How to create a long-lived organization that executes a certain program? I'd like to start an organization that, similar to the website Patreon, enables people to set financial rewards on mathematical proofs of their choice and holds their money in escrow. Since some proofs take decades to be written (and some might be impossible to write), this would have to be a pretty long-lived organization, protected against the failings of individual humans (theft, death). If this were about a single person awarding price money for a single proof, a will might do. But this organization should enable many people to contribute money and objectives. Ignoring issues like inflation and the complex and possibly costly process of proof verification for now, what kind of organizational form would be best suited for this undertaking? A Charitable trust? A Nonprofit organization?
You can do it using a US non-profit, but you need a lawyer We know it can be done in the US using a non-profit because it has been done. For example, the Clay Institute’s Millennium Prize does exactly what you propose: it pays people who solve unsolved math problems. Similarly, the the Everglades Foundation used a prize to get people to come up with new ways to get phosphates out of the water sources. To do what they did, you need to follow their lead, and set up and run a non-profit (aka, 501(c)(3), named after the relevant provision of the tax code). Because non-profits are tax exempt under US tax law, you have to apply to the IRS to become a non-profit. Speaking broadly, the IRS imposes two requirements on non-profits: 1) It must serve a charitable purpose; 2) It must spend a certain percentage of its money every year doing charitable work. To set up a foundation you have to specify the charitable purpose you will serve (“encourage research in mathematics”), and have a plan to do so (“we will award a cash prize to people who solve important unsolved problems”). If the IRS decides your plan is genuine, then they give you a pass on paying taxes. To make sure you are carrying out your charitable plan, the IRS requires you to spend a certain percentage of your money each year on charitable work. (This is called the &quot;distribution requirement.&quot;) Meeting the distribution requirement may be a problem, since you may not award prizes every year. You may be able to get a general idea about how the IRS deals with such situations by searching on line. At some point, however, you will probably need to talk to a lawyer with experience setting up non-profits. (FWIW, it looks to me as if the Clay Institute meets its yearly spending requirement by supporting lots of other activities that count towards the spending requirement.) One other problem that it seems you won’t have involves giving prizes directly to individuals. For obvious reasons, the IRS is generally suspicious of prizes given to individuals, so they impose restrictions. For example, for the winner to avoid taxes, the prizes have to be for previous work. Where to go for more information: USA.gov has a nice overview of the application process here. The IRS has several publications and websites that you might find helpful: here, here, here, and here. These cover everything from the general rules to nuts-and-bolts details about which forms to use. You can read more about the IRS treatment of prizes here and here. Depending on how comfortable you are with financial statements, you may learn about how these non-profits work by reading their 990 forms. The Clay Institute's forms are here.
Usually, the only reason to set up an &quot;ownerless&quot; corporation is to set up a non-profit. Non-profit corporations can have self-perpetuating boards and are very similar to charitable trusts. If it ends up without any board members and has a self-perpetuating board, any person affected by the corporation or a suitable government representative (in the U.S., usually a state attorney general in the place of incorporation) can apply to a court to have new board members appointed. In a &quot;for profit&quot; context, this generally doesn't happen because the people investing in the company want to be able to profit from it and/or obtain a return of their investment. So, the question is largely hypothetical in that case.
In general the primary purpose of creating a single-owner business entity is to shield the owner from liability. For example, if it turns out that (unbeknownst to you) your necklaces were manufactured with toxic metals then "you" as a seller could face ruinous liability. If "you" is a company, then you as a person might lose whatever value is left in the company, but at least you wouldn't lose your personal assets. There are many other potential reasons to conduct business through a business entity, and many types of business entities constructed and recognized for those purposes; but they are highly dependent on the jurisdiction, entity type, and particulars of the business.
