Talk:Royalties

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[edit] Comment 1

what are some typical royalty percentages when 1 individual piece sells for x amount of money, what percentage of the x is given to the author/artist?

and if it varies - for books? for art?

A response:

This has now been addressed, partly here and partly in 'Royalty rate assessment' Ipsofacto 15:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC) What is a REASONABLE amount for a royalties be paid on a patent that the patentee has not done anythingwith it and has had it for 10 years. What would be a REASONABLE amount? For example... If the product sells for $50. but it costs you $25 to mak it, what is Reasonable amount per. Keep in mind the PATENTEE has not put a dime into any aspect of the business. 124.187.75.232 23:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

and if it varies - for books? for art?

A response:

This has now been addressed, partly here and partly in 'Royalty rate assessment'. The royalty rate - in the case of books, copyright royalties - depends on the author's reputation and expected circulation of the book. There would no no royalty for art unless it is reproduced for sale, when it becomes a sale under copyright. In both of these cases, it is the publisher who makes the royalty payment and it can only be a portion of the profit he/she reaps. Ipsofacto 15:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

Is there some history behind royalties? Some guy invented it so we owe him royalties each time we use royalties? 124.187.75.232 23:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Still a stub?

Is this still considered a stub? It seems rather thorough...Mikelj 23:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

The Moore reference states that 70% of cases are settled but only 6% go to trial. What about the other 24%?--Nowa 02:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contributor Response to Editor's Comment

 The Editor wrote :The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.

As a Consultant and Expert who has consulted with international organizations, such as organs of the United Nations, particularly UNIDO, and based on my own professional career and earlier membership of the Licensing Executies Society (LES), USA, I am trying to make a substantive contribution to the field of Licensing for the lay reader.

To meet with the Editor's comments I have listed a series of publications, to some of which I have been the main or substantive contributor and sister publications which I have drawn on.

The terminology and explanatory material used do have an international common heritage and meaning. They do not contradict EU or US concepts but in some instances they tend to assist the reader in the developing countries more than the developed. Some of the material relating to US Patent law pre-existed my entry. I intend to expand on that section and will try to present the world view.

I hope this clarifies. I am still learning how to write comprehensively in Wikipedia. Thus the References for now are in the old format and not as required. I will reformat them as I complete my contribution of which there more material to be added. Ipsofacto 15:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of the 'Lay Reader'

Attempts need to be made to deliberately treat a complex subject such as Intellectual Property Rights in an expansive, illustrative, manner so as to facilitate reading and understanding by the lay reader, especially those in the less-advanced countries where even lawyers have deficient knowledge in these areas. There is also the need to help entrepreneurs in small-scale industries anywhere in the world who are searching for this type of knowledge. At the time of this input (Aug 15 2007), a Google search for 'knowhow' results in very poor output and this Wiki section is the one first highlighted!

When professionals make their inputs with exactitude, the result is that the layman context is lost and the input starts to read like a near-legal treatise.

If there are people who wish to give legalistic coverage to matters covered here - and there plenty of areas where there is indeed need for such coverage- then, I ask, why not do so separately and give links to their contributions in this article or in its references? This is not to say, they should not correct something which looks or reads obviously wrong or to amplify a concept.

Redundancy through recapturing concepts present elsewhere in Wikipedia or external links to illustrate concepts is not redundancy!!

That is one factor. The second is that those who are trying to help the lay reader, or redefine inputs made in that context, can certainly conribute to finding missing sections in the "Licensing" category than attack what has already has been contributed.

The Wiki editors had commented in the article that there should not be overt focus on the decisions and interpretation of terms by the courts of any one country and should be 'universalized' or something in that context.

Also, if anyone were to read the questions that were asked in the 'Discussion' area by readers of this article some 6-8 months ago (they remain there still) and which was the reason for my contributions, they would be found to be questions by laymen seeking explanation.

