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Registration Agencies (RA) must comply with the policies and technical standards established by the DOI Foundation, but are free to develop their own business model for running their businesses. There is no appropriate "one size fits all" model. RAs may be of any form (commercial, governmental, or not for profit). Examples of the functions of an organization which might become an RA include, but are not limited to:

•An organization is running a registry (of identifiers and related data) and wishes to add DOI functionality and services to its existing services.

•An existing aggregator of information wishes to use DOIs to improve their services and add new features.

•A new initiative is launched in a defined sector to meet specific needs or solve a problem, for example, an industry collaboration or effort to solve a common problem (examples of these including Crossref, DataCite and EIDR are amongst the most successful existing RAs).

•A start-up which has a business model suggesting a novel DOI application might be fruitful: in view of the importance of persistence, this is likely to require significant guarantees of continuity planning.

The costs of providing DOI registration may be included in the services offered by an RA provision and not separately distinguished from these. Examples of possible business models may involve:

•explicit charging based on the number of prefixes allocated or the number of DOI names allocated

•volume discounts, usage discounts, stepped charges, or any mix of these

•indirect charging through inclusion of the basic registration functions in related value added services

•cross-subsidy from other sources

Operational costs of the system are borne directly or indirectly by the registrants. The business model adopted by an individual RA is a matter for the RA alone, provided that it complies with the DOI Foundation's policies.

NOTE RAs may choose to provide other DOI System-related services to registrants, without limitation as long as they conform with DOI agreements and policies. These services may include any combination of value added services in, for example, data, content or rights management. RAs may also develop services that exploit the metadata that they collect.

RAs will typically register many thousands or millions of DOI names, and have multiple customers and services, thereby generating economies of scale. RAs for smaller scale applications will probably not be viable as stand-alone entities, though RAs may collaborate, for example to share back-office services to improve viability. Communities that cannot identify an acceptable RA should contact the DOI Foundation to discuss how the DOI System might be used, and whether a new RA application might be developed.

NOTE  Once a DOI name is assigned, anyone may resolve that DOI name without charge. At least some information will always be available on resolution.