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Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

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Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#2
Question to anyone in the media industry:

Why aren't there a lot of open source media assets (that actually are as high quality as paid assets)? I remember trying to make games and such, and people required me to pay $1000's of dollars, seems relevant here as well, such as "10 movie clips" for $1500.

It puts up a barrier for individuals to use assets they haven't made, does it not? I think that was one of the main reasons FOSS was started; so a homebrew hacker doesn't require shelling out $2k for a text editor!

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#3
I love the idea of a Humble Bundle, but for other interests, like this. But this bundle is a little confusing to me. I suppose selling things that may be used professionally is much different than selling video games or eBooks.

The Creative Market Charity Design Bundle looks good, but the other items are just limited time subscriptions, or even worse, discounts on purchases/subscriptions. It's like paying for a coupon book. It might be nice if you're planning on purchasing some of these, but I doubt I'll use any of these services knowing that in a year (or less), my access is gone unless I pay full price.

Also, where is the licensing? For the Creative Market items, it seems like each one has it's own license? Most of them seem to use this Simple License[1], but I don't know if they all do. The text for the Simple License is way too vague for me to use this on any commercial project. As far as what you cannot do with the license. For example:

> Cannot be used in a product offered for sale where the item contributes to the core value of the product being sold.

How do you even decide this? The first example listed is:

>You Can: Use a purchased icon set as functional icons in your app, such as button icons.

>You Cannot: Use a purchased icon set as artwork that enhances actual gameplay in your app, such as the birds in Angry Birds.

That's so arbitrary. The artwork of the birds is somehow different than the artwork of the menu icons in the game? What if you make an Angry Birds clone, except where buttons are used to aim and fire the birds, instead of touch/dragging? Let's say I make a messaging app where the "core value" is just a simple, clean interface. Do I lose the ability to use these icons?

[1] https://creativemarket.com/licenses/simple

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#5
post #2

Question to anyone in the media industry: Why aren't there a lot of open source media assets (that actually are as high quality as paid assets)? I remember trying to make games and such, and people required me to pay $1000's of dollars, seems relevant here as well, such as "10 movie clips" for $1500. It puts up a barrier for individuals to use assets they haven't made, does it not? I think that was one of the main re…

The benefit of open source software is clear: If I open source my text editor it can be made better by other people contributing to it.

I don't see the benefit of "open sourcing" high quality media assets. The expectation of a media asset is for it to be completed and then used as is, not continuously improved like a software product.

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#6
post #2

Question to anyone in the media industry: Why aren't there a lot of open source media assets (that actually are as high quality as paid assets)? I remember trying to make games and such, and people required me to pay $1000's of dollars, seems relevant here as well, such as "10 movie clips" for $1500. It puts up a barrier for individuals to use assets they haven't made, does it not? I think that was one of the main re…

I think the problem isn't so much that there isn't good open source media assets, but rather it's hard to find/filter them. One site that comes to mind that has free assets is http://opengameart.org/

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#7
post #2

Question to anyone in the media industry: Why aren't there a lot of open source media assets (that actually are as high quality as paid assets)? I remember trying to make games and such, and people required me to pay $1000's of dollars, seems relevant here as well, such as "10 movie clips" for $1500. It puts up a barrier for individuals to use assets they haven't made, does it not? I think that was one of the main re…

The benefit of open source software is clear: If I open source my text editor it can be made better by other people contributing to it. I don't see the benefit of "open sourcing" high quality media assets. The expectation of a media asset is for it to be completed and then used as is, not continuously improved like a software product.

The Free Software/Culture stuff is also about DRY, in a sense. Say I need a picture of a stream for a project. I get my camera and drive a couple hours to the woods. Batch process the set and finally decide on one picture to use. At the end of this, fairly expensive process, I actually have 10-15 pretty good, usable pictures that I no longer am going to use (at least not in the near future). The (modern) traditional ideology is to lock those away just in case I may need a picture like that in the future.

Makeing them free to others means they don't have to repeat the same process for basically the exact same thing. Now multiply this by the 100's or thousand's of other assets that could be used in a small project.

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of open source software is clear: If I open source my text editor it can be made better by other people contributing to it. I don't see the benefit of "open sourcing" high quality media assets. The expectation of a media asset is for it to be completed and then used as is, not continuously improved like a software product.

The Free Software/Culture stuff is also about DRY, in a sense. Say I need a picture of a stream for a project. I get my camera and drive a couple hours to the woods. Batch process the set and finally decide on one picture to use. At the end of this, fairly expensive process, I actually have 10-15 pretty good, usable pictures that I no longer am going to use (at least not in the near future). The (modern) traditional…

In my opinion, it's actually more about the happiness you feel when you give these things away. It's doubtful you'll use them again and so why not give them away.

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#9

I love the idea of a Humble Bundle, but for other interests, like this. But this bundle is a little confusing to me. I suppose selling things that may be used professionally is much different than selling video games or eBooks. The Creative Market Charity Design Bundle looks good, but the other items are just limited time subscriptions, or even worse, discounts on purchases/subscriptions. It's like paying for a coupo…

Probably from a technical lawyery standpoint that's not enforceably clear, but from the standpoint of someone who uses paid creative assets as part of my regular work, it's certainly clear enough that I could feel fine using them and moving on with my life, and knowing if I was stepping over the line.

Re: Pay It Forward Design Bundle – 100% to Watsi

#10
post #2

Question to anyone in the media industry: Why aren't there a lot of open source media assets (that actually are as high quality as paid assets)? I remember trying to make games and such, and people required me to pay $1000's of dollars, seems relevant here as well, such as "10 movie clips" for $1500. It puts up a barrier for individuals to use assets they haven't made, does it not? I think that was one of the main re…

It's just CC, not "open source," but there are plenty of places (i.e. Flickr) where you can share your assets for others to use. I've had people contact me about using some of my photos in books they're publishing (wasn't necessary, given the CC license, but gave me a warm fuzzy and was appreciated), and I've contacted photographers about using their work for a wedding invitation I was making. But many of the kinds of things that are actually useful have the kind of specific requirements that make them not fun to create and share for free, so Shutterstock makes lots of money.
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