OK this is just to get the ball rolling, and with no serious thought behind it yet.
John Pazdan raised the idea here of some (or all?) of the current members of ccM pooling their skills/knowledge/resources/hard cash to put in a collective bid for the new ownership of ccM. It would obviously need a huge amount of effort and expertise, and I have no idea whether it’s a realistic prospect. BUT I for one would be very interested if it proved to be a way of maintaining all the things we love about the site.
Maybe others have already thought about this (Spin??) - if so, I’d love to hear what everyone’s thoughts are, and to express my readiness to commit some time and thought (and cash if it comes to it!) to such a bid.
OD

As much as I love the idea, my own contribution would either have to be dinky (cash-wise), or in some other form. It IS a great idea, though!

My current preference is for a something like a charitable foundation to own ccmixter, I would be very happy to set up a standing order with my bank to pay a regular contribution to keep it free and ad-free.

How much are we talking about? How many people would need to pledge to make a regular contribution to keep the site running?

A year or two ago, I took part in a pledge-bank project to fund and start a charity. I’d start one for ccmixter if I knew what would be a reasonable target.

http://www.pledgebank.com/new

Yes, I’ve done a little pondering - all rather uncooked so far.

There may be real or perceived business opportunities around ccM while leaving ccM’s spirit intact. The perceived one’s (by people with money) are arguably the one’s that will drive this one way or the other. So if someone puts a decent chunk of cash on the table and has a somewhat reasonable sounding plan, they will probably be the winning proposal.

However, it’s not entirely obvious to me, why someone would need ccM for their business plan. Most or possibly all music related business plans with a CC angle could likely be done with ccM remaining the way it is. Would a business like that suffer, if ccM goes away? I’m not sure. The software is open source, the music is CC, anyone could effectively clone ccM without getting any permission from the CC.

And just because somebody might do it, might not make it a good idea. What if the business plan fails and the cash dries up? In my humble opinion, ccM would be hurt by a dying process of a future owning entity, although examples of phoenix like resurrections do exist (but I suspect they are the exception, not the rule).


Who would miss ccM the most?
- Arguably us, who are here and future ccM’ers who haven’t found ccM yet. Heck I was rather late to the party - and so were a number of by now influential / important people here.

What would we miss the most?
- arguably VS and teru, followed closely by the other active and visible community members who are the flesh around the bones of the above two individuals. I’m hesitant to start mentioning other names, because I would inadvertently leave out too many deserving people. Is everyone replaceable? Yes, but some are much more difficult to replace than others.

Would we invest (time and/or money, depending on personal circumstance) to keep this community going in the spirit that it has now?
- that’s what this thread is for.
- I would (some of each)

What’s might we do, if we don’t like the winning proposal?
- because of the open source nature of the software and the music, we could clone the current community under a different domain name and just move. (By the way, this point pretty much guarantees, that any new owner has to make sure, that a critical mass of currently important people are happy with the proposal).

What might the next steps be on the road to a potential collective?
- find out who might be interested in participating
- find out what existing relevant talent,experience and commitment is in that group (legal, financial, technical, marketing, …)
- discuss possible financial models, organizational models (non profit vs. for profit, governance model, etc.)

I’ll leave it at that for now - and am of course eagerly looking forward to everyone’s thoughts - including contrary opinions.

i’d just add (and being frank here), if the spirit of the site were to change significantly, the probability of “cloning” the site with a different URL is certainly a possibility, given the open source nature of everything around here, including the site itself. and i doubt the CC folks are trying to profit from this spinoff idea. i think they’d just like to see the site continue and have the resources to handle the growth, which i think is what most if not all of us want as well.

speaking only as an on and off administrator of a similar web-based community of artists for a number of years now, growth offers great exposure but it’s alot of friggin work. and in the case of remixfight (and probably ccmixter), it’s pro-bono work. frankly, i like the fact that remixfight is fairly small and focused, and the people that participate in the forum do so pretty regularly. i’d love to see more people involved, but i have no desire to see it explode, or commercialize it in any way. still, i’d love to see anyone participating either here or there to be able to find commercial opportunities if that is what they are looking for. that’s just not what really drives me.

as a community, it’s not fair to put the burden on victor or eric to carry the extra load (and we’re not even talking about bandwidth cost here). having a professional entity carry that responsibility frees up more time for the artists to be artists.

to me, the RFP idea deserves a chance, especially if it proves to be seamless and transparent. and if it turns into something i’d rather not be associated with anymore, maybe i’ll go join a different community of like minded artists.

oh wait, i already know such a place. :)

Quote: oldDogOK this is just to get the ball rolling, and with no serious thought behind it yet.
John Pazdan raised the idea here of some (or all?) of the current members of ccM pooling their skills/knowledge/resources/hard cash to put in a collective bid for the new ownership of ccM. It would obviously need a huge amount of effort and expertise, and I have no idea whether it’s a realistic prospect. BUT I for one would be very interested if it proved to be a way of maintaining all the things we love about the site.
Maybe others have already thought about this (Spin??) - if so, I’d love to hear what everyone’s thoughts are, and to express my readiness to commit some time and thought (and cash if it comes to it!) to such a bid.
OD

I just want to say it’s very cool of you to step up and suggest this. whether or not anything actually transpires, your love for the community is obvious and appreciated on many levels.

re my participation according to CC:
Quote: The community is certainly welcome to submit a proposal, using the same process everyone else has to use.