If you own the copyright (because you wrote the book), you can do whatever you want with it. If someone else has the copyright, you have to get their permission to do what you propose. That could be the author, the author's estate, or some other party. It then depends on what the interest of the rights-holder is: they could say "No way!", "Sure, for a payment of $100,000", "At $1 per copy, here is how you must keep track of copies", "Okay, as long as you include this notice that prevents further re-distribution" or "Huh, I never thought of that. Sure, I grant you complete license to do whatever you want". A publisher is relevant only when the publisher requires a transfer of copyright to the publishing company, or if the rights-holder has granted them a certain type of license (e.g. an exclusive license). If the author has granted someone else an exclusive perpetual right to distribute, then they cannot also grant you a license to distribute for free. That is really the author's problem, though, since the publisher doesn't hold the copyright so can't sue you, instead the publisher would sue the author for breach of contract.
Good news: it behaves like a legal entity. An estate is a collection of assets and liabilities that belonged to the deceased. The collection behaves a great deal like an LLC or other legal entity, although states don't call it that. The collection is isolated from anyone else's collection of assets and liabilities. For instance, it's not part of the executor's personal assets, nor liabilities. That's very important because... If the collection is sued e.g. by a creditor, the suit can only make claims against assets in the &quot;collection&quot;. That is to say, the executor's own assets are not at risk. That's very important if you're thinking about volunteering to become an executor or manager of a trust. You can do so without fear of personal liability. Asterisk here *, but don't panic, it's a harmless asterisk. The collection can buy and sell goods and services (more the latter generally). A typical service purchased by an estate is storage unit rental. The collection can hire, fire and generally do business. Consider an estate which owns an apartment building. Life goes on: rent must be collected, utilities paid, leaky toilets fixed, contractors and managers hired and fired. In this case, the estate is a going-concern business behaving a lot like an LLC. The collection/estate could potentially do business indefinitely, if the will of the heirs is to continue doing so. This might happen if splitting the assets equitably amongst the heirs wasn't possible (e.g. the estate of Leonard Cohen collects a lot of royalties)... or too complex to easily back out of (say: the deceased owned 5 McDonalds franchises and had bet the farm on opening two more; backing out now would bankrupt the estate, so the estate might oddly open two McDonalds.) The collection can also sue, and proceeds from the suit or settlement go into the collection. Asterisk again. * The collection has its own Taxpayer Identification Number (aka SSN or EIN). The collection files its own 1040 tax form, and may do so for years or even decades. The point of all these practical examples is that an estate looks, walks and quacks like a &quot;legal entity&quot;. To the point where the IRS even calls it one. And to a boots-on-ground executor, manager or trustee, the reality is it handles like a legal entity, and the experience you have managing legal entities will largely apply, almost in full. Almost. * Now, that asterisk. Due to state court rules in many states, if you attempt to sue an estate, you have to use the right name. And that's what this question is all about. It's a naming convention, and that is all. And courts treat it as such. Take Roe v. Wade. &quot;Roe&quot; is an adaption of &quot;Doe&quot; as in &quot;John Doe&quot;. Wade, however, was the district attorney of Dallas County at the time of filing. Wade wasn't being sued personally. It's just the quirky naming convention the court uses. What you have identified is a similar quirk in court rules, where instead of suing Estate of John Q. Example, the syntactically correct thing is to sue Jane Doe, in the capacity of, Executor of John Q Example's estate. And the italic parts are optional, because the court knows that. Why is this important? It's not important, and that's what the Florida Court of Appeals said in florida Spradley v Spradley 213 So. 3d 1042 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2017. The plaintiff had made exactly the above error: suing &quot;the estate of&quot; instead of suing &quot;Derreck Spradley et.al. (implied: in their capacity as executor)&quot;. The judge threw out the case, saying in essence &quot;You forgot to &quot;dot an i&quot;. The appeals court said no, the distinction is trivial and the court should have simply let the brother &quot;dot their i&quot; and continue with an entirely valid case. In other words, it was a distinction without a difference. So if sued, the executor should not panic about being &quot;named personally&quot; in the suit - you're not personally liable. And it is a waste of time to pick nits over how the name of the defendant is spelled, so says the Florida court at least... and in my humble opinion that precedent would be well received in other state courts, as it avoids wasting docket time and citizen filing fees on an action that will simply be re-filed correctly the next day. Not a license to cheat, however. One way an executor can manage to create personal liability is to abuse or mishandle the role with extreme negligence. In that case, yes, the executor's personal assets could come under fire, basically as punishment for misdeeds. An executor who is careful, honest and gets help when needed won't have any trouble at all.
