Apparatuses for Political and Legislative Action
Private-public relations are strengthened by political involvement and the development of the legislative frameworks necessary for these platforms to expand and diversify their domains of activity. In the United States, Obama’s 2012 Jobs Act provided for regulated financial exchanges through these platforms, but also allowed them to extend the domain of their activities, for example allowing them to ofer equity or investment in companies (Cunningham 2012).
Since 2013, numerous European countries have also adopted legislation aimed both at regulating these funding methods and allowing their potential expansion to other economic sectors (Dushnitsky et al. 2016).
In France, the extension of these forms of financing to domains beyond culture only became possible with the political support of subsequent ministers for sustainable development, economy and finance, including Montebourg, Moscovici and Macron. Marine Joaun’s thesis (2017) demonstrates just how efective lobbying can be, particularly in deciding which platforms are authorised.
The ruling published in the Journal Oficiel of 31 May 2014, which regulates platforms and authorizes exemptions from financial monopoly regulations, has oficially recognised two specialized types of platforms:
• Loan platforms which finance diverse (often ‘community-based’ or ‘entrepreneurial’) projects via free or paid-for credit, collectively agreed by contributors-lenders.
• Investment platforms which primarily specialize in funding ‘entrepreneurial’ projects by issuing equity or debt securities, and whose reward for contributors-subscribers is a share in the potential profits of the project.
Finally, the importance of political backing can also be seen in France’s promotion of heritage and cultural production by introducing special measures for crowdfunded projects. The most important of these are tax reductions for individuals and companies if their project is non-profit (with charitable status) or heritage-related.
Although digital activities potentially ofer these platforms international visibility, we should note that, in reality, they are subject to national laws and regulations. The first platforms, representatives of the devolved modalities of the web, aimed at an international scale—the web being, in the minds of its creators, a network without borders. And yet, beyond all the talk, this internationalist dimension still depends on international and bilateral agreements between the countries concerned, as well as individual states’ fiscal policies (VAT, income tax, copyright, consumers’ rights). And no matter the country, project creators are legally subject to tax. Although legislation is often vague and not always strictly applied, the sums obtained when funding is successful can be considered revenue. As shown in the recommendations of the report ‘Crowdfunding Schemes in Europe’ (Rothler and Wenzlaf 2011), approaches in Europe still depend on the legislation of each member state, and remain to be harmonized.
Far from an Alternative: Intermediation Apparatuses
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