From The Contingency Market

The Contingency Market is an online mechanism that allows people to offer and accept contracts to make monetary exchanges based upon the outcome of future events, e.g. "Jim Smith offers to pay Fred Bloggs $5 if he releases a new single".

This online mechanism, or web service, is the market. A website that uses it via an API is a marketplace. Jim and Fred are market traders at the marketplace. The outcome of the contingency, how a future event has turned out, determines the payments to be exchanged (and possibly, certain communications).

For example, Jim makes an offer to Fred. Fred can accept the offer and make it a deal. When the single is released (or its release becomes impossible), the deal is completed (or the deal is unsuccessful), and respective funds are transferred.

The unique feature of The Contingency Market is that by allowing many contingent contracts to be made concurrently, that concern the same publication, the producer can effectively bargain with their customers en masse. For example, an author can bargain with their readership in the same way that they might once have dealt with a publisher, or a musician may haggle with their audience as if with a record label.

• Art for money, money for art