HomeBlog

Dustrunners Fusion Brainstorming

MCMThursday, August 25, 2005
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!

I'm still in the midst of putting this idea into proper prose, but here is a rough outline of how I see DSR:Fusion working in its final form. The idea is to create a bit of a walled garden (oh the irony!) wherein artists can partner with "producers" to make crazily-innovative Creative Commons-licensed works, sell them, and actually earn money from it. More than that, it would try and implement my idea for micro-attribution, meaning that every influence and every borrowed character in the system would, when used, end up benefiting their creator. Anyway, try and follow this logic:

THE PROCESS

  • Artist creates pitch package, defines timeline and price;

  • Producers invest a portion of the required funds until the target is met; (if not enough investors can be found after 6 weeks, project is cancelled and must start over)

  • Once approved, the artist begins production, making weekly progress reports; (if, at any weekly report, investors are unhappy with progress, they can withhold payment until satisfied)

  • The artist completes the work and is paid. Work is released for download via Dustrunners.com; (work is CC-NC-SA, so can be distributed freely for non-commercial purposes)

  • Distributor makes proposal to re-sell work, describing market plans, resale price and payment schedule; (creators of the work (including producers) do not need to propose resale strategies) ('owners' of the work accept or reject the proposal)

  • Once approved, the reseller produces and resells the work, remitting 50% of profits to Dustrunners.com along with detailed sales figures; (if no sales are made, payment is not required) (any reseller found defrauding the owners will have their reseller license terminated and may be subject to legal action by Dustrunners.com)

  • Dustrunners.com distributes funds to the artists and producers (70% to artists, 30% split among producers according to investment ratio), along with all sales figures; (dustrunners.com takes a small administrative fee before splitting the profits)

  • After 7 years, the license changes to CC-C-SA, but resellers may still register with the site.

WORLDBUILDING AND POINTS

  • Any new concept (character, vehicle, technology, place etc) created in any work should be registered in the wiki;

  • The originator of any article is credited as the "creator";

  • Every article is itself covered by CC-NC-SA, but special permission is given to those working within Dustrunners.com to use them for commercial purposes;

  • Creators set a point value for their creation (norms are suggested by default);

  • Any project is made up of different influences worth different values. Some created by the project owners, some borrowed from other projects;

  • An influence is not considered "part of the project" unless it makes an appearance. Simply referring to it doesn't count as a "use";

  • The act of creating new art using the various influences should always be worth approximately the same amount as the sum point value of the influences (so if all the imported elements are worth 500 points, the writer who strings them into a compelling story should get 500 points as well);

  • Any revenue generated by the project must be divided up according to the point ratios. So a completely original story would allocate 100% of its profits to the writer, but for a "collage" story, the author would only collect 50% of the profits, and the rest would go to his influences.

As you can see, it's half-baked, but it's a start.

And yes, I count this as my daily mandatory DustWiki entry. Thbbbt.

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