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cc-bizcom - Re: [Cc-bizcom] an alternate licensing option where the 'community' determines value-not the contributors

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Subject: A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

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  • From: aryeh AT miai-siw.org
  • To: cc-bizcom AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-bizcom] an alternate licensing option where the 'community' determines value-not the contributors
  • Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 15:14:11 -0400

Tell me if I am wrong but isn't this just an other facet of Sustainable Intellectual Work (http://www.miai-siw.org)?

--Aryeh

Quoting Ryan Schultz <theoryshaw AT yahoo.com>:

Thanks Marshall for the feedback. If at all interested, I rewrote and tried
to clarify my argument for finding this alternative, community-based CC
license.

http://studiowikitecture.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/win-win-ip-rights/



Here's a quote, from
<http://www.amazon.com/Wikinomics-Mass-Collaboration-Changes-Everything/dp/1
591841380/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6577930-9904042?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175876811
&sr=8-1> 'Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything' that I feel
really sums up this approach:



"The interesting model is the one that falls in the middle ground-a model
that says we're collaboratively building something that will be privately
owned by our consortia, or maybe your shares of ownership are apportioned in
proportion to how much you brought to the table. One could envision a
'digital-age co-op" with peer rating systems that dynamically apportion
shares to contributors based on the community's assessment of the value
added by individual contributors. Annual profits from sales and serves
could then be distributed across the community of contributors"



Ryan





_____

From: Marshall Van Alstyne [mailto:marshall AT MIT.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 5:14 PM
To: cc-bizcom AT lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: Ryan Schultz
Subject: Re: [Cc-bizcom] an alternate licensing option where the 'community'
determines value-not the contributors



Ryan, here are several thoughts based on the questions you raised.
Apologies for a delay, I've been preparing a tenure package and that has
dominated all other tasks. Your set of issues around NonCommercial and
Commercial licenses raise multiple follow up ideas!

At 03:16 PM 4/17/2007, you wrote:



Let's say I make a derivative work using someone else work that's under the
"NonCommericial" license option and I want to commercialize it to make
money. Under this license I have to approach the original licensor to work
out a commercial licensing agreement to establish payout percentages. I run
the risk, however, that the original licensor will not want to come to a
fair and balanced assessment of each other's contribution. With this
potential risk loaming in the future, I am less likely to even start a
derivative work in the first place-there's less initial incentive.


I think you've nailed one of the biggest problems. In fact, it seems there
are related two sub-problems. One is hold-up from a single owner -- in this
case the (c) holder -- who will want to negotiate for a chunk of value. The
other is the cleverness of the idea can be lost if you try to negotiate and
accidentally disclose it.

Either way, I agree that these 2 kinds of risk discourage a person from
making any kind of investment beforehand.




What if, however, there was a New Licensing option-somewhere between
'Attribution Non-commercial' and 'Attribution No Derivatives'-that stated
that you are free to pursue commercial gain without consent, but if the
derivative work marks money, the payout percentages are assessed by the
community and not left up to the individuals and their lawyers to determine?



One possibility that I like a lot is to use a default menu. That is,
suppose the license has an offer of the following form:

If you make $x amount of money, then contribute y% of revenue to the
original work.
If you make $(x+d) amount of money, then contribute (y+n)% of revenue to the
original work.
etc.

Alternatively,

If you keep your piece closed for x years, then contribute y% of revenue to
the original work.
If you keep your piece closed for (x+d) years, then contribute (y+n)% of
revenue to the original work.
etc.

This set of default options lets the person writing the derivative work
choose based on a fairly clear set of terms.




So in other words, under this agreement the assessment of value contribution
is determined by the community and not the individual parties. In this case
I can have a little more confidence using someone else work initially,
knowing that if my derivative work does indeed make money, that the
community's assessment will mostly likely grant a fair evaluation.


This idea is pretty interesting. I see at two possible concerns. (1) Is
that there is still some uncertainty over what the final % will be. I agree
it seems that the "community," however defined, is likely to be more neutral
in assessing value but there is still some lack of clarity beforehand. (2)
Have you thought about how large a community you need? If it's very small,
there may be too few voters to establish a meaningful baseline so there
might be a need to build the community first.





What is the community in this case? Well that could take many forms
depending on the media and/or mode of distribution. In the music industry,
diehard fans could determine, through some type of ranking system, how each
artist should be paid out. If, however, asking the public to audit
contribution becomes too overwhelming, there could be a pool of editors that
get paid to make these assessments. This system of editors, however, would
have to be anonymous in a sense, to avoid the possibility of bribery or
kickbacks. An additional safeguarding mechanism could be utilized were the
editors in turn rank each other. Editors that show an unusual high level of
bias would be flagged by the community of editors and thus facilitate a
higher level of consistency.


Overall, this idea sounds quite useful. A good reputation system can be
used to "rate the rater" and help ensure integrity in the review process.

This "information revelation" mechanism looks like it should require a
subsidy i.e. some means of compensating the raters for their time and
effort. If done well, it could be covered out of the revenues generated by
the pool of derivative works themselves.

Another form of information disclosure mechanism could be to have people who
actually download the derivative work themselves state what % of value the
new piece adds. This is harder to "fake" since someone must actually pay
for the good (so if you're going to stuff a ballot box it's going to be
costly). It's also unbiased because the person doing the buying is not
independent of the person doing the rating.





Although I'm sure there's ways to establish a fair assessment of value, this
licensing system would require a transparency in accounting as well-such
that contributors would be assured that all the revenue is accounted for.
Transparent accounting might be a tall order, but if artists demand it,
producers will find a way too oblige.


This is also an excellent point. It has long been an established tenet of
economics that more complete information leads to greater efficiency in
production. Such a system should be as transparent as possible.

Note also that it should also align incentives the right way e.g. no one
should have a reason to misrepresent their rating, and the raters' votes
should correspond closely to the consumers' reasons for buying.





Anyways, Just a little food for thought. Let me know if there's any major
hurdles I'm not considering in implementing a system like this. just
thinking out loud here.


Personally, I think the questions you raise are very interesting. Plenty of
thought munchies here! :-)





Is there any current discussion out there that addresses this idea? I could
not find any. If you could forward, I'd be much appreciative.


There is some good discussion on the Free Software Business (fsb) discussion
group but aside from that, I've found very little on this topic. Thanks for
raising some interesting issues.

MVA






Thanks







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