3DTotal Partners with Conceptart.org Against Piracy

[Tom-3DT]

Er guys this is a piracy debate, not the birth of an international 'fight club' anything else off topic in this thread from now on gets you the boot! (actually it probably wont but when I talk tough It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and kinda a little turned on )

[rocneasta]

the turned on part make me smile (not in a warm and fuzzy way tbh )

[keescopyright]

Excuse my intensity but I really expected this 3d community to hold members with intelligence and honesty, now you all seem to be intelligent enough to use a computer but the honesty is horribly lacking.

Dear Tom. In the words 'free information' I don't mean the majority of it. I mean ALL of it. Not 80/20 balance ALL OF IT. You also must admit that a lot of that free information you are hosting here isn't yours but it attracts loads of people to come here anyway. The only difference between that and piracy is that these authors have given permission before hand to anyone for redistribution. A noble thing to do since 'as you so wel put it' you could also withhold the last 20% and charge people for that. The commercial side should pay for ALL of it. I never bothered to look if there is one but maybe a donate button would be good as wel. Ive learned some skills here and i'm grateful, not saying I would donate but 3DT might have me thinking about it, for a second.

The money is your own and you are obligated to protect your investment, so by all means do. Just know that the model you are so eagerly holding on to is an outdated one. You don't fight your costumers. You listen to them. Google has taught us that there are people willing to pay for other people to do whatever it is they want as long as it has some companies name somewhere in the bottom because that is what presents others with revenue. It's just sad that you are now spending cold hard cash, blood, sweat and tears fighting a principle that 99% of your users use (whether they admit it or not).

I just know that there are a ****load of hardware companies begging to be associated with the skills displayed on the frontpage and forums, you should talk to them. Also if hosting really is where your money is going perhaps the torrent thing is exactly what you need. No more hosting bull**** and hyper-rapid dispersing of your software even to places you cant reach -non english places. I don't feel i really have to explain more than this. If you(3DT) jump on this wagon you might even make some ripples.

------------

Edit from Tom - I have taken out all of your non topic comments - I did warn you earlier, happy to discuss all on-topic stuff though and I will get to your other comments later when I have time.

[Tom-3DT]

First of all if you do post any off topic comments in this thread again you will be banned, now then lets get on with the discussion.

On the one hand you are saying "all the information needs to be free" and on the other hand you are saying "our system is outdated and we need to find an alternative way of making the users pay" such as the way spotify works, donate button, requests for money in our own torrents etc, so this isn't really 'free' at all.

But I think the main case you are putting forward is to 'make it all free' and give people the option to pay only if they so wish and then you think this could work better than the system we have now? In my opinion it would be very difficult, for example a hardback book takes around $10k to produce, they have no advertising, and they still currently get ripped and pirated, but I just don't see how a printed artbook could be free or funded any other way than customers paying upfront for it.

Also you didn't comment on the $5k image library we have given to the community, that was paid for by selling our products. What do you think about that?

However, I do like the suggestions to explore more avenues though, making our emags 100% free is something we have considered and then try to cover the costs with advertising, we could also then add the piracy figures to our distribution figures and ease the load on our servers as you suggest. We have decided to try to fight piracy first and look at these options second, but they are very good ideas and I welcome these suggestions, so thanks for your input so far, plan b's are often very useful.

We find a balance between free and commercial is best, after all we are in this to help the community and to make money as we are a business and not an educational charity, so our 2 combined goals fit the 'free and commercial' business model we currently run very well.

Tom

[Alienchild]

If you really want to fight piracy, how about making your stuff effin available? I have waited 4 days to get an answer on if I could download what I bought, being told to mail someone so they can put it out on a FTP temporarily, then after doing that I still don't receive an answer after 6-7 hours. I bet I could have gotten it off a torrent site in a few hours, but since I don't pirate stuff I'm guess I just have to wait.

It's incredible that you don't understand that there are two types of pirates:

1) Those who'll steal anything as long as its free/collectors. These wouldn't pay for it anyway, as they are either poor, don't need it or don't like to pay for stuff.

2) Those who download because it's more convenient and of course free. A vast part of these would purchase your products if they were easily accessible. Your products aren't. In fact I would go so far as to say that your whole effin procedure is quite customer hostile.

