01 The register records. Governing is left to the clusters.

The register is a substrate. It accepts every attestation that meets the shared schema. It is not designed to endorse or gatekeep. Recording a relation is not the same as governing it. A work can enter at any phase; it can be read, copied, derived from, and re-attested without asking anyone's permission. The clusters—not the register—decide who joins them, what they produce, and how their works are used.

What it forecloses

• Editorial control over what enters the register.
• A "record of firsts" in which some works are privileged over others.
• The register becoming a members' club.

What it produces

• Non-discretionary entry: every contribution is attested, with no gatekeeping.
• Phase is an event in the life of the work—a work can enter at any phase, and no phase is more real than another.
• No "graduation" between phases: Once a work is recorded on the register, it remains there; new works are added to its lineage as events in its ongoing life.
• The register is a set of views over one record, not multiple record sets.
• Revocable attestations: a contributor may withdraw a claim without erasing the relation.

02 BLACKBOX is a method.

BLACKBOX is the method by which works come into being. A cluster reads a source; an interim work is produced. That work is read, by the same hands or by others; an iteration emerges. Some iterations become editions. The method has a genealogy in the transmedia-based works that used a BLACKBOX theatre to produce iterative and generative ambiances, later re-rationalised through photo-essays and essays. What it has become is simpler: a method any cluster may practise, on any material, for any duration.

The method is a process. A cluster practises it; the register records what the method produces. The method is ceded to the commons—any cluster may adopt it, adapt it, or replace it with its own. The name BLACKBOX is the method's public identity, but no one owns it, and no one needs permission to use it.

What it forecloses

• Treating BLACKBOX as a cluster, a page, or a layer of the architecture.
• Treating it as a gate through which works must pass.
• Any idea that works "graduate" from one phase to another.
• Any claim by EO1 to own the method or license its use.

What it produces

• The four phases as a common vocabulary: source, interim, iteration, edition.
• The dossier view on the BLACKBOX page, where each cluster's arc is visible.
• Lineage as the primary relation between works, recorded as derivation.
• Editions as a relation, not a terminal state: an edition is a new attestation derived from an existing one.
• A public name for the method that any cluster may use.

03 Clusters govern themselves.

A cluster is a body of practitioners. It admits its own members, sets its own rules, funds its own projects, resolves its own disputes. The register records what the cluster produces; it does not govern the cluster. EO1 hosts a directory of clusters, but is not a host for their pages. Each cluster deploys its own page, under its own name, at an address of its choosing.

What it forecloses

• EO1 controlling which clusters exist.
• A central authority that admits or dismisses clusters.
• The register functioning as a supervisory body.

What it produces

• Cluster pages that are deployable by the clusters themselves.
• An EO1 directory that lists clusters and links out to them.
• A wizard that lets any group create a cluster page without asking permission.
• Rules that live on the cluster's own page, not in the register.
• A minimal schema, so clusters can add their own conventions without breaking the substrate.

04 The work is relational.

A cultural work is not an object but an event. It lives through its relations—its origins, its derivations, its re-editions, its lineage. Therefore, the register records relations, not objects. Derivation is a first-class field, and the lineage is visible on every page: on the register, in the BLACKBOX dossiers, on cluster pages, and in the graph.

What it forecloses

• Treating works as ownable assets.
• A register that catalogues works as static items.
• A model in which a work's value is its scarcity.

What it produces

• Derivation as a first-class field in every attestation.
• The graph view as a primary view.
• Lineage visible on every entry, in every list, on every page.
• Editioning as a relation—a new attestation derived from an existing one—rather than a terminal state.
• Cross-registry references via URI, so external provenance is preserved.

05 Entry is a form-of-life.

"No Rights" is a unilateral renunciation: a statement of how one will hold one's work in common. It binds contributions that enter via EO1. It does not bind external source works referenced by clusters. A reader who remixes an EO1 contribution accepts the same renunciation for their remix. The register records the renunciation but does not enforce it.

What it forecloses

• Describing the register as a licence, or the ethos as a legal instrument.
• Extending "No Rights" to works whose originators have not accepted it.
• Using the ethos to override external rights.

What it produces

• Two kinds of attestation in the register: contributions under "No Rights", and references under their own terms.
• The licence field carrying the distinction, and the viewer displaying it.
• Honesty about asymmetry: the register records what it cannot resolve.
• "No Rights" set in italic serif, not mono caps, so it reads as a proper name and not as a system value.

06 Interoperability without hierarchy.

Different registries can reference each other, but no registry is the master. A work can enter a cluster, be transformed, and leave, without losing its lineage and without any one registry holding authority over another. Resolution of external references is a viewer-side or cluster-side concern, not a protocol-level guarantee.

What it forecloses

• Automatic, trustless cross-registry validation.
• A central registry that acts as the root.
• Smart contracts that bridge between registries by fiat.

What it produces

• A shared schema and a URI grammar.
• Derivation within one registry by reference to the attestation's unique identifier; reference across registries by URI.
• Canonical URI forms for cross-registry references.
• Cross-registry resolution left to the viewer or the cluster, not enforced by the substrate.

07 The register offers a different jurisprudence.

A cultural work is relational, collective, and event-based. A jurisprudence built on that premise does not treat the work as an object to be owned. It treats attribution as a relation, derivation as a public fact, and the record of a work's life as belonging to no one. This is what the register holds.

Four positions follow. Where a cluster derives from a copyrighted source, the register records the relation and names the contributor: the derivation is public, and its author is accountable. Where attribution is contested, the register holds the claim and the contest side by side, without choosing between them. Where a work's origin cannot be named, the work enters as an orphan; if a name emerges later, it is added to the record. Where “No Rights” is declared, the declaration propagates through contribution: a remix carries the same renunciation as its source. The declaration is not a legal transfer, and the contributor retains whatever rights the law grants. What the register adds is the record: a public account of the work's life that no owner can erase.

What it forecloses

• Treating a work as an object to be owned.
• The idea that attribution requires ownership.
• Using the register as a legal instrument or a substitute for law.

What it produces

• A working alternative to the author-work-property nexus.
• Public accountability for derivations.
• A record of disputes that holds them without resolving them.
• The orphan works simulator as a demonstration.

What the design produces as a whole.

Taken together, the six principles above produce a record that cannot be enclosed. No single operator can shut it down, move it, or extract value from it. There is no server to seize, no database to alter, no account to revoke, and no operator who could change the rules of the substrate. The record outlives any particular host, and the works it holds remain visible even when the platforms that carried them do not.

The collective’s own statement—the ethos in its own words—is on the About page.