To the extent you participate in such a proposal, it has to be very clear that you are doing so as an individual and there should be a curtain around your duties as a contractor. Any confidential data you have as site manager could not be used in a proposal.

If your participation in a community (or other) proposal is interfering with your contractor duties you should immediately notify us.

So here goes…

I suggest setting up an exploratory committee with specific tasks assigned to members. There are many areas to cover and they all need to be in a real proposal. They have to happen in parallel so the first round of data would not be complete, so expect churn.

Mission Statement

Drafting this early means everybody is on the same page. What are the goals for the collective? What is the vision for the site, where does the collective expect to take it in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? What is “success” and how do we know when it’s been achieved? For example, I happen to have strong feelings about the potential future of the site that seems run counter to a lot of the feedback we’re getting in these forums wrt the RFP.

Community Interest

Track down how many members would actively participate and to what level. There are two ways to go, either a BUNCH of people donate time, or a BUNCH of people donate money to pay someone to put in the time.

Budget

Draft a budget of what it would take to run the site, with and without payroll (legal, coding, sysadmin, etc.)

Structure of the org

There are many possibilities as to how the new organization is incorporated: as a non-profit, a foundation, an individual, a for-profit company. Someone needs to track down the implications of all these and report back to the committee.

Marketplace Analysis

Track down other sites that are in similar or complementary areas and how the ‘new’ ccMixter would compare and contrast. Think about this way: if new-ccM is a non-profit who are you going to be competing against for grant/donation money? If new-ccM is a for-profit, who are you going to compete against for your product and services?

The idea that this is a collective means the work of keeping the site afloat be distributed. If the group, as a whole, can’t put together a coherent proposal where the assertions have been researched and verified then the chances of running the site in any form are nil.

VS

This process reminds me of one of the driving principles that has kept my marriage afloat for a couple decades: “Whoever cares the most wins”

Sounds to me like OD is volunteering to track down the org structure issues. Finding a lawyer to donate some time who knows this stuff would be my first approach (begging on lawyer type sites, etc.) Don’t forget to ask about scorps and international ownership issues (you being a foreigner and all ;))

Spin seems to feel strongly about the mission statement, go for it. Enlist whomever you like, as Bob suggests you can use the RFP as a starting point plus all the feedback that’s been accumulating here.

I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at the gauging the participation levels of users, it would take me a few days to put together a proper ‘survey’ and then sent out some emails to folks. Gathering the info back would be another week or so. The data would be anecdotal by definition but better than nothing.

Bob, being on his own axis (with love ;)), can own the actual drafting of the proposal and make sure the rest of are aligned with the Board expects - have I got that right Bob?

Since I brought it and since I was asked to be more explicit, I have chosen to express some of my feelings about the ccM potential offsite.

Please keep in mind that these are my views as an individual and not as a paid contractor working CC on this site.

I’d like to feed back on my researches and conversations regarding the possible business structures for an internal bid for ccM. Nothing in this should be taken as legal advice.

A lot of this is thanks to Robert (Gurdonark) who knows much more about these things than I do.

There are clearly two ways to go, non-profit or for-profit, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps the easiest way to discuss this is to leap straight to the conclusion and say that there seems to be a lot of merit in contemplating a hybrid of the two. In other words the site could continue to run more or less exactly as it is, funded by whatever grants and charitable donations we could raise, as a US non-profit. . The process of setting this up and getting it appropriately qualified would take a few months to complete, but could be initiated and ‘in place’ in time for the bid. Within the bid, there could be provision for the site to have a contractual relationship with another entity, namely a for-profit wing (ccMixter+) which could explore the potential for commercial development. Access to this ‘portal’ would be via ccM, and could be funded by subscription - or by advertising, or through offering various services (tutorials, promotion, management of licensing…you name it).

This would seem to tick the boxes as far as CC is concerned, because it allows the site to continue as now, with free membership, with material restricted to cc samples, with the same format and no adverts - but with the potential to develop the cc philosophy in the context of the commercial world, which is also part of the bid’s aim. The only (!) difference as far as the main site is concerned is that we would have to raise our own funding.