If the author died in 1946 then copyright in his works expired at the end of 2016. The work is in the public domain. The relevant section of the Copyright Designs &amp; Patents Act 1988 extends to the whole of the United Kingdom, but not Crown Dependencies or colonies. You need to be sure that the work is the author's own work. If someone else has contributed then the copyright endures until it expires 70 years after the death of the last of the authors. The same applies to art. If you want to reproduce artwork, say for a cover/sleeve design, that would also have the artist's copyright, which lasts for 70 years after that person's death. The typography of a book has copyright which lasts for 25 years from publication.
I run CourtListener.com and RECAP and I hear this question from time to time. It depends a little on what kinds of data you're after. Some folks need court data in real time as it's published by the courts, other folks just want to follow particular cases, etc. I think your options are A commercial provider. Maybe Lexis or Bloomberg? I admit I don't know these options particularly well, but it's probably an option. You could use our services, depending on your needs. In the RECAP Archive, we have millions of documents. We get a lot of these from journalists that use our RECAP Extensions, so if it's stuff that's in the news, it can work particularly well. We also do bulk downloads of court data for researchers, but I'm guessing that's probably not your use case. I think the final option is to use a gift card from Visa or another provider. I think if you have a friend in the US, you could buy one, send it there, and they could send you photos of the card to help you out. If this is to gain PACER access and if you need an American address, we could probably lend you our address (we're a non-profit, this is part of our mission, and not a big deal).
This is a close call, in the example that you suggest, because it won't have been executed with the proper formalities and it isn't clear that the content at a url would be fixed in its language at the time that the Will is executed. Subject to an exception for personal property memorandums (and a more subtle one for powers of appointment in trusts) you can't change the terms of a Will once it is signed except by a Codicil executed with the same formalities. Certainly, the best practice would be to assume that the answer is no. There are times when a reference to an external document in a will is allowed (e.g. a reference to real property by address rather than a full legal description found in a recorded deed), but a list of beneficiaries would ordinarily not be allowed unless it was effectively a reference to vital statistics records (e.g. "all children born to or adopted by me.") In general, references to external documents are not allowed when used to establish the nature of the testator's donative intent (a "testator" is someone who writes a will), unless it "describes the writing sufficiently to permit its identification" and can't be modified after the Will is signed, but can be used to establish general facts about reality. One exception in Colorado is that a "personal property memorandum" designating who will receive specific items of tangible personal property can be incorporated by reference and does not have to be executed with the same formalities as a will. It isn't clear to me if a url could be a valid personal property memorandum and that issue has never been tested in Colorado. Colorado's probate laws are based on the Uniform Probate Code and would be substantially identical to any other jurisdiction that adopted the Uniform Probate Code's substantive provisions. The primary statutes governing this (which aren't necessarily easy to understand without context) are: Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-502. Execution--witnessed or notarized wills--holographic wills (1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (2) of this section and in sections 15-11-503, 15-11-506, and 15-11-513, a will shall be: (a) In writing; (b) Signed by the testator, or in the testator's name by some other individual in the testator's conscious presence and by the testator's direction; and (c) Either: (I) Signed by at least two individuals, either prior to or after the testator's death, each of whom signed within a reasonable time after he or she witnessed either the testator's signing of the will as described in paragraph (b) of this subsection (1) or the testator's acknowledgment of that signature or acknowledgment of the will; or (II) Acknowledged by the testator before a notary public or other individual authorized by law to take acknowledgments. (2) A will that does not comply with subsection (1) of this section is valid as a holographic will, whether or not witnessed, if the signature and material portions of the document are in the testator's handwriting. (3) Intent that the document constitute the testator's will can be established by extrinsic evidence, including, for holographic wills, portions of the document that are not in the testator's handwriting. (4) For purposes of this section, “conscious presence” requires physical proximity to the testator but not necessarily within testator's line of sight. (5) For purposes of this part 5, “will” does not include a designated beneficiary agreement