Trelgol Publishing

Setting information free

Products

Name	Author	Unit Price	Buy Now	Total Time	May Sell Rights	World Price
Guide to NumPy : This book has been released into the public domain after three years of restricted distribution. You can still donate by clicking on one of the buttons on the right.	Travis E. Oliphant	$4.99¹		3 yrs Aug 21, 2008	N	$200,000²
Source for Guide to NumPy is here. It includes a generic layout file for writing books with LyX. If you click on the button to the right, you can make a donation.	Travis E. Oliphant	$4.99		3 yrs Aug 21, 2008	N	$500

¹You may still donate this amount, but the book is now in the public domain.
² The final actual sold "world price" was about $145,000. Much of this money went to fund students.

World Price Briefly Explained

This represents the total price the author requires before freely releasing the content. No one is required to individually pay this amount. Individual purchases will contribute to reaching the total price. More information is also available and if you are looking how to get free training on workday also available.

Vision

The goal of freely available information is highly desireable. However, it can often conflict with the scarce time-resources of authors. This basic battle has led to the creation of copyrights and patents. However, in today's world of increasingly digital content, the old concepts of copyright can be difficult to apply. It is easier than ever to copy content, and that fact emphasizes the oddness of introducing scarcity to something (digital bits) that can be completely abundant. Of course, true scarcity still remains in the authors' time. Trelgol (TREL-gol) is committed to the ideal of voluntary solutions to the problem of how to compensate authors for the production of digital content that could be infinitely copied once produced.

Approach

Trelgol publishes material under a Market-Determined Temporary Distribution Restriction (MDTDR) model. Our emphasis is on the use of temporary content re-distribution controls to encourage payment of the creative work by those who have interest in its development. Working in this way we can quickly build a healthy "payed-for" public domain. Remember, the more people who can usefully trade in information organization, the more information will be made available.

To publish with Trelgol, authors must set at least one of the following:

a total price (P),
a total time (T) (maximum 14 years).

When an author-determined combination of these requirements (P and T, P or T, P only, T only) is reached, Trelgol will release the creative content either to the or under at worst an "attribution only"-style license such as the offered by the . In other words, the content is set free (in all senses of the word) as soon as the author receives compensation (or sufficient time has passed).

As soon as a unit-purchase has been made under a certain price (P) and/or time (T), Treglol guarantees that the published price (P) or time (T) can never be raised by the author. However, the P or T can decrease as the author learns more about the true value of his or her content.

Restrictions on Distribution

Before the author's requirements are reached, Trelgol assists the author to sell the content at a per-unit price to try and recover the costs of organizing the content. When you receive and use a copy of content under an MDTDR, you implicitly agree to make only back-up copies of the content, and to not make a copy for others during the restriction period. A library can purchase a single copy and share it among users as long as their is some system for checking-out the digital e-book. If additional copies of the content are needed (for multiple users at a company, for example) you should purchase them. An institution may make the documentation available for everybody within the institution by purchasing at least 20 copies and thereby also receive the html version (when available).

A single printed copy can be made from each purchased electronic version, which is subject to the same restrictions imposed on paper books (lending is OK but not wholesale photocopying for redistribution for example). In the future, Trelgol may make available volume discount printing options (at cost) for those who have purchased a copy of the electronic content.

During the restriction period, terms can be arranged if there is a need to re-distribute the content to others. For example, a company or a trainer who would like to redistribute the content with their own product needs to contact to make arrangements.

Purchasing the rights to a work ("May sell rights")

For works marked with a 'Y' (Yes) in the "may sell rights" column, before the total price is reached and before the time limit specified, the entire rights to a work can be purchased for an agreed on price to another company or individual (where the original author is not a majority stake-holder). If sold in this way (instead of to multiple individuals), the new owner of the work will be buying the rights to change the sale-to-the-public arrangement (including lengthening the time and/or increasing the total price). Those who have already purchased the work will continue to be able to enjoy their copy.

Publishing with Trelgol

mail for information about offering your content through Trelgol.