Valve have made a huge success selling PC games through their Steam service. What you get for purchasing is a nice client with in-game chat/browser, server-based savegame system for the games that support it, re-download (with no install procedure) of all the game content as much as you want... You guys should at least let us download what we buy.

/disgruntled customer rant off

[MStandar]

I agree with tom on this matter.

"You also must admit that a lot of that free information you are hosting here isn't yours but it attracts loads of people to come here anyway. The only difference between that and piracy is that these authors have given permission before hand to anyone for redistribution"

Do you mean the stuff on the forums or the one they sell, Because as far as i know, Everything they sell in their webshop, is made by 3dtotal or people hired to do tutorials for them.

I rather see 3dtotal make more money on selling stuff, than covering the whole site with ads, and i think they have a perfect amount of ads as it is right now, and most important, The ads fit the webpage, they are all connected to 3D somehow, (Schools, Tutorials, software etc.)

I can't really complain on 3dtotals tutorials, you get alot of information for a pretty low price, and their ebooks is also well written and nice to read.

So i think 3Dtotal should, take the fight against piracy and go winning out of it. Because as it is right now, They have tons of FREE information, in form of Tutorials, Ebooks, Mags, and the forum with a massive amount of skills from the members. This is a good thing they have here, and they should protect it at all cost. (Without rasing the prices or more ads) and then theres only one way left, Get rid of the piracy.

Originally Posted by Alienchild

If you really want to fight piracy, how about making your stuff effin available? I have waited 4 days to get an answer on if I could download what I bought, being told to mail someone so they can put it out on a FTP temporarily, then after doing that I still don't receive an answer after 6-7 hours. I bet I could have gotten it off a torrent site in a few hours, but since I don't pirate stuff I'm guess I just have to wait.
/disgruntled customer rant off

You had bad luck i guess.
Because i ordered a book in december, and i sent a mail on New Years eve asking if had been processed. And I got a mail back from Tom a couple of hours later. That is what i call great coustomer service.
You could have sent mail directly to 3dtotal in the first place, i think you would have a better chance getting an answer fast that way. Because the forums is well the forums, and the business is the business. if you understand what i mean.
I guess they check their mailbox more often than the forums.

[NinthJake]

@Alienchild, really? I've never had any problems receiving my products from 3DTotal

Anyway I'm no hypocrite, I admit that I have been pirating softwares and stuff but that was back when I knew nothing about the great, free solutions. Now I am using Blender as my main 3D app and student versions of Autodesk products to compile with it (thanks to the guy who told me about the student versions)

A crazy idea that just hit me though, what if there was a service (like a torrent client) that contains torrents for softwares/DVD's/etc that the companies put up themselves and every time someone downloads their products they receive a special amount of money (or maybe receive a smaller amount of money every time someone opens the software). The torrent client will be free but can be upgraded for a fair sum to include stuff like higher download speeds and special features or something.

So yes, basically copy Spotify and optimize it for torrents instead

I think it would really help/stop piracy completely if such a thing existed. Though I haven't figured out how to make it all work out, it worked for Spotify but I imagine software developers would be more pessimistic about the idea of having their software freely available to everyone

[Tom-3DT]

Originally Posted by Alienchild

If you really want to fight piracy, how about making your stuff effin available? I have waited 4 days to get an answer on if I could download what I bought, being told to mail someone so they can put it out on a FTP temporarily, then after doing that I still don't receive an answer after 6-7 hours. I bet I could have gotten it off a torrent site in a few hours, but since I don't pirate stuff I'm guess I just have to wait.

It's incredible that you don't understand that there are two types of pirates:

1) Those who'll steal anything as long as its free/collectors. These wouldn't pay for it anyway, as they are either poor, don't need it or don't like to pay for stuff.

2) Those who download because it's more convenient and of course free. A vast part of these would purchase your products if they were easily accessible. Your products aren't. In fact I would go so far as to say that your whole effin procedure is quite customer hostile.

Valve have made a huge success selling PC games through their Steam service. What you get for purchasing is a nice client with in-game chat/browser, server-based savegame system for the games that support it, re-download (with no install procedure) of all the game content as much as you want... You guys should at least let us download what we buy.

