Copyright – Sharing Entitlements

Version 1.0 August 2016                               (No link to Previous Version)

This page provides guidelines on how intellectual property (IP) rights might be shared with other authors who wish to contribute to developing, editing or translating pages for the www.globalbeliefs.org web site and the hard copy books that are associated with these.

Other products can be produced, web sites with advertising, books, teaching courses, etc., based on these ideas, and the IP for them is completely separate.  We can't copyright an idea, only the expression of it.  So we can't consider other works, just this one.

Breakdown of the Total Work

The total work is the web site content pages that can be produced in book format.  The content is organised as follows, and we have assigned notional percentage IP to each component.

 

		IP%	Per Item
Top Level	Key points in the eight knowledge domains, introduction, planning the whole thing = 10 items.	20%	2%
Gold Level	Forty two key core analyses and conclusions breaking down the 8 knowledge domains.	21%	0.5%
Silver Level	Perhaps about 300 analyses and conclusions justifying the above 42 gold level conclusions.	30%	0.1%
Bronze Level	Perhaps about 2,000 analyses and conclusions justifying the above 300 gold level conclusions.	20%	0.01
Lower Levels	Perhaps about 19,000 analyses and conclusions justifying the 2,000 bronze level conclusions.	9%	0.001
All levels	Total IP content	100%

This breakdown is based not on the number of pages but on the knowledge, insight, and years of learning required to produce the documents at each level.  Few people, even polymaths, have had the insight and the drive to work out the top level of this work. 

Many senior academics are capable of producing comprehensive summaries of each of the gold level topics, though not in the assertive and concise form used here, and outside their area of expertise they remain mute. 

Many junior academics are capable of producing summaries for the silver level topics, though still probably not in the assertive and concise form we use.

Many educated and literate people with access to a decent library or internet resources such as Wikipedia can produce papers on the bronze level and lower level topics.

Initial Content Creation, followed by Revision

The greatest work is in the initial creation of a substantial draft that adequately covers the area.  It is much easier to criticise and correct an existing draft than to create one from scratch.  A substantial proportion of IP resides in the first draft and any major revisions.

Of course in the development of this work we expect there to be several substantial revisions from the original draft, as well as perhaps a dozen significant edits of certain section, There will also be along the way, for all versions, numerous minor edits correcting typographical errors and improving the wording, which are too many and too minor to worry about.

 

Activity	Total IP% for Activity	Guess Number of Times	IP% for Each Time
Creation	30%	1	30%
Substantial Revision	15%	3	5%
Significant Edits	40%	10 each for (1+3) versions = 40	1%
Reviews	10%	One for about 50 of the above items	0.2%
Minor Edits	0	100s	0%

Principal Author’s IP

Trevor Rogers has already created and substantially revised and edited the top two levels and is in the process of doing the same for the next two.  Under the above scheme he would be entitled to, and claims, the majority of the IP in the completed work.  He claims and is entitled in law to total IP ownership of the work produced to date.  He is willing to consider ceding some of those IP rights to a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to pursuing reasonably defined religious and educational objectives (at his sole discretion) and ceding editorial control over the work to such an organisation in a structured, phased way.  So the percentage of the as yet uncompleted work that is available for other authors to claim IP rights over is ever diminishing.

Nevertheless, the principle author is willing (at his sole discretion) to grant 50% of his profits of any future sales to a responsible organisation that promotes a Reasonable Global Way.

Estimated Profit

This work has been put together so far by a single volunteer on an honorary basis, who nevertheless still owns the IP to their contribution.  If the work was to be commercialised and sold, how much profit can we expect (not revenue from total sales but profit after costs)?

We’ll work in Australian dollars: AUD.

Let’s arbitrarily assume a huge success and $1,000,000 in profits.  There is absolutely no sign of this happening.

The principle; author is willing to donate 50% of his profits.  This will be in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars (depending on the number of silver and bronze level sections created and revised) if the total profit is $1M.  Any other claims to IP rights need to be seen in this context.

Probability of Success

Publishing a substantial work that is detailed and heavy reading is unlikely to have great sales.  We’d be lucky to profit by $1,000.  To make $1M in profit probably requires about 1 million sales.  The chances of this are low.  Let’s estimate 1%.

If on the other hand the product “went viral� would it sell?  Remember the content is all available for free on the web site!

Determining Percentage Contributions

The percentage intellectual property rights entitlement of a person who contributes to one section is a multiplication of the percentage IP of the item (depending on the level) and the percentage IP of the activity (creation, edit, etc).

For instance, at the top level:

The top levels have all been created and substantially revised once. There is a possibility of more substantial revisions.

A substantial revision of a top level is 10% of 2% or 0.2%.  Out of $1M that is $5,000.  A significant edit would be $500.

It could be reasonable to offer an appropriate expert $5,000 to substantially revise a top level, to keep the IP “in house�, if we are actually looking at $1M profit.  But $1M profit is unlikely so it is really unaffordable to hire such experts.

