Freesound Forums

I've been experimenting a bit with Flattr lately, with my thoughts mostly around sites where I upload content to make it available for free access & use by others, via open licenses -- like this site. (For those not familiar with it, it's a micropayment service that could be used as a "tip jar" -- I wrote a "newbie review" of it here, which should get you up to speed on it if you're interested.)

Anyway, not trying to advertise their service, but more interested in what others think about integrating micropayments into this site so that people who download sounds can, if they choose, monetarily support those who create sounds. This doesn't seem feasible on an ad-hoc basis currently, as there's apparently no way to embed a link or other code into a file's description. So, any such support would need to be added to the site itself, such as by including a field for a tip jar URL (whether specific to one service or not).

I don't think this conflicts with the free nature of the site, because it's completely optional for the downloader. There's no obligation or requirement, but if they feel so inclined then they can leave a tip for the sound creator. That's my take on it, but I'm interested to know if others think it would be a bad thing.

Whether Flattr or other micro-payment method, I think the basic concept is interesting and worthy of some consideration. It will be interesting to see what others on Freesound feel about it, as there might be some who feel that the CC license in some way is compromised as a result, but I don't personally see them at odds. I know there are some freesounders who would prefer complete public domain status for their work, but I don't even think that concept is necessarily tarnished by a tip idea either.

It is unfortunate the entire micro-payment potential is not more widely witnessed on the Net. There are a lot of good ideas around about how it might work in practice, but a serious lack of semi-universal techniques for accomplishing it, and very few sites which adopt the principle with any vigor. What I liked about the Flattr or 'tip' idea is that it is much less like a payment for use of some creative work, but rather a 'good job' kind of feel. Not sure I am convinced as yet on the outgoing vs incoming idea, but I can see how it would at very least get people engaged and moving the money in multiple directions. Some people wishing to give a tip are possibly not going to want to participate in the outgoing/incoming concept if they aren't content creators themselves, but they may still be willing to give. Certainly micro-payments MUST contain the opportunity to be completely anonymous and not require membership in a given product. But I think there lies some of the problem. There is no universal internet wallet for those who do not like paypal or using credit cards online, etc.

I had a look at the user guide; well done. I will dig a little more and perhaps next time I can speak a little more specifically on the topic. In general I think there is potential for some good in the overall ideas.

Btw: you might not be able to embed a working link in the sound description per se (I'm not sure I have actually tried that), but links can be made clickable in your 'About me/Tagline' description area, and also I have seen URL links used in the comments section for a given sound file. (Though I have had inconsistent luck with the URL being recognized as such in the comments area.) To use comments area you would have to comment on your own sound of course.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of trying a link in a comment. That did work for me -- as seen here: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=20688 -- but (of course) it's not the ideal solution.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I was hoping for more discussion on this one.

I think one problem with anonymous tips is that it can open the door to money laundering. I set up an account on ClusterShot (a sort-of-stock photo site, which I've thought of using as a sort-of tip jar for photos I publish under open licenses) before they changed their pay model, and they were abruptly told that they had to change their approach because of the potential for money laundering. Luckily they were able to revise their payment processing model, but watching them go through that made me pay attention to the issue of preventing money laundering. I would think that anonymity in a micropayment service would put it at even more risk than what ClusterShot originally was doing. I'm certainly not an expert in that field, though!

Possibly create a link from the Freesound sample (comment) to a better-quality / longer version that users have to pay to download , e.g.

http://mediactive.com/2010/01/22/how-to-set-up-your-own-paywall-with-drop-io/

NB:

It’s important to note that each site will take a cut from transactions. Drop.io takes 1% and Amazon takes 1-3% and some change based on payment method.

Need to come up with a watermark-spoiler system, like sound libraries add, to prevent computer-savvy folks getting content for free.

Hey guys,

I've been thinking about Flattr and I really like the idea. I have no idea if it will catch on, but I think it would be very nice to have on freesound. So I will add it to the Freesound2.0 "features" list.

Adding flattr to Freesound should be relatively easy: I could just ask people for their Flattr ID, then on all sound/user pages, list the flattr account.

- Bram

Bram
... I will add it to the Freesound2.0 "features" list.

sounds good to me. during the last time I only uploaded the sounds that are ok, but not my best ones, because I was ******* that people download stuff for free and riun the sound designer. I dont want to work for free nomore, so adding flattr (or stuff like that) will make me upload my best samples

thanks for the idea jippi_Stu and thanks for accepting Bram.

btw: is there a way to change my nick or do I have to vcreate a new account?

m_O_m
I dont want to work for free nomore, so adding flattr (or stuff like that) will make me upload my best samples

No, I was talking about adding flattr links to uploaders flattr accounts.
I.e. if you go to
http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=1015240
there would be a flattr link to YOUR flattr account.
If you go to
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=102412
the same.

