Jenkins the Valet is introducing a new kind of “Writer’s Room”
We’re reimagining storytelling and putting the community in control
In traditional content creation, “The Writer’s Room” is a group of people who work together to brainstorm and pitch ideas for how a TV season should play out. There are show-runners, producers, and writers who work together to create the story.
It’s collaborative, yes, but it’s also near impossible to break in. And within the room itself, you better not break rank. There are unwritten rules for how to behave depending on how new you are, how young you are, what your role is, and more.
To put it bluntly, the traditional “Writer’s Room” is the antithesis of a typical crypto community. For that precise reason, we took the name for our project, our community, and our custom built web app. We take what’s great about collaborative writing and storytelling while also giving the power to the people, our community members. No unwritten rules. No hierarchy. Just a community of passionate members contributing to make a better work than any of us could do on our own.
Without further ado, we’d like to introduce you to our web application, The Writer’s Room. Within The Writer’s Room, our community members can do four things:
- Vote on the creative direction of our content (Book 1 is being written by 10x NYT best-seller Neil Strauss)
- Submit proposals to Neil that he should consider and that the community should vote on
- License Apes and Mutants to appear in our book as characters, in illustrations, in a game of “Where’s Jenkins”, and more
- Access a free-use licensing agreement to gain the commercial rights to BAYC and MAYC NFTs to partner and license them to our work
In addition to the four key pieces above, anyone will be able to check on our jenkinsthevalet.com if a Writer’s Room, BAYC, or MAYC NFT has been licensed to the book. We hope this enables smarter buying/selling on the secondary market.
Below we outline how each part of the platform works and what you can look forward to as members of The Writer’s Room.
Voting on the creative direction of our content
Holders of each of our Writer’s Room NFT tiers can exercise votes on the creative direction of our content. Most proposals are created by our 10x NYT bestseller Neil Strauss and the community helps him answer questions that he has during the creation of our book.
Proposals can be accessed by navigating to the “Votes” portion of our web app. Here, community members can see the set of open proposals that need their input.
After community members apply their votes, they can see the current standings among all options.
Submitting proposals for the community to vote on
Sometimes proposals that are voted on come straight from the community. Any community member can navigate to the “Submit Proposal” portion of our web app in order to suggest ideas that should be voted on.
In other instances, Neil will have an idea for a question, but he won’t be sure what the potential answers should be. In this case, community members can go to the “Submit Proposal” portion of our web app to suggest answers to Neil.
For example, Neil may ask the community, “What do Apes do with their dogs while at the club?”
Community members can then go to the “Submit Proposal” feature and suggest answers like this.
Proposal submissions help give power to the community, where they can generate interesting questions as well as answers that will dictate what happens in our book.
License Apes and Mutants to appear in the book
We’ve written widely about licensing avatars — there is no book without characters, and this will be the first instance of mass IP licensing in the NFT space. A crucial aspect of the Writer’s Room portal is that it can be used to license approved avatars to the content we produce. For Book 1, BAYC and MAYC NFTs can be licensed.
By far the biggest lift in creating The Writer’s Room was creating the licensing flow and agreements. Our IP lawyer, Entertainment lawyer, Corporate lawyer, and CAA’s in-house counsel worked together to craft agreements that will help our project succeed in the traditional entertainment space while also leaving the power with the holders of the NFTs.
It was critical to us that we did not ask for more rights from our community than were absolutely needed. This baffled folks who work in traditional media, but as we all know, this space is different and that’s why we’re all gmi.
Community members who hold the commercial rights to an Ape or Mutant can license the rights to that avatar to us so that they can be featured in the book. In exchange for those commercial rights, 50% of Net Profit made by our work will be paid to licensors. That includes income made from NFT primary sales, secondary sales, and potentially traditional publishing or film rights.
In our licensing portal, community members can see all of the Writer’s Room NFTs that they have and match their Apes or Mutants. We know which Apes or Mutants you have the rights to based on what you hold in your crypto wallet.
Members can select an avatar Token ID and then confirm their selection. For members who have multiple NFT tiers, it’s important to pay attention to this step to make sure they pair the right BAYC or MAYC NFT they want with the Writer’s Room tiers they care most about.
