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Sesame Street was developed by a 501c3 (Children’s Television Workshop renamed to Sesame Workshop) and sold to PBS. Episodes were licensed by a publicly funded
by colechristensen 4y ago
Sesame Street was developed by a 501c3 (Children’s Television Workshop renamed to Sesame Workshop) and sold to PBS. Episodes were licensed by a publicly funded organization, they weren’t produced by one.
- gdubs 4y agoFascinating — but I'd be curious how much of the production was funded with those licensing fees. Maybe they're not legally obligated to keep it public — but ethically?
- bradleyjg 4y agoIf I sell software to a government agency am I morally obligated to give up my copyright?
- prepend 4y agoIf you subsist entirely on grants and charitable donations and you yourself are a charity then I think it’s reasonable that your software should be open source. There’s actually a push for all custom developed code for the US government be open sourced, even if produced by a contractor. Seems reasonable to me.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThat is something that should be determined up front by the purchaser. If you want it to be open source, require it. It isn't something to blame a vendor for several decades after you agree to a contract when you feel like you missed out.
- prepend 4y agoI’m not blaming a vendor. I’m calling out how I think it is immoral. And I don’t donate to such vendors. I understand why they do it as I like money too.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoI think there is a big difference between donating to a for profit project and paying for a service. There is also donating to something because you want a for profit service to exist as something to buy.
- fncypants 4y agoLaws (usually) reflect ethics. Keep in mind there is a balance where the "ask" for receiving government funding may prevent the creation of the work in the first place. Sometimes, the right balance may be to require the work to contractually enter the public domain in return for receiving funding. Sometimes, the government could negotiate something less than in order to get a net benefit.
- Retric 4y agoRevenue from public television was used to fund new episodes. So the question is why it’s OK for public TV to have these kinds of arrangements not why Sesame Workshop can own it’s content. Any way money can be extracted from a nonprofit to create private IP is dubious be that a University or public television.
- colechristensen 4y agoHow much should public funding be a taint to things it buys? You can easily get to a point where public funding can’t buy anything and can only be used to produce things directly.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> How much should public funding be a taint to things it buys? For higher education the rule is 100%, even when the funding isn't supposed to be buying anything in particular, or going to the organization which becomes attainted.
- Retric 4y agoIt's not aboung tainting what it buys, it’s about what it can pay for without owning. I have no issue with a nonprofit buying buildings, paying employees, or paying consultants market rates to design a logo it owns. You can value such transactions to verify people arn’t extracting money from a nonprofit this way. However when it comes to creating IP that they don’t own it gets tricky because the IP owner also benefits from the exposure of being on public TV and can then turn that into toy sales etc. On the other hand if the IP flops then public TV has taken all the risk. In many other contexts having a nonprofit take in the risk while a for profit sees the profit is illigal. Just imagine doing this with startups rather than childrens TV shows.
- robertlagrant 4y agoThe public isn't taking all the risk. The creator accepts a lower fee in exchange for the IP rights, commensurate to the future value of any spinoffs/merchandise, etc.