

The Open Bundle - Help uncopyright some game art assets - hellerbarde
http://commonly.cc/

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jlgaddis
I don't believe that I have ever heard of anything mentioned in this bundle
but I _am_ quite happy to see this (fairly) recent shift where artists,
authors, creators, etc., are bypassing the middle man (think MPAA, RIAA,
etc.).

In addition, I am a huge advocate of open source and, by extension, adamantly
opposed to anything involving DRM.

The $10,000 goal has been surpassed but I'm throwing $25 ("all to artists") in
the hat anyway. It is my hope that the organizers will, as much as they
possibly can, let the world know that this project was a success and encourage
others to do the same. This is an awesome idea and I hope that others copy it.

I have no real desire for the "DRM-free copy of the Gap Monsters and 4
Horsemen Original Soundtrack" that I am being rewarded with and am happy to
instead give it to someone who would like to have it but is unable to
contribute for whatever reason -- first come, first serve; just post a reply
below.

Side note: it wasn't obvious in the least (call it a "UI issue") but I am
assuming (hoping) that my credit card details were sent over an encrypted
connection.

EDIT: Okay, new rule: If you want "my copy", please leave a reply to this
comment (so that others know that it's been claimed and don't waste their
time) and send me a PGP encrypted e-mail (see my profile). I'll reply with a
link where you can download it. Thanks.

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importMe
I think that since the goal has been reached, there is no point in giving
"your copy" of the bundle to anyone. If the artists follow what they have been
doing in the past[1], they will make it a public download.

[1] The GameDev Garage Sale -
[http://garage.commonly.cc/](http://garage.commonly.cc/)

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jlgaddis
Awesome, even better! (I'll admit to not reading everything on the site as
carefully as I probably should have -- thanks for the clarification!)

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hellerbarde
Disclaimer: I am not involved with this project in any way other than having
donated/pledged some money.

I think this is a really cool idea, and I hope they succeed and more indies
(or big studios) actually do things like this. It could lead to some amazing
spin-off games from small time devs.

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ncasenmare
Hi, organizer of The Open Bundle here! Thanks for submitting our campaign to
HN. We just reached our "public domain release" goal half an hour ago,
hopefully this will lead to more indies aiming to earn money by opening their
works.

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orta
This is good work, I think it's a great idea.

I had some problems when I wanted to pledge earlier in that I just went to the
bottom, put in my number and hit credit card and nothing happened. ( safari,
with no obvious js errors in console. )

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ncasenmare
Thanks! As for the form, I'm guessing it was because the required email field
(to send you your download link) was left unfilled. It's my bad, I didn't make
the "please fill in this field" prompt obvious enough. I just left it as the
HTML5 form validation default.

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Ellipsis753
I love this idea and it's really awesome but I was a little sad to see that I
didn't really care about any of the assets.

If you could get Mario/Tetris rom/sprites uncopyrighted then that would be
truly awesome. Things which no longer make a profit but sadly still cannot
legally be used for fan works etc.

Of course I know that getting big names on board would be very difficult but
just my thoughts on the matter.

edit: OK, I've been down-voted a couple of times for this. I'd be interested
to know why. I'm maybe not being supportive enough of something just starting
out?

Personally although I think it's an awesome idea I will not be donating as I
don't know any of the names or particularly want to donate money to these
artists. Much better art is already in public domain without the artists
wanting money to release it (much like open-source software).

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rrouse
Actually, Nintendo does still sell copies of the original Mario (and other
Mario stuff obviously), so I think you were downvoted for suggesting that big
names would even consider something like this. It's not realistic.

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JoshTriplett
I'd love to see something like this for games that were previously sold as
part of Humble Bundle, especially those for which the authors released the
source code for the game engine.

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ncasenmare
That's a great idea! Perhaps the gamedevs who participated in The Bitcoin
Bundle [1] might be the most receptive to the idea of open-sourcing their
games.

[1] [https://www.thebitcoinbundle.com/](https://www.thebitcoinbundle.com/)

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comex
Not just art assets - also some source code.

Well, the video is more than a little hyperbolic, but I like the idea and am
glad the funding goal was reached.

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Splendor
I love this idea. Has something like this been done to purchase existing art
for the public domain?

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ncasenmare
Not art, but Blender is the biggest example of "buying out for the public"
that comes to mind.

Blender used to be proprietary software, and when their company went bankrupt,
they crowdfunded 100,000 euros to release their code as open-source. This was
a decade ago. Blender is now the most popular open-source 3D animation
software today.

