Funding and independence

Support the registry

The registry is free to use and free to run at its current scale: hosting is free and the domain names cost a few tens of dollars a year. What it needs to become a credible, lasting piece of infrastructure is independence, which takes governance, legal work and a little paid stewardship. That is what support would fund.

What funding would pay for

• Legal review of the terms, privacy policy, trademark position and licences, and the incorporation of an independent entity.
• Governance: forming the advisory council and then a board, with a transparent, published process.
• A part-time steward to handle reports, disputes and moderation promptly.
• Standards work: proposing metadata codes for AI-use declarations to book-industry standards bodies so that retailers, libraries and distributors can display them.
• Security and accessibility review of the site and the registration process.
• Continuity: a reserve covering domain names and hosting, and a public archive of the records.

The rules for any funder

• Funders have no say in definitions, classifications or individual records.
• Funders do not get board seats, and seats are never tied to funding.
• No funder may use the marks or the registry’s name to imply endorsement.
• Every funder and amount is published.
• No single funder will provide more than about a quarter of the budget, and the registry will avoid dependence on any single industry, including the AI industry.

How to help

We are looking for foundations that support open publishing infrastructure, publishing and library organisations that would join as members, and people willing to serve on the advisory council.

Write to hello@ati-registry.org.