the first law of its kind anywhere in the world. I had the privilege of collaborating with Yancey Strickler (co-founder of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future) to help draft this legislation. Sponsored by Senators Bridges and Catlin and Representatives Martinez and Taggart, the bill passed with broad bipartisan support, signed by Governor Polis on June 2, 2026, and takes effect August 12, 2026.

It creates a new legal entity: the Artist Company, or A-Corp.

 

What Is an A-Corp?

An A-Corp is a limited liability company purpose-built for artists. It’s organized under Colorado’s LLC statutes but governed by a dedicated framework — the Colorado Artist Company Act — that reshapes the default rules to reflect how creative businesses actually work.

The statutory designation options say it all: you can register your entity as an ALLC, ACORP, AC, or A.C. That abbreviation on your entity’s nameplate signals something meaningful — this business is artist-owned, mission-driven, and structurally protected.

To qualify, an A-Corp must:

• • Have a stated artistic mission embedded in its articles of organization or operating agreement
  • Be majority-owned by artists — at least 51% of all voting securities must remain with artists at all times
  • Be organized under the new Part 12 of Colorado’s LLC statute (C.R.S. § 7-80-1201 et seq.)

The artistic mission can cover creation, development, production, distribution, exhibition, or performance of creative works in any medium — writing, music, visual art, film, digital content, performing arts, and more. It’s intentionally broad, because the legislature understood that creative work doesn’t fit in a box.

 

The Core Problem the A-Corp Solves

The fundamental tension for every artist-owned business is this: you need capital, but capital demands control. Traditional LLC structures give investors whatever governance rights they negotiate — and investors typically want a lot. The result is that artists routinely get diluted, outvoted, or pushed out of their own creative enterprises.

The A-Corp breaks this open with a structural innovation: the mandatory separation of economic rights from governance and control.

Under the Act, nonartist investors can hold economic interests — distributions, royalties, revenue participation, recoupment rights — but governance and control rights must remain with artist-members. Investors can get their return. They cannot run the creative show.

This is now the default rule of the entity type itself, and not a bespoke drafting workaround.

 

The Reversionary Rights Provision: Your Work Comes Home

The most transformative feature of the A-Corp is the artistic work reversionary right.

When an artist contributes intellectual property to an A-Corp — or creates work during membership — that work is assigned or licensed to the company for use in furtherance of the artistic mission. But the artist retains a reversionary interest that constitutes a retained interest never fully transferred to the company. That means:

• • The work cannot be seized by the company’s creditors
  • The work cannot be claimed by nonartist investors
  • Upon dissolution of the A-Corp, artistic work reverts automatically to the creating artist, with the assignment or exclusive license terminating by operation of law

This is a fundamental reimagining of how IP ownership works inside a business entity. It recognizes that a songwriter’s catalog, a novelist’s manuscript, a filmmaker’s footage — these aren’t simply corporate assets. They are extensions of the person who made them, and the law should reflect that.

For jointly created works, the parties can specify reversion terms in the operating agreement. If they don’t, federal intellectual property law governs — which, for joint works, means co-ownership with equal rights. The Act also protects continuing royalty rights for departed members who created work during their membership.

 

Flexible Capital Structure

A-Corps can accept capital in virtually any form: grants, refundable grants, debt, equity, convertible instruments, program-related investments, revenue and cash flow participation rights, royalty sharing, and in-kind contributions including intellectual property itself.

That last point matters enormously. An artist can contribute their existing catalog as an in-kind capital contribution — establishing their ownership stake based on the value of creative work rather than cash. If the company and the member can’t agree on valuation, either party can walk away from the deal or trigger an independent professional valuation at the company’s expense.

This opens A-Corps to investment from foundations, impact investors, and mission-aligned funders who are accustomed to program-related and mission-related investment structures. The law was drafted to fit the actual ecosystem of arts funding, not just traditional venture or angel capital.

 

The Public Benefit A-Corp

For artists who want to go further, the Act creates a Public Benefit Artist Company — an A-Corp that formally commits to promoting specific public benefits alongside its artistic mission and members’ financial interests.

Managers of a Public Benefit A-Corp must balance four things: member financial interests, the best interests of those materially affected by the company’s conduct, the stated public benefits, and the artistic mission. They must publish an annual statement reporting on progress toward those goals.

This structure positions A-Corps to seek B Corp certification, access philanthropic capital, and make a credible public commitment to cultural value creation — without sacrificing commercial viability or the artist-ownership protections that define the entity type.

 

Why Colorado. Why Now.

Our firm trademarked “Colorado is the Delaware of Cooperative Law” for a reason. It’s not a boast — it’s a statement of legal infrastructure.

Delaware built the modern corporate economy by creating a flexible, reliable, sophisticated legal framework that companies around the world chose to organize under. Colorado has spent the last decade doing the same thing for mission-driven, people-centered business structures. Our worker cooperative law. Our public benefit corporation statute. Our legal innovation in alternative entity forms.

The A-Corp is the next chapter. It’s the first entity type in the world designed specifically for artist-owned businesses — with structural protections for creative work, governance rights permanently anchored to the people who make the art, and enough flexibility to accommodate the full range of creative industries and capital structures.

Artists in every state — and from every country — can form an A-Corp in Colorado. Section 7-80-1223 of the Act explicitly provides that a person from any jurisdiction can organize an A-Corp here, and that the A-Corp is a domestic Colorado LLC for all purposes regardless of where its artist-members live.

That’s an invitation to the global creative economy.

 

What Artists Should Do Now

The Secretary of State must implement the A-Corp filing process by July 1, 2027, and the Act takes effect August 12, 2026. Here’s what artists and creative enterprises should be thinking about now:

If you’re forming a new creative business: Consider whether the A-Corp structure fits your situation. The 51% artist ownership requirement is a real constraint — it’s not the right vehicle if you anticipate heavy outside investment that would dilute artist ownership. But if you want to protect your creative control and your IP while building a fundable, credible legal entity, the A-Corp may be the best structure available anywhere.

If you have an existing LLC: You can convert to an A-Corp by amending your articles of organization with unanimous member consent. The conversion doesn’t constitute a dissolution or transfer of assets — your entity continues with all existing rights and obligations intact, now governed by the new framework.

If you’re a foundation or impact investor: The A-Corp’s flexible capital acceptance provisions, public benefit election option, and annual reporting requirements were designed to interface with your program-related investment structures. This is a legitimate vehicle for arts funding that provides legal clarity about how your capital will be used and governed.

 

Colorado has always been a state that takes seriously the idea that the law can be a tool for building a more just economy — not just a system for protecting the interests of capital. The Artist Company Act is that idea applied to one of the most exploited groups in our economy: the people who actually make culture.

We built the legal infrastructure. Now artists can build on it.

 

SB26-133 bill text: leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-133 | Full enrolled bill (PDF)

 

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Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The content provided should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a qualified attorney. For specific legal questions or situations, please consult with a licensed legal professional who can provide advice tailored to your particular circumstances.