A proposal to make more resources free

[Martin Z]

Hello,

 

Just talked to one of my friends from China.

I helped him order Accordance months ago.

He loved it lot.

He said: I wish Accordance is free so that more people can use it.

 

I was thinking, is it possible to make more resources free?

I understand that as a company, Accordance has to spend money for the copyright, staff salaries and other costs. Therefore, when you decide to make a resource available, you probably have a budget plan. you probably have an estimated sale income.

 

I was wondering if my proposal below is practical or not.

 

How much money you want to make from the Starter module？ Let's say X dollars.

We make a public campaign to raise X dollars. If it is successful, Accordance gets the money, and makes the Starter module free.

If v. 12 comes out, and Accordance need extra money to cover the cost and make profit, then let's launch another campaign for that. If we reach the goal, we make v. 12 free. Otherwise, v.11 is still free.

 

Let's also make campaign for the BHS and NA28. If we reach the goal, let's say, Y dollars. Accordance then gets the money and make BHS and NA28 free.

the same to other essential resources such as dictionaries and grammar books.

 

By doing this, Accordance does not lose any money. it just makes money in different way. The benefit is that it gets much larger user group, who will eventually spend more money to buy other non-free resources.

 

 

How's this proposal sound?

 

Blessings,

Martin

[Helen Brown]

The problem is that we have to account to the copyright holders, pay royalties based on the copies sold, and be careful not to undercut the print copy sales too much. Therefore we cannot make anything "free" on which there is copyright. We license the works per copy. In general we do not have a blanket license to distribute a free copyright module.

 

There is therefore no way to calculate and raise an amount of money to allow for free copies of these modules. It would be better to raise a "scholarship fund" to pay for Accordance for deserving users in the developing world. If asked, we always try to give them the best price that we can.

[Martin Z]

The problem is that we have to account to the copyright holders, pay royalties based on the copies sold, and be careful not to undercut the print copy sales too much. Therefore we cannot make anything "free" on which there is copyright. We license the works per copy. In general we do not have a blanket license to distribute a free copyright module.

 

There is therefore no way to calculate and raise an amount of money to allow for free copies of these modules. It would be better to raise a "scholarship fund" to pay for Accordance for deserving users in the developing world. If asked, we always try to give them the best price that we can.

 

I see. Thanks Helen.

Is it possible to buy the copyright?