- Bram

Flattr is a project started by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Users will be able to pay a small monthly amount and then click buttons on sites to share out the money they paid in among those sites, sort of like an Internet tip jar. The minimum users will have to pay is 2 euros per month. Sunde said, "the money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month.

I thought the Flattr micro-payments model only makes sense if there is economy of scale: Thousands of persons wanting to contribute a very small payment every month to a particular organisation. A small monthly payment to Freesound.org would make sense to someone who regularly downloads Freesounds and wants to keep the site going, (because it would be cheaper than a commercial sound library).

A monthly payment to a particular Freesound uploader (Timbre, M_o_M , etc) would be unlikely and unfeasible: the fixed overhead transaction fees make distributing the tiny payments to individuals, rather than larger accumulated payments to organisations, uneconomic.

Don’t get me wrong: if you can come up with some method for those who have downloaded my Freesound samples to give me a gratuity I’m all for it. But will we get paid by Flattr's creator ?, he could be bankrupt and in jail ...

Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.

You still don't get the idea, Timbre:

Imagine:

You sign up to flattr, your username at flattr is TimbreFlattr.
You come to freesound and in your profile data you say: "my flattr username is TimbreFlattr"
On your profile page we now show: "<flattr button> click here to give Timbre a bit of Flattr money"
If users click this, it's money in your pocket, just how it was intended.

I made a Flattr account for freesound just because I wanted to see how it worked, but I will likely not use it - the donations work quite well. Using one freesound flattr account to then pass money to the users makes no sense at all. Especially since a lot of users won't even be interested in the feature.

Re. the pirate bay + sentence: it's still not decided. Nor does Flattr have anything to do with the pirate bay. I would actually trust Peter Sunde more with my money than Paypal. This is another discussion and does not belong here. Have a look at wikipedia's entry about Sunde.

- bram

Timbre
A monthly payment to a particular Freesound uploader (Timbre, M_o_M , etc) would be unlikely and unfeasible: the fixed overhead transaction fees make distributing the tiny payments to individuals, rather than larger accumulated payments to organisations, uneconomic.

Flattr FAQ

What happens if I don't flattr anything a month?
- Then your monthly amount is given to charity, we will not keep it.

Any given Freesound uploader would only receive money in any given month if somebody clicked their Flattr button at least once in that month. The amount would vary depending on how many people clicked the Flattr button and what each of their monthly amounts was for that month.

Thinking about this a bit more, I wonder if using imFlattrd user IDs instead of Flattr IDs directly would be a better approach. Flattr itself seems to be item-specific, rather than account-specific. It doesn't look like you can Flattr a person directly -- but imFlattrd fills that gap by basically creating an "item" for the Flattr account holder.
Example: http://imflattrd.com/JPPI

It would be possible to have item-specific Flattr buttons on each sound here, but that would require using the Flattr API, which would a) be more work and b) introduce a source of problems if their API is not rock solid. (I don't know how reliable it is, so this might not be a problem.)

Anyway, having contributors who want to use this feature sign up for imFlattrd.com and collecting that info instead would allow the simpler approach of linking to a person's profile where they can be Flattrd, in a way that is reasonably streamlined for the person doing the Flattring.

(The lack of an 'e' between the "tt" and the "r" is driving me nuts... I suppose we can thank Flickr for starting that fad?)

I think we can probably do something nicer using the flattr API...
It makes no sense to me if you need to make a new effort for each sound.
It should be automatic...

- Bram

Bram
I think we can probably do something nicer using the flattr API...

As of yesterday, using Flattr became much more attractive. I had actually given up on it, as I thought the original structure sort of "punished" low-popularity providers of original content. It seemed mostly designed to serve already-popular providers, or people wanting to support them. Anyway, effective 1 May 2011, it is no longer necessary to give away at least 2 Euro per month to participate in the service. You can just accept revenue without "Flattring" others. (I still plan to Flattr others, but now I can accumulate some revenue first and then use some or all of that to Flattr others.) I think this change is an important step in getting more people to use Flattr, which will make it more valuable for everyone.

Any news on the Flattr integration?

This would be very cool, I just found out about Freesound last week and was kind of expecting a Flattr button to say thanks for the sounds I downloaded.

You should definitely get a button for the project itself, and if possible also set up a system where every user can link his Freesound account to his Flattr account (if he has one), just like they can do on Soundcloud. If they do that, their Flattr button would appear next to their sounds. All totally opt-in for every user.

Speaking of micropayments, the donation widget on http://freesound.org/ seems to be broken:

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Donate Now

This could be corrupting. In the old days, the indie music site MP3.com brought money into the game and it was ruinous.