I’m launching a new project and am looking for entertainment properties that meet a specific set of criteria:
1) Commercial
The property has to be commercial in nature, meaning there is a legal way to monetize content in the property.
2) Participatory
The property must provide a means for audiences to participate in the property by co-creating content that has an opportunity to become official (canon). There can be a filter mechanism and/or an editing process, but a defined, explicit path for audience participation has to be provided.
NOTE: ‘Work-for-Hire’ (contributor is contracted in advance and paid to create a specific piece of content) does not qualify.
NOTE: ‘Submit your content and if we like it, we may publish it’ does not qualify.
3) Parity
The property must provide certain rights or benefits to a contributor in exchange for the use of the submitted content. The rights may be creative, commercial or other. The benefits may be revenue sharing or a one-time payment in exchange for the use of the submitted content. In some extreme cases, the property owner may grant commercial rights up front (for example, through the use of a Creative Commons license such as CC BY (Attribution)).
NOTE: This is different from work-for-hire, as the property owner is not entering into a legal contract with a contributor until after the submission has been made. In the case of the CC BY license, contributors do not even need a legal contract in order to commercially use content in the property.
NOTE: Credit/attribution alone is not sufficient. Stripping a contributor of all rights over their submitted content and supplying only credit/attribution is not sufficient parity for the purposes my research.
If you know of any commercial entertainment properties that meet this criteria, please contact me (and if you aren’t sure whether the property qualifies, send it anyway)!
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