Ok, I'm postulating an idea and am wondering what people would think of it. It sounds a little counter-intuitive at first, but hear it out first... Basically the premise is that I'd like to make 3D stuff available for free but with some type of way of charging for its release to the general public. Something like "Here's a model, and if I recieve X amount of donations it will be made available for download at no cost or restriction." Wikipedia has an article that may provide some more depth: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system

](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system)Now I've heard this is an idea that works ok as a business plan in relation to some open source software, and I don't see why it wouldn't work for 3D content as well. The other reason is that money's tight, and as much as I like giving stuff away it would be nice to have something help ends meet. Asking people for donations as thanks for a good quality freebie doesn't seem to work as good as one would hope.

Also has anybody ever considered a non-traditional brokering model that would make such a process convienient (ie: donation tracking, and some form of QC to ensure something is as advertized when the amount has been met), or what the legal aspects would be involved? Is it possible to split the difference between Free-Stuff and the Marketplace? Would it be considered more fair to have an ability to sell the item in a more traditional way, but have automated movement to freebies once a certain goal has been met?

Alternately, I wouldn't mind if there were a variation with 3D bountys. Somebody posts a bounty on desired such-and-such, and if the requirements are met the artist gets paid and the model is made freely available.

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Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.