When a community member confirms their match, they can sign the licensing agreement. These agreements are non-exclusive and only give the Writer’s Room the ability to use the NFT avatar in Book 1 and direct derivatives (e.g. if it turns into film). In other words, they are non-exclusive, and the holder of the Ape or Mutant can still use their NFT in any other way they want.
After the license is agreed upon, community members can tell us a bit more about the character that has just been licensed to the book. This matters a lot for any community member who already has an idea about who their character is.
This is the first example of mass IP licensing in the NFT space, and we’re certain it will not be the last. By licensing avatars in this way, we confirm that our community not only sets the direction of the book with voting and submitting proposals, but they are also featured in the book themselves.
Using our free-use licensing agreement if you don’t have an Ape or Mutant
Many of our members don’t have BAYC or MAYC NFTs, but with our free-use licensing agreement, they can get exposure to Apes and Mutants by creating partnerships with current holders.
There are nearly 30,000 Apes and Mutants but only 6,942 Writer’s Room NFTs, so we have created a free-use licensing agreement for our community members to use to license the rights to Apes and Mutants for the sole purpose of then licensing them to our work.
For BAYC and MAYC NFT holders, this is a “free option” as it’s a zero-cost way to get their avatars licensed to our book and they can split licensing fees with the Writer’s Room member who they license the rights to. They also maintain all rights to their avatars and the Writer’s Room member cannot do anything with the BAYC or MAYC NFT except license it to our book.
A Writer’s Room member can navigate to the portion of our web app where they can trigger a free-use licensing agreement for an ape or mutant holder.
The member can identify a BAYC or MAYC Token ID that they want to license from the holder. Then they can offer a percentage split to the Ape or Mutant holder so that when licensing fees are paid out on-chain a portion will be paid to Ape or Mutant and another portion will be paid out to the Writer’s Room member.
The member enters an email address for the Ape or Mutant holder and their own. They can view and accept the free-use licensing agreement and then send it to the Ape or Mutant holder for a counter agreement.
At this point, the ape or mutant holder gets an email that lets them know that someone in the Writer’s Room wants to license their avatar.
The email spells out that the only permission the Writer’s Room member has is to license the avatar to our book. The Writer’s Room member doesn’t have any rights to the Ape or Mutant besides licensing it to our book and direct derivatives. In exchange for granting these narrow rights, the Ape or Mutant holder will receive a percentage of licensing fees that are paid out.
If the Ape or Mutant holder wants to proceed, the click the link in the email and enter the 6 digit code they were sent in their email. This code is referenced in our database and brings up the right agreement for the particular holder to sign. It will be populated with their token ID and the precise profit split that the Writer’s Room holder offered.
From there, we confirm that the Ape or Mutant holder actually does hold a BAYC or MAYC token ID in their wallet to prove they have the rights to license it to the Writer’s Room member.
Once they’ve signed a transaction and proven that the Ape or Mutant is in their crypto wallet, they can sign the free-use licensing agreement that gives the Writer’s Room holder the ability to license the avatar to our book.
Now the Writer’s Room member has been granted the commercial rights to use the ape or mutant in The Writer’s Room to license it to our book. If the Writer’s Room member returns to the main licensing flow, they’ll see the new Token ID show up in the drop-down field to match it to their Writer’s Room token tiers. They’ll be able to select this token ID and go through the main licensing process.
Behind the scenes, in our database, we record the Ape or Mutant token ID that has been licensed in the free-use flow. We know which wallet is owed each percent of licensing fees and all of that will be coded on-chain for net profit payouts when our book hits the market.
Using Web3 to create a new kind of “Writer’s Room”
We’re using Web3 to decentralize and crowdsource elements of storytelling that have previously been locked in the Ivory Tower.
Inside our web-app, The Writer’s Room, our community members can vote on the creative direction of a world-class story, submit ideas to our 10x NYT bestselling author, and most importantly licensing their own IP in exchange for a portion of net profit.
There is a promise that Web3 will blur the lines between consumer and contributor, and we are dead set on doing our part to make that promise a reality.
WAGMI.
