When a digital creator wants to showcase their body of work to potential collaborators or clients, they can post some previous work to their Instagram or LinkedIn, maybe dig out a few old contracts from a drawer. But with the scale and diversity of output that successful creators produce, from quick sketches to full-scale brand campaigns, it’s an unwieldy and imperfect approach.
A new initiative from the Creators Guild of America is aiming to solve that issue. On Tuesday, the industry nonprofit (led by former Producers Guild of America arbitrations administrator Daniel Abas) launched an open beta version of Mosaic, a “first of its kind” credentialing platform tailored to the vast workflows endemic to creators and their behind-the-scenes creatives.
Branded as the “IMDb for creators,” Mosaic offers creator economy workers a digital resumé to help them showcase their work history to collaborators, brands and audiences. A few thousand beta testers have already signed on to Mosaic prior to Tuesday’s launch.
“Without a infrastructure for credit, it’s difficult to know and provide recognition for what creators are doing. Mosaic is exactly that. It is infrastructure to demonstrate and provide recognition for work,” Abas told The Hollywood Reporter. “Creative work is very granular. It’s project by project, hence the name of Mosaic. When you put this work together, you can see someone’s complete creative arc.”
All credits that are submitted to Mosaic will be verified by third parties with knowledge of the jobs, according to the CGA. They will also be judged according to the CGA’s “professional eligibility standards” (for instance, for an individual influencer to receive a CGA credit, they need to have been paid by a brand, agency, platform or have a paid subscriber base of 10 or more people).
An image showcasing the credits feature of Mosaic.
Courtesy of the Creators Guild of America
Mosaic will also give each participant a unique Creator ID that they can use across different social media platforms. Comparing it to a driver’s license number, Abas says the number will help give creators more independence from particular handle names, will help differentiate creators with the same names and will offer safeguards against fraudulent promotions or fake videos.
In a statement, lifestyle creator Yanina Oyarzo emphasized that the Creator ID component of the platform could protect influencers like herself from being associated with fake promotions. Oyarzo discovered last year that her likeness was being used to promote products without her knowledge or consent. “I’m excited for Mosaic, because we need the protection it will bring to today’s creators,” she said. “We have it for writers, actors, and other forms of creatives in the entertainment industry. It’s about time we are able to be protected and work alongside AI with the right contracts and safeguards.”
While the idea for the platform pre-dated recent developments in the world of generative AI, the rise of synthetic creators and deepfake videos has accelerated the CGA’s work on Mosaic, said Abas: ”The truth is important in the world that we are entering. What is real? What is not real?”
The platform is free and open to any creator and creative that works in the creator economy, not just members of the CGA, though only members of the organization can be verified on the platform as human creators.
“I’m excited about Mosaic because when we watch creators, we usually only see the person in front of the camera,” said content creator and CGA board member Justine Ezarik (whose handle is @iJustine) in a statement. “We don’t always see the writers, producers, editors, and videographers behind the scenes who help bring that content to life. So having this new platform that properly credits the entire team feels like a missing piece of the creator puzzle.”
An image showcasing the Creator ID feature of the Creators Guild of America’s Mosaic platform.
Courtesy of the Creators Guild of America
