Final Project by Marsha Courneya
Germany 2018 | Copyright License Structure / 360-video
360-video, web

Vision statement:
Undercroft represents the application of a new model for divided intellectual property (IP) online. It is a story world founded on open concept principles and consists of participation in exchange for partial ownership of the IP. Starting with a 360-video, users are drawn into a story that they can help develop. Once their contribution is approved and verified against the existing canon, successful authors receive equity in something that will hopefully grow to be an ecosystem of stories all in the same story world.

Open Source Equity Authorship:
Undercroft is part of an online story world owned by its community’s authors. Community members regulate contributions through an upvote/downvote system and verify them against existing ‘canon’ (story world components) to determine ownership, or stake in the IP.

Members of the online community receive equity in the Intellectual Property after contributing narrative content that is well-received (i.e., upvoted past a threshold) and verified against existing canon. Not all users need to be authors, but only authors and verifiers can be owners. Contributions must reach a threshold of significant approval through upvotes before being submitted for verification. The story world lives entirely online and is not primarily delivered through a single medium (i.e., it is not a book or a movie first, but can manifest simultaneously through any medium). Starting with a text-based interface, the Open Source Equity Authorship concept is hosted on a web site that supports multimedia content.

Narrative Application:
The concept of Open Source Equity Authorship is instrumental in the establishment of the story world surrounding Undercroft. The initial elements of the story world are the 360-video, story world bible, and the novella, which is directly connected to the 360-video.

In Undercroft 360, users hear the voice of Faye Lane, a private investigator who has been hired to look into the death of a prominent archaeologist. He had been heading up the search for a cache of a time-suspending strain of bacteria called ‘Oculatella Petraglacialis.’ Faye reports on meeting Dr. Berkeley Faber, the man who found the first cache of bacteria that slows decay. She describes his account of the discovery of the bacteria while users get to see the forest and the caves where the original discovery took place.