RepliCounts for New E-commerce: Paying Artists Online

content is free while the artists get paid

In this diagram, the changing colors of the green oval (in the upper left of the top circle -- the circle represents the same RepliCount illustrated in Figure 1) indicate changes to the options of the software module that provides the corresponding service (in this case is how the account accepts payments). The first and third accounts on the 2nd row are changed; the middle one is not, meaning that it accepts payments in the same way as the parent account in row 1. Note that the changes can be made either by the owner of the original, parent account, and/or by a new owner, to whom the child account has been given or sold.

For example, in the child account on the left, a new owner may have decided not to accept certain credit cards because they charge too much in fees. This owner uses the account's dashboard to enter the control center for the "accept payment" service of that account, and unchecks the boxes that represent the credit card(s) (or categories of cards) to be avoided. (For this example, a category could be all credit cards, as opposed to debit cards that usually charge the merchant much less -- not that this selection would commonly be recommended today.)

Later, a customer [perhaps a potential sponsor of 200 prepaid downloads of the song, video, or other content that this RepliCount delivers] will not see any of the rejected payment options presented. Note that the account owner can only make changes provided by the software module on the RepliCounts server (the "accept payments" module in this case) running on the server that manages the accounts; if the software does not provide the ability to uncheck the particular credit cards or categories that the owner wants to avoid, then the desired changes cannot be made. But competitive pressures will give rival replicating-account companies considerable incentives to provide the software options needed by their customers, the account owners. So ultimately the customers can have considerable control -- provided that the whole idea is not locked up by some companies' patents.

This diagram shows the owner of the 2nd child account (middle of the row) as being satisfied so far with the inherited defaults. The diagram shows no changes to the software services of this account.

In the third child account, the owner decided to make a different change (indicated by the green of the original being changed to a different color). For example, perhaps the parent account was used in the U.S., and therefore was set up to not allow business with certain countries on the government's enemies lists -- for example, Cuba. But assume that the 3rd child account above will be used in Europe, and the account server is outside the U.S. as well. Then the new owner can look down the list of 200-odd countries in the dashboard, and replace the check mark to allow transactions from Cuba, which had been blocked in the parent account for U.S. use.

Note that each new child account is independent of its parent (at least by default). So money paid will go directly to the account owner in Europe, through the non-US server, and never go through the parent account that may remain in use in the U.S.

Page updated 2009-01-05