Economics: EULA?

Does anybody know what the idea of positive and negative extranalities is?

Basically positive extranalities is where something gives incentive so something is produced that a lot of people can benefit from.

Negative extranalities is where there is something that is avaiable so the incentive for the positive product to be produced is eliminated.


An example of positive extranalities is where a be keeper raises bees for honey, and while doing this produces a way for the apple farmer across the road to have his apples polinated for free. Both individuals win. One gets honey the other gets apples.


Filter Forge use to have awesome positive extranalities. Create good filters, get great software for free. Win, win situation. Now however, there are enough awesome filters that there are many people who just buy the program because it is such a deal, so the incentive for quality filters is begginning to die. So now there is an increase of low quality filters which makes all the high quality filter makers ("Level 50 filter forgers") become disinterested in submitting not just HU, but submitting truly amazing filters. The kind that make heads turn and gives others motivation to compete for shear pride of "I can do anything you can do better!"

I am not saying good filters are not submitted occasionally, heck the last week I got one of my favorite (The bug one). But there really has been a drop in creative and unique filters the past month, I think anyone who has owned the program for a year would agree.

So what needs to be done... I don't know, I am a math teacher. But I would love to see some discussion coming from FF staff to build excitement and try to address this issue. The whole submit filters and get FF for free was genious, now there needs to be something more to unclench the fist of some greats like UberZev, Zapphos, StevieJ, and even the great Crapadillas involvement in filter creation has dropped.


I am not complaining, and even more I am not one to gripe without suggestions, so here are a few.
1)Competition (Tried and failed, we could do this)
2)Hammer out a EULA that appeals to people.
3)Texture packages that share some profit with creators.
4)Bigger rewards for a lot of HU. As corny as it sounds I would definetly submit a filter here and there if I could get an xBox, playstation, or 3d software for something like 50 HU. That's a lot of awesome filters for a mere $300 -$600 worth of prizes.

Any hoo, that is about as serious as I can be for a given amount of time. So with that all I can say is, FF team your awesome and everyone else keep submitting filters even though I really am not to motivated at the present time

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Redcap wrote: Filter Forge use to have awesome positive extranalities. Create good filters, get great software for free. Win, win situation. Now however, there are enough awesome filters that there are many people who just buy the program because it is such a deal, so the incentive for quality filters is begginning to die. So now there is an increase of low quality filters which makes all the high quality filter makers ("Level 50 filter forgers") become disinterested in submitting not just HU, but submitting truly amazing filters. The kind that make heads turn and gives others motivation to compete for shear pride of "I can do anything you can do better!"

I think your right but the problems always come from the EULA, there were loads of great textures untill people to realize that once they submitted them to the library they were not really theirs anymore.

The fact that others can take credit for your work can't be seen as a good thing by any filter producer. Then of course things have got far worse across the web with FF stuff on basically every stock or resource selling website and the mindset 'it's quicker to render something from the library than to make my own'. This plays a big factor in things i think.

Now it's more of a case of 'what should i upload that won't allow people to take advantage of my work' than people making there best results available and you see far more things now with only 1 preset or fewer controls limiting the potential of a filter.

Also theres the fact that the free FF deal is still going and on the frontpage and it was not a limited time thing, with so many good filters available people will just move a few things around and add the odd module. So we see very similar looking things to previous ones and without quality presets submitted in the hope they will get the free copy and the quantity is far higher than quality. Of course theres still sometimes some good things but i think this is the case in general and the library does seem very 'samey/similar' to me.

1 (Competition) would be interesting but it would have to have decent prizes of course as alot of people already own FF here.

2 (good EULA), has to happen for the future of the app really, imo it is a must do.

3 (Texture packages that share some profit with creators) is a good idea, what FF could also do is actually become a merchant site themselves if they really wanted and allow users to sell there filters/renders to others. I think sites like renderosity etc actually make far more from FF than the devs do already. The creator of a filter should own the rights always and it would act as a showcase for FF and also give back to the members and FF could take a small percentage. I can't see it ever happening though it's just a idea/thought.

4 (Bigger rewards for a lot of HU) i think it would make current HU have a higher chance of wanting to submit but i doubt it would happen and as always theres the EULA problem.

Interesting thoughts/suggestions, i have also not been motivated to post new filters for a while now but for me it's mostly down to the EULA as i think if i make something nice it should be mine always (rights) even if i do want to share it with other users for learning. The current ones i have are not that great and are also very old, i have improved making things in FF a huge amount but i refuse to submit something only to have another say it was made by them or they own it.

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StevieJ wrote: authors are becoming more and more prone to doing variants and clones of existing HU filters

----Hey now, some of us resemble that remark ! But, the flipside is, with 5,000+ filters already here, something really *new* is becoming much more difficult to come up with, and not something I'd expect someone to be able to do in 90 days really. I might've just squeaked by in 90 days, back when there were like 500-600 filters, but even that is questionable, and I spent probably 8-10 hours a week with FF. A good variant doesn't offend me personally, but it has to be modded at least 25% minimum, and 50% preferably, to offer some kind of new dynamic to an old work ya know. That said, I'd never discourage anyone from working that way, even if it's not how I started out. *shrug*

jffe

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But, the flipside is, with 5,000+ filters already here, something really *new* is becoming much more difficult to come up with, and not something I'd expect someone to be able to do in 90 days really.

It is true, it is hard for newbies to come up with new ideas, and even harder for them to produce the filter after they get the unique idea. However, old timers can tackle anything, heck look at all the filters Crapadilla has made but never submitted.

I wouldn't be suprised if you start to see some underground filter librarys where contributers know one another and won't try to resell presets, even though that is legal.

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James wrote: not seeing any interest from the developers for the new EULA

Well, Vlad clearly voiced that he needs to do something about this.....and it certainly doesn't require lawyers, years of work, or any more discussion to add a new paragraph to the EULA that will restrict the reselling of straight texture filter results.....so I have to assume that Vlad is being held ransom by the fear that the texture resellers will cry bloody murder and start exaggerating negative publicity about it.....

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James wrote: less interest from the best FF creators also

There's just no further incentives to continue contributing after the program rewards have been achieved.....and in addition to that, there's now incentive not to submit texture filters because it's the only way to prevent "resellers" from taking advantage of them.....two top things that need to be addressed here, IMHO.....

FF has an army of skilled authors who would fill the library with amazing works if they had the incentives to do it.....but FF does not seem interested in doing anything to try and take advantage of that.....so I must assume that FF is happy with the current downward trend in author involvement and filter quality.....

I know I'm new here but . I just sent 2 filters in did not think they would take them but they did main are what some of you been call the bad one . I working on learn FF better befor I send more in . That if I can come up with something.

Chars