For instance, at other levels:

Few silver or bronze level sections exist at the moment.  They need creation, revision and editing.

Creating a silver level section is 30% of 0.1% or 0.033%.  Out of $1M that is about $330.

A significant edit of a bronze section is 1% of 0.01% or 0.0001%.  Out of $1M that is $100.

But these amounts are too small – even based on a $1M profit – to be worth considering, especially for a western author. 

·       Let’s assume a typical western professional expert charges a contract rate of about $100 per hour.  A significant edit of a bronze section would probably take more than an hour, especially considering establishing the contract, reviews of the work produced and subsequent revisions.  (We will not simply take a single expert’s word for it, and the expert may be reluctant to conform to the specified style and format, despite these being contract requirements.)  So for a western expert, the work is not worth their while. 

·       Of course $100 in the pocket is worth having, so some underemployed western experts may be willing to do the work at a reduced rate.  That’s like donating part of their time.  For English language experts from poorer countries $100 may still be a substantial sum that warrants many hours work.  But that seems difficult to arrange at present.

·       It is far better to continue to claim that all contributions at these levels are voluntary and honorary, ie resulting in no profit to other authors.  Given that the principle author is willing to donate 50% of any profits from the IP to an organisation promoting this Way contributions by others will effectively be similar, albeit smaller donations.

Sensitivity Analysis

This analysis has been based on certain assumptions and estimates.  What if these were wrong?  We must allow for differences when there are no fixed grounds to adopt a particular position. 

·       This analysis is based on the assumption that “higherâ€� levels are associated with higher percentages of IP.  If the IP was simply based on volume, per page, rather than based on the breadth of insight and knowledge required then we estimate about 20,000 pages.  For $1M profit that works out to $50 per page.  (That’s about the rate a translator gets: 10 cents per word for 500 words per page makes about $50 per page.  Translators have skill and require insight.  It sounds fair enough.)  It could be quite profitable for someone to produce many pages at this rate. 

But the $1M profit is a pie in the sky estimate.  $10,000 profit is more likely.  If that is the reality the value per page comes down to 1% of the above estimate, ie 50 cents.  This is not worth billing for or paying in Western countries.

·       Even if we accept the assumption of greater percentage IP in the higher levels, we can debate the actual percentage applied.  But if they were varied, there would little outcome in our conclusions.  For all but the highest levels, the reward for creating or substantially revising a section is relatively small, even assuming a large $1M profit.  Given the uncertainty of the profit, the reward is even less likely.  For lower levels, the rewards would still be insignificant (at least in western terms).

·       Can we remove the implied assumption that only western authors would contribute to the work?  Earning $2 per day (for say one researched page) would be worth the effort in some countries.  But the site so far is only in English, and is not very popular or widely known.  It is unlikely we will find well enough qualified non-western authors fluent in English willing to work for such low rates prior to the bulk of the pages being produced. 

We could try, but a better early strategy is to seek volunteer honorary authors from English speaking countries.  Later when we become multi-lingual with hopefully a wider audience the circumstances will have changed.

·       We can also vary the categories and assigned percentages for creating, revising and editing sections.  But again, for all but the highest level (assuming a huge, unlikely profit) the rewards are relatively small, so modifying them by significant proportions will still result in relatively small absolute amounts, so our overall conclusion of retaining honorary contributors remains.

Commercial or Honorary Approach

We must consider the impact of adopting a commercial approach to completing this work.

Commercial approaches may be of some benefit:

·       Allow experts to be brought in, especially for revision and editing, to polish the work;

·       Ensure completion of the work, which might not happen on the current, part time basis, if there is enough funding;

·       Paid authors must be contracted to assign all IP to “usâ€� (the client) so there is no loss of IP.

Commercial approaches may also cause more harm than good:

·       Outsourced work must be managed by people competent enough to actually do the work;

·       Outsourcing is open for exploitation, cronyism, corruption and mismanagement;

·       Paying for some to perform some aspects of the work and expecting others to do similar work without pay causes conflict and reduces productivity;

·       There is a disincentive for volunteers to do the work if they see that people get paid for it;

·       The commercial work must be paid for, increasing the demand for fund raising in a compassion fatigued environment;

·       In practice there is a risk of loss of control to outsourced service providers, tainting the message, which is affects the public perception of the product.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that, except for the IP of the principle author, it is unlikely that other contributing authors, reviewers and editors could be sufficiently remunerated to make it worthwhile adopting a commercial approach.

Except for roles requiring specific technical skills that are difficult to find in a general volunteer support base, it is better to keep the message pure, avoid conflict between paid and unpaid contributors to this work, and keep it all honorary.

This conclusion affects only the creation, revision and editing of the work contained in the global beliefs web site, ie the structure, presentation formats, analyses, conclusions and supporting material for global beliefs and values, a Reasonable Global Way.

This doesn’t impact on the possibility that there may be paid staff working for a Reasonable Way Foundation, in, for instance:

·       Financial, legal, and administrative management and support;

·       Course development by professional educators;

·       Pastoral care delivered to communities by professional workers.