Freesound Forums

Thanks.

Donating Now.

Just donated!

Only suggestion from a US point of view is that it would be slightly easier if I could choose dollars instead of euros, and not have the first Paypal page be in Spanish. But I figured it out, not a big deal.

Hi everyone,
We've just made a change to the paypal donation page and now it should appear in English for everyone. We're continuing to look into other options for those who don't want to use paypal and will keep you informed. Remember that you do not need a paypal account to donate, you can use your credit card without creating an account.

Thanks for all your support!

What if you had a version of free sound users could use that had advertisements? You would have to choose to use that version, and if you did FS would get revenue from the adds.

I was wondering how much money actually can be raised from advertising vs donations. I wouldn't mind some equipments banners etc.

I have two thoughts.

1) In Reddit, you can award other users for great comments or whatever by gifting "Reddit Gold" which costs 5.99 or something and gives them special accesses for a month. Perhaps you could have a similar system, except instead of special access you just get a little flare next to your username for a month or something - and its a way that downloaders of content can say, hey! This is a really great recording! Thanks for sharing it! Here's some "flare" - and thereby donate to Freesound in thanks. I would totally buy flare for other users to support freesound while thanking that random rockin user in the process.

2) Would donations be tax-deductible? That might be a good incentive.

Donación:

Disculpe, no hablo ingles.

¿Hay alguna forma adicional para hacer donaciones?

Lamentablemente no confío en Paypal. Con anterioridad abrí una cuenta con ellos y tuve que cerrarla. Me llenaron de anuncios hasta que tuve que declararlos como spam.

Mucho les agradecería que me indicaran otra forma de donar

Encantado de poder hacerlo

Gracias

Hi, just a translation for ereyesg from google

"
Donation:

Sorry, I do not speak English.

Is there any additional way to make donations?

Unfortunately I do not trust Paypal. Previously I opened an account with them and I had to close it. They filled me with ads until I had to declare them as spam.

I would be very grateful if you could indicate another way to donate

Nice to be able to do it

Thank you
"

ereyesg wrote:
Donación:

Disculpe, no hablo ingles.

¿Hay alguna forma adicional para hacer donaciones?

Lamentablemente no confío en Paypal. Con anterioridad abrí una cuenta con ellos y tuve que cerrarla. Me llenaron de anuncios hasta que tuve que declararlos como spam.

Mucho les agradecería que me indicaran otra forma de donar

Encantado de poder hacerlo

Gracias

Over the years I have trained my brain not to see banners / ads etc. I just won't notice them.

I would like to suggest the following activity flow:

1: User clicks download
2: Box opens with a slider they can slide left/right between $0 and $10
3: Default it to $1
3: When they click "Okay" on that form the file downloads

Share the proceeds 50/50 with the author. The sounds are still available for free, but the visitor can pay. I'd have paid $1 for each sound I've used - especially if it meant I wouldn't have to consider creative attribution if I did.

cubud wrote:
I would like to suggest the following activity flow:

1: User clicks download
2: Box opens with a slider they can slide left/right between $0 and $10
3: Default it to $1
3: When they click "Okay" on that form the file downloads

Share the proceeds 50/50 with the author. The sounds are still available for free, but the visitor can pay. I'd have paid $1 for each sound I've used - especially if it meant I wouldn't have to consider creative attribution if I did.

An interesting thought.

Though, with the nature of "Free-"sound, I would suggest that the default is set to $0, but with the slider option still available, so as to ensure that the fundamental purpose of this site (free sounds) is upheld with as little disruption as possible to how it has worked in the past (otherwise I expect there to be criticism and complaint).

I think the idea of a payment slider which would grant the user an attribution-free license would be welcome, though it should really be at the discretion of the uploader and/or admins what sounds (and which users) can have the slider. Otherwise, the legal sector might raise an eyebrow should someone upload a sound here that was ripped from a film and then make money off of it even though it isn't their sound.

