| Subject: Re: Project PM |
| From: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@yahoo.com> |
| Date: 4/25/10, 11:05 |
| To: Caleb Pritchard <cpritchard2001@gmail.com>, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
| Barrett, Thanks for the prompt reply. Alas, I am not a property lawyer (see end of message*), but I think that is not of much significance at this point, since the next step is to put in writing the information a lawyer will need to create the trust (or similar entity) you envision. This would include statements of the purpose of the trust, the nature of the property the trust will own, who will control the trust, how actively it will need to be managed, and undoubtedly other things. I do not find detailed description of this aspect of the project in the material that's online (point me to it if I missed it), although some of it is self-evident. Some possible purposes of the trust that occur to me are: To receive donations made to support the activities of Project PM To assure tax exemptions for the donors To invest and maintain the value of the donations To disburse funds necessary for Project PM to operate To make it clear to the public that Project PM is not a profit-making scheme of the participants To provide subsistence-level support for Project PM participants who need such to participate (??) To account for all funds received and disbursed and make such accounting accessible to the public To comply with all state and federal reporting requirements and file tax returns as necessary To own intellectual property created in the operation of Project PM to the extent it is not owned by the contributors (??) To receive advertising revenues from a website (??) To support activities of other groups and individuals whose goals are consistent with those of Project PM, if the trust's funds exceed the needs of Project PM (??) I am just guessing at your thoughts on this part of the project, so it would be useful if you share them informally, e-mail or phone. If there will be a lot of active management, it might be that a not for profit corporation would be a more appropriate entity than a trust. Ultimately we need to have a property lawyer who is licensed and malpractice-insured in the state of New York form the entity, but fully articulating what we want the entity to do should happen first. I will be glad to write up everything that you and others think of, and then you will have a document you can pass around for revision. ------------------------ *more on who I am: long ago I taught brief-writing and oral argument courses at a law school, I was for a short time a deputy prosecutor for a county (biggest achievement, convicting small-town celebrities of drunk driving), but mainly I worked for Social Security where I did many fascinating things, for instance, working with contractors building systems to do things electronically that were previously done on paper. I'm not systems-savvy, my job was describe to the contractor, in great detail and in terms useful to them, what the system needed to do, in ways that did not go outside the laws and regulations. I have also taught undergraduate writing courses at four colleges--the point of all this being that my skills may be more in expression and documentation than in being sort of in-house counsel. Unrelated to anything above, I do not fully agree with the commenters to your March 24 post: I did not find legalese in it and I thought it was admirably clear about the network structure designed to elevate high value material and submerge low-value stuff. But maybe such comments indicate the need for a sleeker selling-document for Project PM, which you have sort of promised anyway, let me know if I can help. Clark Robinson robinsonchicago@yahoo.com 217 722-8680 --- On Fri, 4/23/10, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
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