[MR] Crown Dseign Competition Eligibility

[egeorges]

Phillip,

The contest was opened to the mundane world because last time we had a
design competition for crowns  we did not get any entries, and ended up with
the "Sea World" crowns.  The committee was requested to open the competition
wider than just the SCA to encourage a broader range of designs, and we did.
The goal here is to obtain the best design possible, not to engage in some
kind of insular SCA-centric nepotism.   My guess is that Scadians will
probably have a better idea of what we're looking for than non-Scadians, but
that's no reason to limit our options.  

But the real reason for the limitation on eligibility is about decreasing
potential for regulation, not litigation.  Transfers of intellectual
property are different from transactions involving other types of property,
particularly when done across international boundaries.  Most countries try
to protect intellectual property created by their citizens from being
exported, and there are numerous laws and treaties that could become
applicable to this situation should the winning design come from outside the
United States.  Rather than run the risk of having to comply with a complex
set of regulations, we limited the eligibility to U.S. residents.  

As for defending our own intellectual property rights, the point of
obtaining ownerhsip of the design isn't really to maintain strict
exclusivity of the design as to other people (although admittedly, it would
be upsetting to see the crowns of Atlantia on the head of anyone but our own
King and Queen), but to assure our right to produce the winning design in
exactly the way that we see fit.  There is a licensed attorney on the
Committee, so these issues have been reviewed by someone with some
expertise.  

If you still have questions, please contact me offline so we don't take up a
whole lot of bandwidth.

In Service,
Luce Antony Venus
New Regalia Committee