Legal Documents Whitelist

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Title

Legal Documents Whitelist

DRACC

0013

Category

Regulatory

Scope

Global

Authors

Leenaars, M.A.G.J.; Šuklje, M.

Date

January 2017

Copyright

The Commons Conservancy

This document is part of the DRACC series, see DRACC "Introduction to DRACC Series" for an explanation. You can reuse it under a "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International" license.

Introduction

When a rights holder wants to transfer intangible assets to [The Commons Conservancy], there are many different ways to do so. Transferring assets is not a mandatory requirement, but is recommended in many circumstances.

Writing legal documents around intangible asset transfer and licensing is complex, also due to the heterogeneous global nature of the subject matter, and lack of clarity may lead to unexpected surprises and undesirable liabilities -- and may complicate internal processes specific to [The Commons Conservancy] such as an Asset Sharing scenario. Unbridled proliferation of different documents is also confusing to end users and developers. At the same time, [The Commons Conservancy] does not want to limit a Programme in designing and using a document to cater for specific needs it may have.

Use of the LDW

Provisional to its own statutes and regulations, a Programme is free to use any document it chooses for obtaining assets at its own responsibility and risk. This includes the ability to use self-written legal documents crafted specifically for the Programme. However, only assets obtained through a document that is on the LWD are considered as "safe" for all scenarios of Rights Enforcement (see DRACC "Rights Enforcement") and for other functions and processes such as relicensing, Shared Asset Forking and Asset Sharing between and beyond Lineal and Collateral Descendants (see DRACC "Mapping Rights to Programmes", DRACC "Programme Forking" and DRACC "Asset Sharing") already jointly inheriting assets.

In case a Programme needs actions to be taken involving assets and rights obtained through documents not on the LDW, [The Commons Conservancy] is likely no longer the right vehicle for the Programme and a Programme SHOULD attempt to Graduate or (if this is not possible) find alternative ways of meeting its desired goals.

Nominating new documents for the LWD

Any Programme within [The Commons Conservancy] MAY nominate additional documents to be adopted on the LDW. The nomination MUST be accompanied by a legal analysis by a qualified professional.

If the outcome of the research on the eligibility of a document is indecisive, the Board of [The Commons Conservancy] MAY decide to organise a Public Consultation (see DRACC "Public Consultation") to receive wider input. If a document is not accepted, it MAY be resubmitted after 3 years with the availability of new supporting documentation.

The Legal Committee MAY also decide instead to fast-track the proposed document by avoiding the Public Consultation in case it deems the document entirely unproblematic -- e.g. if it is an already well-known and well-established document that has passed public legal review already before and is widely understood to protect FOSS projects.