The Hunt, Andy Underwood/Runes of Gallidon | CC BY-NC-SA

Runes of Gallidon is a “user-generated online fantasy world of swords, magic, adventure and mystery” that just launched in public beta. Distinguishing Runes of Gallidon from other virtual worlds is the decision to license all the content in the ROG universe under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Any work that the community creates is kept free and open for the rest of the community to use and build upon, a choice that allows the plot lines and characters of Runes of Gallidon to evolve naturally and legally.

While the ROG universe evolves through user-submitted content, Brain Candy, LLC (the group behind Runes of Gallidon) will be doing legwork to turn Rules of Gallidon into a source of potential revenue, namely in film/TV and merchandise will be marketing the website to help audiences find the creative community’s Gallidon works (content creators have the ability to shop their ideas to interested parties as well). The monetary gains from these endeavors will be split between community and Brain Candy in two distinct ways:

If Brain Candy, LLC, prints your story in a book, prints a poster, a T-shirt, etc. and makes any money directly from your Work, you receive 50% of the money. If you sell your Work set in Runes of Gallidon (a published book, album cover art, posters, etc.), we ask that you contribute to Brain Candy, LLC 10% of the money you receive.

That is the basic formula: each Artisan owns the Work they create, but the world of Runes of Gallidon and everything in it is shared by the entire Gallidon creative community.

This is a unique implementation to our CC+ protocol and a fresh approach to crafting an online fantasy world. By using CC licenses, the group behind Runes of Gallidon have created a hybrid-economy where the sharing of content (enabled by CC licenses) is monetized based on an additional set of legal guidelines, in turn encouraging growth through legal protection and an opportunity for monetary gain.