Photopium opened this issue on Oct 30, 2001 ยท 19 posts
Photopium posted Fri, 02 November 2001 at 2:12 PM
Here is my proposal, and I'd really like to see how this works: I would like a fine modeller like Traveler or Jaager (for example) to come forward and say "I will make this prop for X dollars." X can be any price the modeller feels is sufficient for the time, skill and unlimited liscense for distribution. Say, for example, $1000 dollars. Any number of Artists can come forward and make the bid. We, the consumers and wanters of this product can then choose a bidder to commission the product. We will make the choice based on previous work, existing freestuff examples of their quality and so on. We will discuss this in private IM's or what not. When we finally choose an artist and a bid, we will then all agree to split the cost of the accepted bid. For example, in our $1000 dollars scenario, let's say 20 people agree to contribute to the commission pool. This would make each person's payment $50. When the artist announces that he has a "Beta" version ready for testing, the people who paid will then recieve the beta version and compile a list of wanted, reasonable tweaks. When the final version is ready and sent to all people who paid, the item then becomes freely distributable. Everyone is happy. The artist makes their quota for sales, the people who craved the item now have it in existence due to their combined initiative to get the ball rolling, and the people with minor to no interest get a great freebie anyway. Also, people who are too strapped for cash to buy extra items benefit. Furthermore, since the quality item is now freely distributable, we totally eliminate the motivation for Warez. Brilliant? There will be people who will say "No way can that ever work" but will provide no reason why it wouldn't. I say to these people, let us try it and see if it doesn't. If it doesn't, lesson learned. If it does work, then maybe we have found a new way to conduct business here and eliminate Warez? -WTB