I would wish contributors to make available additive knowledge, rather than substract what is there (if it is NOT incorrect). Ipsofacto 16:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)


For now I will not rever to earlier versions of my inputs in the light of above defence and wait to hear arguments for unneccesary brevity and exactitude. Ipsofacto 16:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't develop too much pride of authorship. Wikipedia is about collaborative authorship. The article was in very poor condition and contained a clean-up tag. That's exactly what I did. I cleaned it up and improved it, although it still needs a lot of work.
No, it is not appropriate in an article about royalties to discuss in detail what a trademark is, a patent, a license, etc. That's why we have internal links. Direct the reader to the main article. The only reason to restate any of that is to give enough detail for the context of the article. In addition, the discussion of these things was quite inaccurate to the point of being largely unsalvageable. To leave in a full discussion of trademarks I would have to write that section from scratch and there was no need to. Accuracy is never wrong. If a subject is treated in an erroneous fashion it needs to be corrected. As for the lay reader, I hope you will not take this too hard but the English used in the article was almost completely unreadable by anyone. If one took the time to work through the complex and convoluted sentence structure, most of what it said turned out to be mistaken, confusing, or irrelevant.
A universal perspective would be helpful, and that can be done by adding separate sections for different countries. However, there was no such thing, just a few general comments about developing versus developed countries. These comments seemed wrong, and were definitely unsourced. There is no reason to expect that patent royalties are any more important in developing countries than developed ones, or that it has anything to do with infrastructure or people's earning power. Certainly the royalty amounts are lower in poorer countries because there is not as much money to go around. Everything is cheaper in poor countries. That is not worth saying. If there were some specific reason why patent royalties were lower or less common in a country, such as widespread infringement and lack of enforcement, or disinterest from the patent holders in licensing and policing licenses, that might be useful to discuss.
Again, please don't take it personally. The article is much improved over its prior version. Nobody can seriously dispute that.Wikidemo 17:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poor countries can do without added patronising

I accept what Wikidemo states about concise inputs. My teaching experience (in many countries) shows that illustrative material increases reader comprehension, while leaving them out, makes the matter dry, legalistic and abstract. In the case of trademarks, I had written up the material offline and then pasted that work into the Royalties section and was in the process of cleaning it up when there was this massive intervention. Indeed I am glad that this section is being viewed seriously!! So far, so good. (I am not a lawyer but an engineer deep in negotiating technology licensing).

I have one serious reservation though; and that is the patronizing attitude towards poorer countries (those who get everything good cheap anyway - DO THEY?). I am in poor India but we are becoming regarded as an intellectual power these days across the world. Indeed, there are press reports that Wikipedia are looking for Indian contributors to expand material!! I hope I am not being excessive or convoluted in expressing this thought.

Nonetheless, I am hoping that I shall be contributing more to this and other sections Ipsofacto 16:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You added the trademark section via 11 edits in 3 1/2 hours. My revision of the section was 17 hours later. If you are in the middle of edits you can use {{ inuse}} and {{ underconstruction}} to alert people. Otherwise, best to heed the warning that anything you write can and will be edited. This article has needed a clean-up for a long time.
In my re-write I edited for style and language, while catching the gist of the major points you made. I tried to minimize and avoid excessive explanation, incorrect information (the article is completely uncited so in the absence of any support I did my best), and excessive or impertinent detail. Statements that Mozart's music contains a trademark, that Harley-Davidson trademarks are "noncommercial", the main motivation for licensing trademarks is to avoid entry costs, etc., simply seem inaccurate. Saying that trademarks should not be licensable but are due to international pressures is convoluted and misses the mark. I think what's meant is that trademark licenses are only assurances of quality if the licensee offers assurances it will uphold the licensor's quality standards, so I said that. Pedagogical objective and value to people who don't understand intellectual property aside, wikipedia has stylistic standards and one of them is to present information in a concise, readable format rather than to step readers through an essay-like exposition of the entire broader subject. Thus, an extended discussion of what a trademark or a brand is, and a several-paragraph exposition on one of many methods of valuing a trademark ("relief from royalty") is out of place.
If you're accusing me of being patronizing to poor nations, please assume good faith. The prior version made distinctions between "highly developed" and "mature economies", versus developing countries, that were of questionable validity. As I said, one such mention, when you got past the flowery language, reduced to a statement that more money is being made off patented technologies in developed countries and therefore they can pay more for them. That does not need to be said because the price for any license depends on the money to be made from it. Wikidemo 18:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pace,Pace, Wikidemo! - but some refutations, some clarifications

Wikidemo, I accept your remarks are being made in good faith and that maintaining style is a Wiki birthright - no arguments there. But on substance, I not only disagree but wish to source information from Wikipedia itself in support of what I have mentioned.