/disgruntled customer rant off

Very sorry to hear this, this is a one off case as usually our customer service is excellent as many will vouch for, products that are made for download are sent instantly and it sounds like yours is a special request such as a DVD that we usually only post. (fair comment though they should be made to download too so you can get them from us as quickly as you can get them from a torrent, so I will work to push this through and thank you for the feedback) To make up for you waiting I would like to compensate you with another DVD of your choice from our shop if you so wish. Also we don't work on Sat or Sun and delays can be exaggerated by time differences so asking a question on friday and getting a reply on monday can be expected. Emailing in is also quicker just so you know for future reference, forums aren't used much for customer support.

Thanks Tom

[Tom-3DT]

Originally Posted by NinthJake

@Alienchild, really? I've never had any problems receiving my products from 3DTotal

Anyway I'm no hypocrite, I admit that I have been pirating softwares and stuff but that was back when I knew nothing about the great, free solutions. Now I am using Blender as my main 3D app and student versions of Autodesk products to compile with it (thanks to the guy who told me about the student versions)

A crazy idea that just hit me though, what if there was a service (like a torrent client) that contains torrents for softwares/DVD's/etc that the companies put up themselves and every time someone downloads their products they receive a special amount of money (or maybe receive a smaller amount of money every time someone opens the software). The torrent client will be free but can be upgraded for a fair sum to include stuff like higher download speeds and special features or something.

So yes, basically copy Spotify and optimize it for torrents instead

I think it would really help/stop piracy completely if such a thing existed. Though I haven't figured out how to make it all work out, it worked for Spotify but I imagine software developers would be more pessimistic about the idea of having their software freely available to everyone

There are systems like this for CG training if you so wish, Digital Tutors for one run a streaming subscription payment service similar to spotify. I prefer to be in the 'buy and keep' market but theirs is worth us looking at as as far as I know it is much more successful against piracy.

[rocneasta]

i guess people should read up on demo versions, student versions, PLE licences and look into older software than on the market since some of those have almost the same possibilities for lower price.

Concerning 3DT, for me it's more about the community and contributing than buying the stuff. i would rather spend a month competing and getting away with nothing than simply buying certain item - for me it's a better way of learning things, but time wise it does have a big downfall

Speaking of customer experience for me it's been a blast and i'm not cutting corners and trying to get on someone's good side, but people and one person in particular have been doing their best to aid me and hear me out. Even my odd ramblings and ideas were answered with a polite e-mail. Did i wait, i did, but i wait in a supermarket, on a petrol station and people wait for my reply's... it's life

How to help, by growing stronger as a community and judging this kind of behaviour, i guess everyone would try to stop the piracy when it would concern their own personal work that's taken away from them for nothing in return.

I'm all up for free knowledge and there is abundance of in on the internet, when you gathered enough intel and really started to do something, then you could indulge your self and get something from 3dt to further your efforts.

****
perhaps you could issue a customer code with each purchase - to enable customers to download the free resources that are available with the material purchased. Also you could bump that free resources part, in a way to make it more vital to have. That way people that actually invested for it should receive it the full package. I'm saying this cause you can actually just click your way to the same resource with the downloaded material.

[NinthJake]

Originally Posted by Tom-3DT

There are systems like this for CG training if you so wish, Digital Tutors for one run a streaming subscription payment service similar to spotify. I prefer to be in the 'buy and keep' market but theirs is worth us looking at as as far as I know it is much more successful against piracy.

Yes but DT's business is more of a "pay and watch movies" kind of thing where you still have to pay to be able to watch the movies.

I am talking about a third-party streaming/uploading their products for free and then pay DT a small amount for every watched video. The third-party would still be able to make some money because of the upgrade services.

Spotify does just this and the music producers thought that it would cause the market to fall completely but they are actually earning more money now because of it.

Of course it wouldn't work completely the same for my idea but if someone could just come up with a smart way to do it right it would benefit everybody the way Spotify does.

EDIT: @rocneasta issuing a customer code for the project files wouldn't work either since it's just as easy to download them and include them in the upload as it is to upload it normally (unfortunately) :/

[keescopyright]

Originally Posted by TOM-3DT

First of all if you do post any off topic comments in this thread again you will be banned, now then lets get on with the discussion.

Yeah i got that from the edit, very subtle.

Originally Posted by TOM-3DT

On the one hand you are saying "all the information needs to be free" and on the other hand you are saying "our system is outdated and we need to find an alternative way of making the users pay" such as the way spotify works, donate button, requests for money in our own torrents etc, so this isn't really 'free' at all.

