Jason Manley
June 19th, 2009, 12:56 PM
Hi All,
I wanted to take some time to better explain why it is so important that those of you purchasing videos do not upload them to the torrents. I am hoping that you all will provide reasons too. Since we have been discussing this, and people understand the reasons we have seen great support and much of the uploading stop. Thank you all for that. Truly.
So...that being said, I will start with a few reasons and will add more as it goes along. Please feel free to contribute your own well thought out ideas.
1. ConceptArt.org is a volunteer run community. CA puts it's proceeds directly back into the site in the form of additional tech, servers, and educational goodies.
2. The 3 CA founders are not "the man" and have given more than 30,000 volunteer hours into the community to help teach, share, and keep this place going forward. For example, over the past seven years, coro, andrew, and I have not recieved one dime of salary or compensation for our work in the community. We could have easily done so at the expense of the community but instead chose to do what we could to help instead. We are open up working late at night on this stuff and think about how to improve things here every single day.
3. The moderators, admin, and helpers in the community all give their time and efforts for free and without their help this site would not be what it is. We all owe them a huge thanks. If CA cannot pay for the site upgrades or server improvements or the like, it makes it hard on them since new features can make all their lives easier around here.
4. CA does as much as it is capable of to protect artist rights...yours, ours, and everyone elses. Without the download funds, we could not do this.
5. CA sees 1.3 million visits a month and about 80 million page views a year. When people are bothered about streaming a 200 meg video, they should consider that CA transfers five terabytes of data each month and runs a large and costly server system (paid for by these downloads) to keep the site going and up every day.
6. Bandwidth is very expensive. Server maintenance and code maintenance is very expensive. Without the support of the community on these downloads and educational materials CA would have to become a pay site.
7. The downloads were designed to do two things. Offer a way for artists to come into the community, become leaders in the community, learn to teach in the community, and to become more financially independent by having the ability to create content, their own content, and be able to take care of themselves.
8. The CA downloads are open to any professionals who do great work and want to teach. The whole program is set up so folks like you can do well here in the community...is the same reason we promote artists on the site too.
9. We are doing what we can to help artists and the community be independent. This is a very unique thing, where the company is volunteer and the community has an opportunity for such success. Usually it is the other way around. Our efforts are in good faith.
10. The downloads are already affordable. Considering it took me a hundred thousand dollars to get my education and one day of class in art school costs more than a download here, we are happy with the success ca has had in helping artists get this information cheaper than ever before. Just four years ago, this info was not easy to find. CA is serving it up on a plate as cheaply as it can.
11. CA has a long term plan for improved online and real world art education. We have always worked to undercut the private art schools which are so costly. We are giving all we can. Without the small fees, we could not pay for the overhead of running this community.
More to come....
I wanted to take some time to better explain why it is so important that those of you purchasing videos do not upload them to the torrents. I am hoping that you all will provide reasons too. Since we have been discussing this, and people understand the reasons we have seen great support and much of the uploading stop. Thank you all for that. Truly.
So...that being said, I will start with a few reasons and will add more as it goes along. Please feel free to contribute your own well thought out ideas.
1. ConceptArt.org is a volunteer run community. CA puts it's proceeds directly back into the site in the form of additional tech, servers, and educational goodies.
2. The 3 CA founders are not "the man" and have given more than 30,000 volunteer hours into the community to help teach, share, and keep this place going forward. For example, over the past seven years, coro, andrew, and I have not recieved one dime of salary or compensation for our work in the community. We could have easily done so at the expense of the community but instead chose to do what we could to help instead. We are open up working late at night on this stuff and think about how to improve things here every single day.
3. The moderators, admin, and helpers in the community all give their time and efforts for free and without their help this site would not be what it is. We all owe them a huge thanks. If CA cannot pay for the site upgrades or server improvements or the like, it makes it hard on them since new features can make all their lives easier around here.
4. CA does as much as it is capable of to protect artist rights...yours, ours, and everyone elses. Without the download funds, we could not do this.
5. CA sees 1.3 million visits a month and about 80 million page views a year. When people are bothered about streaming a 200 meg video, they should consider that CA transfers five terabytes of data each month and runs a large and costly server system (paid for by these downloads) to keep the site going and up every day.
6. Bandwidth is very expensive. Server maintenance and code maintenance is very expensive. Without the support of the community on these downloads and educational materials CA would have to become a pay site.
7. The downloads were designed to do two things. Offer a way for artists to come into the community, become leaders in the community, learn to teach in the community, and to become more financially independent by having the ability to create content, their own content, and be able to take care of themselves.
8. The CA downloads are open to any professionals who do great work and want to teach. The whole program is set up so folks like you can do well here in the community...is the same reason we promote artists on the site too.
9. We are doing what we can to help artists and the community be independent. This is a very unique thing, where the company is volunteer and the community has an opportunity for such success. Usually it is the other way around. Our efforts are in good faith.
10. The downloads are already affordable. Considering it took me a hundred thousand dollars to get my education and one day of class in art school costs more than a download here, we are happy with the success ca has had in helping artists get this information cheaper than ever before. Just four years ago, this info was not easy to find. CA is serving it up on a plate as cheaply as it can.
11. CA has a long term plan for improved online and real world art education. We have always worked to undercut the private art schools which are so costly. We are giving all we can. Without the small fees, we could not pay for the overhead of running this community.
More to come....