that is executed pursuant to article 22 of this title. and Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-503. Writings intended as wills (1) Although a document, or writing added upon a document, was not executed in compliance with section 15-11-502, the document or writing is treated as if it had been executed in compliance with that section if the proponent of the document or writing establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended the document or writing to constitute: (a) The decedent's will; (b) A partial or complete revocation of the will; (c) An addition to or an alteration of the will; or (d) A partial or complete revival of the decedent's formerly revoked will or a formerly revoked portion of the will. (2) Subsection (1) of this section shall apply only if the document is signed or acknowledged by the decedent as his or her will or if it is established by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent erroneously signed a document intended to be the will of the decedent's spouse. (3) Whether a document or writing is treated under this section as if it had been executed in compliance with section 15-11-502 is a question of law to be decided by the court, in formal proceedings, and is not a question of fact for a jury to decide. (4) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to a designated beneficiary agreement under article 22 of this title. and Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-510. Incorporation by reference A writing in existence when a will is executed may be incorporated by reference if the language of the will manifests this intent and describes the writing sufficiently to permit its identification. and Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-511. Testamentary additions to trusts (1) A will may validly devise property to the trustee of a trust established or to be established (i) during the testator's lifetime by the testator, by the testator and some other person, or by some other person, including a funded or unfunded life insurance trust, although the settlor has reserved any or all rights of ownership of the insurance contracts, or (ii) at the testator's death by the testator's devise to the trustee, if the trust is identified in the testator's will and its terms are set forth in a written instrument, other than a will, executed before, concurrently with, or after the execution of the testator's will or in another individual's will if that other individual has predeceased the testator, regardless of the existence, size, or character of the corpus of the trust. The devise is not invalid because the trust is amendable or revocable, or because the trust was amended after the execution of the will or the testator's death. (2) Unless the testator's will provides otherwise, property devised to a trust described in subsection (1) of this section is not held under a testamentary trust of the testator, but it becomes a part of the trust to which it is devised, and is administered and disposed of in accordance with the provisions of the governing instrument setting forth the terms of the trust, including any amendments thereto made before or after the testator's death. (3) A revocation or termination of the trust before the death of the testator causes the devise to lapse, but exhaustion of trust corpus between the time of execution of the testator's will and the testator's death shall not constitute a lapse; a revocation or termination of the trust before the death of the testator shall not cause the devise to lapse, if the testator provides that, in such event, the devise shall constitute a devise to the trustee of the trust identified in the testator's will, and on the terms thereof, as they existed at the time of the execution of testator's will, or as they existed at the time of the revocation or termination of the trust, as the testator's will provides. and Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-512. Events of independent significance A will may dispose of property by reference to acts and events that have significance apart from their effect upon the dispositions made by the will, whether they occur before or after the execution of the will or before or after the testator's death. The execution or revocation of another individual's will is such an event. and Colorado Revised Statutes § 15-11-513. Separate writing or memorandum identifying devise of certain types of tangible personal property Whether or not the provisions relating to holographic wills apply, a will may refer to a written statement or list to dispose of items of tangible personal property not otherwise specifically disposed of by the will, other than money. To be admissible under this section as evidence of the intended disposition, the writing shall be either in the handwriting of the testator or be signed by the testator and shall describe the items and the devisees with reasonable certainty. The writing may be referred to as one to be in existence at the time of the testator's death; it may be prepared before or after the execution of the will; it may be altered by the testator after its preparation; and it may be a writing that has no significance apart from its effect on the dispositions made by the will. There is not a statutory definition of a "document" or a "writing" in the Colorado Probate Code.