I am producing objects like this. These are a collaboration between myself (box design) and my brother who made the drawings. We would like to produce a limited run, like numbered lithographic prints, but in the context of open source.
The designs we produce are open source. The publication contains everything that a person skilled with these tools would need to produce a copy as good as any we would make. If people want to copy the project and build their own, they can do it.
BUT, we also want to identify some number of these objects as being in a distinguished set. The license will set the limit of the number (like 25) of articles in this set. The articles are recorded in a manifest. We will produce and record some number of articles. Anyone else is licensed to produce a number of articles up to the set limit. After that, there will be no more “distinguished” articles.
This is similar to the ownership model of a NFT. You own a license to a thing that anyone else could produce, but for an entirely arbitrary reason, some of these objects are distinguished in some way.
Our intent is that people who claim numbered slots would document their effort, but all the license should do is to require them to record it on the manifest.
My first stab at this was to start with the MIT license with a second condition identifying the distinguished pool and associated rules. Given that NFTs are a close analog, it might make sense to start with the NFT license. I would remove most of the restrictions before adding in the rules.
There are interesting social and artistic questions here (beyond will anyone care?) If the object evolves over time, how does that affect the license (including past and future copies)? Can we measure the market value-add for a distinguished item? How does this compare with price durability with NFTs? Will people participate (and if no, why not)?
Thanks for reading. I’d appreciate any comments you have.
Cary.