NTARI Files Copyrights on Agrinet and LBTAS, Formalizing Licensing and Enforcement Strategy to Protect Community-Owned Digital Infrastructure

LOUISVILLE, KY — February 19, 2026 — The Network Theory Applied Research Institute (NTARI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit developing cooperative alternatives to extractive technology platforms, today announced the filing of U.S. copyrights on two of its flagship open-source software projects: Agrinet, a community-owned agricultural coordination protocol, and LBTAS (Leveson-Based Trade Assessment Scale), a public reputation system for digital commerce networks. The filings mark a significant milestone in NTARI's Licensing and Enforcement Strategy, formally codified under Policy P2-004.

NTARI holds these copyrights not as a proprietary claim, but as trustee of the digital commons — ensuring that both works remain under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0 (AGPL-3) in perpetuity and cannot be re-privatized by corporate actors.

"Copyright registration is how we make enforcement real," said Jodson Graves, Executive Director of NTARI. "We're not protecting these works from the public — we're protecting them for the public. The AGPL-3 is only as strong as our ability to enforce it, and these filings give NTARI the standing to do exactly that."

About the Protected Works

Agrinet is an open-source agricultural coordination protocol designed to reduce transaction costs between personal property owners and public markets through network theory. The platform enables urban and small-holder farmers to commit to growing contracts with buyers in advance, with escrow-based settlement and LBTAS-rated reputation. Agrinet's Brazil node recently completed a full AWS removal, achieving 100% SQL-based infrastructure — a model of sovereign, cooperative-owned deployment. The project is available at ntari.org/agrinet, github.com/NTARI-RAND/Agrinet, and thagri.net.

LBTAS (Leveson-Based Trade Assessment Scale) is a software quality-derived rating framework adapted for public reputation systems in digital trade networks. Unlike the five-star system commercialized by Mobil Oil, LBTAS was designed from aerospace-grade software assessment methodology to support intelligent, accountable evaluation of transactions and participants. It serves as Agrinet's native reputation layer and is designed for broad application across cooperative digital ecosystems. LBTAS is available at ntari.org/lbtas and github.com/NTARI-RAND/Leveson-Based-Trade-Assessment-Scale.

About Policy P2-004: Licensing and Enforcement Strategy

Published this month on the NTARI Node Nexus, Policy P2-004 establishes NTARI's comprehensive framework for protecting cooperative software infrastructure. Key provisions include:

NTARI operates as a trustee of the commons, with all contributors assigning copyright to NTARI as a 501(c)(3) public benefit organization under a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). The organization's Articles of Incorporation contain irrevocable covenants prohibiting re-licensing to proprietary terms, dual-licensing for profit, or any use of copyright to advance extraction rather than cooperation. In the event of NTARI's dissolution, all copyrights transfer to the Software Freedom Conservancy or a comparable nonprofit copyleft defender.

Enforcement follows a four-phase Cooperative Conversion Framework — prioritizing compliance, negotiation, and cooperative membership over punitive litigation. NTARI's preferred resolution with any AGPL-3 violator is their integration into the cooperative network as an organizational stakeholder. The policy establishes a litigation reserve fund target of $50,000 and formalizes partnerships with organizations including the Software Freedom Conservancy, the Free Software Foundation, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Potential violations can be reported to violations@ntari.org.

The full policy is available at: ntari.org/post/licensing-and-enforcement-strategy-ntari-policy-p2-004

About NTARI

The Network Theory Applied Research Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Louisville, Kentucky. NTARI develops community-owned infrastructure and platform cooperatives as alternatives to extractive corporate platforms, with active projects in agricultural coordination, community emergency response, cooperative compute markets, and distributed operating systems. NTARI is registered with the Kentucky Secretary of State and searchable via IRS EIN 92-3047136.