1. Your implication that Harley-Davidson's distinct purr IS a trademark (whereas I said it was non-commercial) is contra-indicated from the Wikipedia reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-Davidson where the finalising statement is made:"These objections were followed by litigation. After six years, Harley-Davidson withdrew their trademark application" [on the engine sound]. Mozart's music often has a "trademark" passage (however, it has, and never had, any commercial trademark significance). I introduced Mozart and Shostakovich and H-D as illustrations of 'ownership sounds', to bring home a point and to go 'outside the narrow field of IP' as a diversion. I could have mentioned TV jingles as trademarks but thats obvious. So I hope there is no real reason to avoid their re-introduction.

[Wikidemo, I had interrupted my discussion, to search for the context in which I had previously introduced the notions of 'advanced' and 'developing countries in submissions but find, alas, Wikipedia has overwritten all my previous submissions with your recent edit, leaving no space for the curious reader to compare opinions or to revert - a right Wikipedia appears to enshrine. Maybe I violated copyright, although I cant see how since I have not quoted any passage. Maybe I scared the opinion-creators by saying even in the Talk section that there was no reason why the trademarks I had mentioned earlier - McDonald's Golden Arches, Nike's Shoosh and Harley-Davidson should not be reintroduced! Still further, the links to my previous submissions now lead to bogus or irrelevant topics outside of Wikipedia.

I further fear, having read Kathie Hafner's article in the New York Times, Aug 19,2007 titled: 'Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits': http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html that no purpose will be served by wanting to see Wikipedia service the community with different perspectives or even a restatement of what is obviously correct. May be I should write my own blog to give that perspective since you will not allow it even to lie on the scrap heap?]

Nonetheless, I would like to finish what I had set out to do here. Let the reader judge, unless this is also edited to a singular opinion.

2. One of your statements is that: "Certainly the royalty amounts are lower in poorer countries because there is not as much money to go around. Everything is cheaper in poor countries. That is not worth saying". This is, certainly, the biggest and boldest assault I have seen on poor countries and from a public interest body like Wikipedia providing for a balance of views.

Royalties and prices are of concern to both developed and developing countries.

First, let me back-peddle and take you to the Kefauver U..S. Senate Committee hearings in the early 60's that led to enactment of the famous legislative achievement, the Kefauver-Harris Drug Act of 1962, after Kefauver expressed shock about the excess profits that U.S. drug companies were taking in at the expense of U.S. consumers. In his book Kefauver: A Political Biography, Joseph Bruce Gorman described some of what Kefauver's hearings on the U.S. pharmaceutical industry revealed:

"Witnesses told of conflicts of interest for the AMA (whose Journal, for example, received millions of dollars in drug advertising and was, therefore, reluctant to challenge claims made by drug company ads)…The drug companies themselves were shown to be engaged in frenzied advertising campaigns designed to sell trade name versions of drugs that could otherwise be prescribed under generic names at a fraction of the cost; this competition, in turn, had led to the marketing of new drugs that were no improvements on drugs already on the market but, nevertheless, heralded as dramatic breakthroughs without proper concern for either effectiveness or safety." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estes_Kefauver

It was shown during the hearings that some trademarked drugs were being marketed in India (in the late 50's-early 60's) that were 2000 times more expensive than the same drugs that were being sold by the same company in Canada. In other words, a 0.05% rate of royalty on sales at those prices could be an extreme penalty on the licensee, except that the licesnsees were subsidiaries of companies in developed countries. Poor (or rich) countries dont get everything cheaper.