Which would make the job of the moderator's that much more crucial and evidently time-consuming to dig even deeper into each sound that is uploaded to make sure it wasn't a rip. Or perhaps this is another reason that the user must be approved by an admin before they can add the slider to their sounds. Then moderation can continue more or less as it is now, with a special note on which users can use the slider so that they remember to take extra care with their uploads.

Well, I've got to run, but there's some room for thought. Nevertheless, if those potential issues can be figured out, I think it would be a great addition (though tricky to develop!)

I suspect a psychologist would say $1. It's easy to "just click" without thinking about it when there is no cost in doing so, not giving money would have to be a deliberate action, and the benefit of that action would be saving a mere $1.

I think it would become a habit to just click "Download" without mentally evaluating the request and it would effectively serve no purpose in existing.

As for sound effects from films, it's illegal whether you make money or not isn't it?

cubud wrote:
I suspect a psychologist would say $1. It's easy to "just click" without thinking about it when there is no cost in doing so, not giving money would have to be a deliberate action, and the benefit of that action would be saving a mere $1.

I think it would become a habit to just click "Download" without mentally evaluating the request and it would effectively serve no purpose in existing.

A solid point! I have a near non-existent knowledge of psychology so I can't really comment there, but I would just figure that having users manually change from $1 to $0 would increase the time it takes to use this site, which could potentially become so tedious with each download that users then turn to alternate sites to find sounds. But hey, I suppose an extra 3 seconds to download a sound wouldn't be earth-shattering for the vast majority of users.

cubud wrote:
As for sound effects from films, it's illegal whether you make money or not isn't it?

Oh, of course! Though typically the legal systems only get involved when money is involved (or if the prosecutor simply has too much money to spare and wants to act on it). But I'm no lawyer either, so I can't truly say from experience.

I don't know much psychology, but the non zero default is a good idea. Ubuntu do the same.

As for the copyright issue. I recall seeing text explaining how the uploader created the sound. If that is a separate input that is mandatory then that will certainly help - especially if someone reviews the uploads and see if the explanation looks credible in relation to the sound.

I would be willing and able to donate, but would there be any hurdles to jump over living in the US and such transactions?

I am new to FS but it truly is amazing, keep up the good work.

Should be easy from anywhere

https://freesound.org/donations/donate/

Bram

Thanks for a great website. It's a bit contradictory: to pay for free sound. But, then again it's better than having to put up with commercials. I like your approach and if I keep using the site I'll donate some. Kind regards.. my name is also Bram

I agree with Framing_Noise, the method reddit uses to cover costs is a great one, unobtrusive and will give props to the people who crate the sounds too.

I'd be happy to make an occasional donation to Freesound, but I would need to be able to do so in US Dollars. Thanks

As a 30 minute old user, I really don't have that much experience directly with your site. That said I'm a friend of the Creative Commons and Free Open Source Software. After using the site for just a few minutes and seeing the depth and quality of what's here on freesound.org, I was amazed. And I started downloading. After 20 or so minutes, freesound popped up with a suggested donation screen, and I donated via paypal from the United States. Very easy to do. The payment is in euros, and paypal makes the conversion before you accept the payment.

I do not donate lightly though. On almost any US non profit you can go to their search bar and type in Form 990 or tax filings, and get to their financial statements. I know the laws are different in Spain, but I had to dig a bit to understand the relationship between freesound, MTG, and the Phonos Foundation and why donations go to Phonos instead of directly to freesound. You see a lot of US non profits doing the same thing with subsidiaries for the same purpose. A good example would be like when you donate to Wikipedia, you're actually donating to the Wiki Media Foundation, not Wikipedia.

As a humble suggestion - think about adding a quick blurb about the Foundation on your about page. The relationship actually makes me more inclined to donate.

Best,
FossFool

I totally support the proposal, and would be pleased to make an annual donation to support the site's maintenance and ongoing development.