I like the idea of a CD of the stuff available on free stuff. It could save us hours of downloading and reduce some of the bandwidth your paying for. (Red Hat is making a fortune selling stuff that's free.) Farm the actual burning and shipping out to some college computer science student, pay them $5 a copy and charge $10. At least until you get an idea of the real demand - so you don't have any overhead except cutting the student a check. This is a community (the sometimes religious fervor makes it almost a church.) Do what churches often do - have a rummage sale. Put a section in the store for the jumble. I'd be happy to contribute meshes for free that you can sell for a buck or two or whatever that just about anyone can afford.

That's not a bad idea - archive Free Stuff and the Galleries to CD, and offer copies for a very low rate, say once ever six months or so. Possibly including some of the more interesting or useful discussions as well? Then there would be backups of older material, less space on the server used, and a moderate revenue stream for the site.

Great idea. I'd buy it. Smell like a winner. GG

Sounds pretty good as long as those posting freebies don't mind

Unfortunately though that would be a useful product to have (both in terms of saving the download time and archiving things before they disappear from the net), I don't think it could be produced. Renderosity would have to have a (non-exlcusive) right to distribute the contribution on a commercial product. There are a huge number of entries in the Free Stuff, and not one of them has any clear indication of its copyright status in a central, easy to locate place. Many have readmes, but the amount of work for someone to download each contribution, read through it to see what rights are granted, email the creator if it is unclear, check if it contains any copyrighted Zygote meshes (yes, some of the Freestuff items contain a copy of Poser OBJ files), and so on would likely be prohibitive.

there ARE many legal obstacles and a question of finding the individuals to collect, and work with those who would contribute, as well as creating, stocking and mailing said cd's out. not tearing it down. it's a valid idea, just taking it to the next level and what it would need to make it a reality. another simpler way would be some of you getting to together and create a file which holds images, or even props of a small number or even an individual, and send it to DTHUREGRIF and Bast, our ladies in the OnLine Store for sale with the understanding it is to be used as contribution and state how much of the 50-50 split that is set up there, you are willing to place as contribution toward overhead and paying admins and moderators for the work they do here. That would cut down the costs of cd creations, storage of, and the time and manpower to snail mail them out. what does everyone think? ed

Um, just a note here. ALL of my free stuff offerings are free for personal AND commercial purposes. The only caveat is that a note is made that the items were created by someone other than the seller/user (don't even have to mention my name at all). Kate