Nothing is free, all I am saying is you don't charge the user. So no alternative way of making the users pay, ask the users contribute in a way that is gainful. You use the valuable community you have created for what it is, a large specific target group, that happens to have the highest needs for top of the line personal computers. That alone should be a concept you wrestle with to find the ideal co-operative free information center. I dont use spotify so the concept is wasted on me.

Originally Posted by TOM-3DT

In my opinion it would be very difficult, for example a hardback book takes around $10k to produce, they have no advertising, and they still currently get ripped and pirated, but I just don't see how a printed artbook could be free or funded any other way than customers paying upfront for it.

There is no way to make books for free. but there are loads of ways to push back the costs. Ive never claimed free hardware is ever a good company plan. You just can not help people scanning stuff because they want to share. they just do. you can attempt to fight it or you can use the fact they want to share your stuff to your advantage, for instance by using it in the sales pitch towards your advertising customers.

Originally Posted by TOM-3DT

Also you didn't comment on the $5k image library we have given to the community, that was paid for by selling our products. What do you think about that?

I don't use it. So I don't really know what it consists of and/or whether or not it was worth the investment. Assuming it was worth it; 5k is a lot of dough. And its awesome you would invest revenue back into the community. This has absolutly nothing to do about where the money came from though. If you would call it 'the 3dtotal [insert sponsor] image library' its also fixed. I'm saying all this from the top of my head but there must be literally a thousand ways of fixing this without charging the user.

Originally Posted by MStandar

Do you mean the stuff on the forums or the one they sell, Because as far as i know, Everything they sell in their webshop, is made by 3dtotal or people hired to do tutorials for them.

I mean the tutorials in particular, the free ones. And some of the content in the forums is really valuable aswel.

Originally Posted by MStandar

I rather see 3dtotal make more money on selling stuff, than covering the whole site with ads, and i think they have a perfect amount of ads as it is right now, and most important, The ads fit the webpage, they are all connected to 3D somehow, (Schools, Tutorials, software etc.)

The 3d connection in the ads I believe (correct me if im wrong) is maintained by google. Thats what google does they get the right ads at the right people by linking content you are looking at with commercials you might be interested in.


@NinthJake stop raping the idea... now you want to start charging AND using torrents? Also your not a hypocrite? Are you sure?
@Alienchild You had bad luck, something went wrong, poop happens.

[rocneasta]

i suck at fighting piracy

just remembered can rapidshare and the rest of such providers be persuaded to delete files uploaded that contain 3DT material? is it possible

[MStandar]

Originally Posted by rocneasta

i suck at fighting piracy

just remembered can rapidshare and the rest of such providers be persuaded to delete files uploaded that contain 3DT material? is it possible

Yes its against their rules to upload, illegal material, so they will remove it if they get a complain from either the copyright owner, or some one who happen to find the files, and want to report it in.

I took this from their help page.

"
Abuse
If you have reasons to believe that one of our users infringes on your copyrights, or publishes unlawful contents via RapidShare, please contact us.
Obligatory Information

Please note that we can only process notifications that meet the following requirements:

*Please provide us with your name, your address and your telephone number. We reserve the right to check the information supplied. We also reserve the right to pass this information on to the customer being reported should he or she request us to do so.
*Please explain which copyright protected work is in question.
*If your notification is regarding files containing unlawful content, please describe the content in 2 to 3 bullet points.
*Please supply the exact and complete RapidShare-download link of the file.
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*Should multiple RapidShare links be affected, please ensure that all full links are included in your message. Please do not send any attachments. Please integrate all links directly as plain text into your message. (i.e.: http://rapidshare.com/files/123456/sample.jpg).
*In case of queries, please ensure that you are reachable on the email address that you wrote to us from.
*Please only write to us in English or German.


Our apointed agent responsible for receiving notifications of claimed infringement under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act is as follows:

Danijel Pranjkovic
RapidShare AG
Gewerbestrasse 6
Cham 6330
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"

[NinthJake]

Originally Posted by keescopyright

@NinthJake stop raping the idea... now you want to start charging AND using torrents? Also your not a hypocrite? Are you sure?

No you are just not listening (or you have troubles understanding what I say)

Basically with Spotify you are listening to music for free but the artists are given a few cents for every time someone listens to the song (you don't pay for it, the ones buying the full service do)

I would like to apply the same idea for torrents. You still download it for free but the creators still get money from their content being downloaded so it becomes a win-win situation see?