The for-profit wing would have to have limited liability, which boils down to a Corporation, or possibly an LLC (Limited Liability Company) which is a relatively new legal structure that is flexible in structure and is often used for start-up companies. A bidder would choose a state with laws that offer advantages for LLCs or corporations, and would choose between a corporation or an LLC on the basis of legal concerns not pertinent to this post. The bottom line is that a for-profit wing owned by investors could be run as either a US corporation or a US LLC.

The advantage of separating the two wings is that the for-profit wing could be small, flexible, and aimed more at the commercial possibilities, while the main site could continue to focus on supplying the same service that all of us want to preserve. However, the two wings would obviously feed off and benefit from each other.

If we decide on this approach, we would have to be clear about the funding required for the non-profit site, and be sure of being able to raise this (with employed fund-raisers, or perhaps using some goodwill on the site?) I don’t personally have enough knowledge of the situation in the USA to know how feasible this is, but from what I gather we probably wouldn’t be looking at an impossible scenario. The development of the for-profit wing could be more gradual, but any investors (ideally from within the community?) would have to be convinced that there were genuine possibilities for revenue, and a long term value in the site (it may be easy for rivals to replicate).

This approach seems to be a way of ensuring the continuity of the present site whilst simultaneously allowing for new developments: the alternative would be not to bid, but to trust the CC board to choose a winner from the bidding process that is genuinely consistent with the wishes of the current ccM community.

Disclaimer: I am a US lawyer. I do not specialize in corporate law. What follows are my impressions, but not necessarily my opinions. They are offered as further fodder for the thought process here and nothing more. I am not offering legal advice here. I have very high regard for this site as an operational as well as an artistic phenomenon, and my esteem for the community as well as the individual members of it cannot be underestimated.

My first thought is this: is this community capable of understanding all of the complexities of running this site? It strikes me that what we see here today is the result of a vision followed by a lot of hard work carried out by people, one in particular - helped by others to a significantly lesser extent.

VS is a very unique sort of manager, and I say this with respect and admiration. He has the technical know-how to work the code to make the things run. He also has the interest and passion to care about the mission of the site because in addition to being the manager he also participates in the community. Finally, he is an individual which gives him a great deal of flexibility in decision making, even though he may have certain responsibilities to respond to the board or whatever other oversight is in place. I would suggest that the minute you turn any of these functions over to a committee, you invite log jams in the management process. Assuming that any individual or collective will bring the same collection of attributes to the table that Victor has would be a huge mistake.

On the issue of profit vs. non-profit: I agree that there is a possibility that both could be accommodated through careful structuring on an organizational level, see below. Time and money are what are needed here. Time has two components: quantity and quality. I see a huge problem in assessing how much of either the membership can reasonably be expected to provide, particularly if they will be doing it on a volunteer basis. I may be unaware of a few of the hidden workings of this site but it strikes me that most of the people active here are active because they want to be and at any moment they could walk away and have no obligations to this site. The site relies on the talent pool here to make it attractive and to fuel it’s development. So my concerns are two fold: 1) How do you ensure enough time commitment to keep things going if people have no obligation to do so?; and 2) How do you determine initially whether the people assigned to various tasks are capable of carrying them out?

The preceding paragraph dealt with my concerns leaning in a non-profit member managed direction - so what about the for-profit direction? Well the biggest question here would be how do you decide percentage ownership? If you assume for a minute that the business entity will be a traditional corporation, shares could be purchased directly or given away on the basis of sweat equity contributions. But then you need to manage the time records or have some other means for quantifying the member contributions.

Mission: I’d have to disagree on the importance of the mission statement as a practical matter. I think that if you can determine all the other practical considerations the mission statement will fall into place. I think the survey that Victor suggested is a far better approach. I see too much possibility on people getting hung up on a few words or phrases in the mission statement, no matter how well crafted it is. If a mission statement must be drafted it should be simple and straight-forward in an effort to garner as much support as possible. I’m considering participation in Gurdonark’s thread to see if I can make any contributions there.

Organizational Structure: This is very complicated legal situation if the community is to own the site. I think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before a structure can be chosen. I may lapse into legal language at some point so feel free to ask for translation if the need arises. How will the community decide who is eligible to become an owner? How will it then decide on the percentage ownership of each member? Will voting rights be given to each member to decide on critcal issues regarding site management or will the community elect a board to make those decisions? Will the board members have traditional roles or will they be elected by the community to represent a collection of special interests - e.g will there be delegates who are pro-commercial development and some which represent the free-for-all mentality. I guess what this boils down to is how are you going to govern this entity?

Next the risks, and I mean mainly financial (which means liability, and therefore legal as well) need to be assessed. The level of protection required will be another determining factor in deciding the structure.

Finally, no one has mentioned accountants and tax ramifications. My only advice is seek serious advice in these areas. The profit/non-profit debate is also very much about tax law so I think the community needs to get real, serious and independent advice here before launching any kind of bid.