3. Let me also take you to another situation: The Cartagena Agreement in 1969 among five Andean group of countries (now labelled "Andean Pact as Friend of Foreign Enterprise"). Article 27 of the Cartagena Agreement called for the creation of a common Andean Pact policy vis-à-vis foreign investment, trademarks, patents, and licenses. In response, the relevant Andean Pact institutional body adopted Decision No.24 in 1976.....further, in an attempt to prevent foreign controlled monopolies and restrictions on technology transfer, Decision 24 prohibited member states from granting licensing contracts to foreign companies that contained restrictive noncompetition clauses. http://www.mercosurconsulting.net/Articles/article2.html

This action by the Andean group spread to other countries of the developing world. Things began to ease of only in the 80's when government supervision became less strident and free market forces emerged in a more enlightened world.

I have copied this submission to my Gmail account so that an erroneous link to this material does not appear.

I will await third party contribution and comment.

At the same time I would like your help getting to Wikipedia administration to referee erasures of previous material when rewrites of the article have not been challenged by me.

Wikipedia is not a proper source for information in articles. See WP:RS. At any rate the Harley-Davidson article does not relate to my comment. If Harley Davidson withdrew its trademark application it has an unregistered trademark or perhaps something not a trademark, not a "non-commercial" trademark. As far as I know there is no such thing as a non-commercial trademark. Trademarks are defined by use in commerce to signify the source, sponsorship, or affiliation of a good or service. Goods and services are commercial. Harley Davidson makes commercial goods, to wit, motorcycles.
Mozart and Shostakovitch do not own trademarks in the sense of identifiable expressions used to denote the source of goods or services. They are deceased individuals who are making no goods or services. To say they have a "trademark" sound invokes the common English version of the word, roughly equivalent to one usage of the word "signature." That does not help to explain what a trademark is. A jingle, however, may but does not necessarily contain trademarks in this sense. A closer description would be the sound some operating systems make when started. However, I don't see how the difference in sensory modalities of a trademark relates to the subject at hand, that people pay royalties for licensing them from each other.Wikidemo 15:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia as a source of information

Your statement that "Wikipedia is not a proper source for information in articles" amazes me because by that you cast doubt on the authenticity of what you yourself have written! Ipsofacto 11:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the idea beyond Wikipedia:original research and Wikipedia:verifiability. If no source is provided for a statement, it may generally be considered worthless. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." --Edcolins 19:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The entire article was a mess before the clean-up. I came upon it looking for an internal link for oil and gas royalties and for royalties earned by deal-makers so I wouldn't have to explain these concepts in my articles. Instead of helpful encyclopedic info, all I saw was a long, inaccurate, and impertinent essay about how Mozart has a trademark and developing nations lack infrastructure. Now it's less of a mess and might actually be useful, but it could still go farther to perhaps half of its current length. I left a lot of marginal stuff in out of deference and because some of it does have some sourcing. But most is still not sourced. That has nothing to do with whether quoting the Wikipedia article on Harley Davidsons gives you a sound argument for the proposition that the company owns a "non-commercial trademark" on the sound. That article doesn't even support the proposition...it can't because there's no such thing. But if it did make that claim, the strength of the argument would be in the external sources it cites, not the mere fact that somebody wrote the statement in another Wikipedia article.Wikidemo 20:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not to be undone

Wikidemo, I was unfortunately under the impression that you were an 'official' Wiki editor and hence tried to argue things out before committing more material to the article. Your ID will mislead people but they will catch on! I had to refer our argument to the real Wiki editor, which was not neccessary. Your editing has improved the language but not the content or the response to preceding queries - especially in the context of the lay reader. Introducing illustrative material will help. Most importantly, there has to be a quantitative approach to establishing or analysing royalty rates. Others may be able to build upon them. The web is currently a poor source of information on this important set of subjects. Making life a little more difficult for lawyers is not an unpleasant task! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipsofacto (talk • contribs) 12:11, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'Advertising' - a right under 'patent rights'?

I am querying someone's adding the 'right to advertise' to the well-understood rights of 'make, use and sell' under patent laws. I believe this is in error for the general case. Ipsofacto 16:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge of Royalty Financing

See Talk:Royalty Financing. --Edcolins (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)