HomeBlog

Project Architecture v01

MCMWednesday, June 23, 2004
This post is from a version of my blog with inconsistent timestamps: evidently I was very good at defining 'modified' dates, but not 'created' dates. As such, I can't be sure when the content was actually written. Sorry!

These are the current points I want to make regarding the structure of the Liberty Bell project. They are designed to trade future profits for work now. While this kind of arrangement won't work for everyone, it should take care of the larger elements of the project that are harder to quantify.

Please excuse the shoddy formatting.

  1. There are "shares" of Liberty Bell. These shares are not the same as stock market shares, but have similar charactertistics: the chief difference being that even if you have all but one of them, I still own the show :)
  2. Shares can be given away by myself to anyone I choose. They cannot be revoked or transferred.
  3. There are two types of shares: Series and Episodic. Series shares are for work done for the series as a whole, and episodic is for each individual episode on its own. For each episode, the total number of shares are counted as the episodic and the series together.
  4. Shares have no cash value, only proportional value. For instance, if you have 3 shares of episode 1, and the shares are worth 5%, you have 15% of the profits of the episode. If the show earns $100, you get $15. If it earns $1,000,000, you get $150,000.
  5. Shares are only given for work that is not easily counted otherwise. So an artist that draws a picture will get 50% of the profits for the use of their artwork, but no shares. However, an artist that does character designs will be assigned shares.
  6. In cases where direct compensation has been requested (contracted work), shares will not be assigned. Partial compensation can be balanced with a proportionate number of shares.
  7. There is no limit to the number of shares you can have: if you perform ten functions on an episode and earn a huge number of shares, you get them all. Likewise, there is no minimum.
  8. The share value for various projects and jobs will be kept fairly standard, likely with a poll to get the community's feedback, but ultimately I make the decisions on how many shares a certain job is worth.

This system is designed to make it potentially profitable for people to contribute to the project without bogging us down with lots of expenses as we go. I know there are a lot of people out there who would gladly do worth on this kind of project out of the kindness of their hearts, but i want to make sure they get compensated properly when it succeeds.

I am not letting people buy shares in the series, because we're treading a fine line here between a publicly-traded company and a special collective arrangement, and trading money for shares is too much into the area of securities and investment. If you donate to Liberty Bell, you must be aware you are getting no direct compensation for that donation, only the warm fuzzy feeling from doing something good.

This is the first version of the project architecture. If you see anything you'd want changed, please let me know.

All content released under a Creative Commons BY-NC license except the contents of "TV" section, which belong to their respective owners.