The law you're referring to (JOBS Act) didn't legalize crowdfunding, but the process of selling equity via crowdfunding. The Kickstarter model is very clear-cut: it's either a donation or you're buying something (rewards or product), as opposed to buying equity.

kickstarter doesn't allow you to offer equity, but the JOBS act + the SEC did change this year to allow non-accredited investors (people with less than $1M in assets) to buy into a company directly; and for a company to market equity in the style of kickstarter.

Here are the new rules: For income below $100,000, invest a max of $2,000 or 5% of income or net worth For income over $100,000, invest a max of 10% of income or net worth Investments made in a Title III crowdfunding transaction can’t be resold for a period of one year

Note people, these laws are not yet in effect and are still liable to change. Equity Crowdfunding for the public (non-accredited investors) is ILLEGAL, unless done through a intrastate crowdfunding exemption.

Kickstarter's "perks" model was not clear cut in the beginning. It became clear cut over time as the legal space was established. We are probably one step further than Kickstarter in that we offer things like programatic voting, but it's quite infeasible for us to offer "equity" at present and attempting to offer something like this is not even in our roadmap.

when joining a kickstarter campaign, you're donating money or paying for (the pre launch of) some product, not taking some form of equity in a company

There are existing laws covering pre-orders in order to prevent the kinds of scams we've seen on Kickstarter. It's not entirely clear that Kickstarter is actually compliant with them.