Coil, Mozilla & Creative Commons have announced a $100 million fund that is expected to push creativity Online, & help “individual creators and monetization service providers while allowing users to directly support content they value.”
According to a press release, the fund, Grant for the Web, directly addresses some of the most serious problems facing a centralized Internet like the loss of individual privacy, & the rapid spread of misinformation.
It expects to do this by enabling Content creators & software developers to adopt & advance open standards for “better, alternative Online business models that benefit the public good.”
Grant for the Web wants to tackle the ever-increasing domination of the World Wide Web by a few advertising dependent platforms., & bring it back to what was originally envisaged – a place of creativity, invention & substance. Grant for the Web will also encourage innovation among independent creators while helping grow access & inclusion.
The Grant for the Web fund will:
- Broaden participation on the Web, including groups around the world that have historically had poorer access, by enabling creators to be paid for their work & providing a way for everyone to support the creators of the Content that they consume.
- Protect privacy by creating alternatives for Web monetization that are not dependent on collecting consumer data.
- Lower the administrative costs of receiving payment for Content on the Web by creating an open payment ecosystem that enables competition among payment providers.
- Incentivize innovation on the Web by making it possible to be paid for content that is currently not monetized or is monetized at very low rates.
- Invest in the creation of open Content & open source software.
- Give creators & consumers the ability to use any currency & eliminate silos of payment that lock them in or force them to hold multiple accounts.
“When I was starting out as a developer, the openness of the Web gave me incredible opportunities to learn and grow,” said Stefan Thomas, Founder and CEO of Coil, in a written statement. “It’s so easy to create on the Web, but when it comes to earning money, people are mostly stuck with app stores or large content platforms. With this grant, we hope to tip the scales in favor of an open, native way for creators to be compensated for their contributions to the Web community.”
“At Creative Commons, we’re very interested in identifying new ways of rewarding open creativity and enabling people to show their gratitude to creators who share their work openly with the world,” said Cable Green, interim CEO of Creative Commons in a statement. “We’re especially excited by the Grant for the Web’s commitment to putting at least 50% of its funding towards projects that are made up of openly-licensed content and software. Creators have told us through our user research that gratitude is a core element of why they choose to share their work, and micro-payments may be an excellent way to offer that gratitude.”
“The Web’s richness and diversity comes from its individual creators: writers, coders, musicians, podcasters, app makers, journalists. But in the current Web ecosystem, big platforms & invasive, targeted advertising make the rules and the profit. Consumers lose out, too — they unwittingly relinquish reams of personal data when browsing Content. That’s the whole idea behind ‘surveillance capitalism,'” said Mark Surman, Mozilla Executive Director. “Our goal in joining Grant for the Web, is to support a new vision of the future. One where creators and consumers can thrive.”
Grant for the Web operates as an independent, collaborator-led program funded 100% by Coil, said the press release. While the activities & operations of this Coil-led project will be joined by founding contributing members Mozilla & Creative Commons, the collaborators welcome new members who want to join & support the program.
In total, the collaborators expect the Grant for the Web Program to last 5 years, & disburse $100 million in grants over that time period. Special consideration will be given to projects that reflect the collaborators’ values of promoting a vibrant common on the Internet of shareable Content; increasing users’ autonomy, privacy, & control over their data; promoting diversity & inclusion on the Internet; & increasing access the full capacity of the Net, both for content consumption & Content creation, for communities & individuals that have historically been marginalized, disadvantaged, or without such access.
The program is committed to awarding at least 50% of all grant dollars to proposed software projects & Content projects that will be openly licensed. The Grant for the Web Program will be managed by Loup Design & Innovation.
For more information about Grant for the Web, visit http://grantfortheweb.org/
Image Credit: Grant for the Web
