I'm Discontinuing Pixabay Curation Magazine! Looking to Start New Initiative
After long consideration and lots of going back and forth, I've decided to end my Pixabay Curation Magazine series. While this initiative has received many positive praises from my followers, it has been too difficult to successfully curate public domain images on Pixabay.
A lot of artists simply didn't accept Paypal donations and some images hosted on Pixabay belonged to other hosts of public domain images, thus donations wouldn't actually go to individual artists in those cases.
Aside from that, I just didn't have any motivation left for writing additional issues of Pixabay Curation Magazine. I'm still very passionate about supporting artists who publish their work under permissive licenses, but there are far better ways to support them. A better way would be to support artists directly on Steemit and I will be looking into creating a different initiative for that.
Issues with Pixabay Curation Magazine
- Difficult to convert Steem to Paypal. The fees are very high, so artists received less.
- It's outside of Steemit, it would make more sense to start something similar on the Steem blockchain.
- High amounts of copied works on Pixabay, while they're also public domain, the donation would not go directly to the artist.
- Writing each issue was very labor-intensive, while the impact was rather small.
Pixabay Curation Magazine Achievements
Since publishing the first issue of Pixabay Curation Magazine, we've been able to donate $ 50.00 to artists on Pixabay. In total we've supported 15 artists with a small donation through this initiative. Part of it was paid through the upvotes I had received on my publications and the rest was added by myself.
I'm glad that we were able to show some appreciation to the people who choose share their talent selflessly. For that I owe you all a BIG thanks!
Ideas for a Steem-Based Initiative
This announcement doesn't mean that it's over though! Ideally I would like to start something similar to Utopian, so that artists who release their work into the public domain can receive funding in the form of upvotes. Utopian already has graphics category, but it's currently limited to contributors of open-source projects.
I would like to support anyone who creates high-quality photographs, illustrations, vector images, etc. - and releases them into the public domain or at minimum a very permissive Creative Commons license, such as CC-BY-SA.
Forking Utopian could possibly be an option or even starting a new project from scratch would be within the realm of possibilities. I'm also not opposed to working together with existing projects such as Utopian itself, but I expect that I currently do not have the required experience to do so.
I'm definitely interested in hearing ideas from the Steemit community. So if you know someone at Utopian or people involved in the copyleft community, please share this idea!
Payout Spreadsheet | Introduction Post | Response from a Featured Artist
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 1
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 2
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 3
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 4
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 5
Pixabay Curation Magazine // Issue 6
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I think this is a brilliant idea! I've been noticing an increasing number of public domain images on Pixabay recently, with some Pixabay members taking credit (maybe unintentionally) for other people's work.
When I first started using Pixabay, about five years ago, I uploaded about 10 photos, but I was surprised that only one of them was accepted! I think it was a basket of fruit or something. I've never received any payment for it, but it has received a few votes of thanks. I have sometimes "bought the artists a cup of coffee" but at the back of my mind I wondered how much went to the artist and how much to Pixabay.
I wonder if a platform could be built where you could upload images and pay a very small amount of SBD to download them, say $0.05 (which could later be an SMT), with 10% going to the developers and maintainers of the platform. That way, downloading four or five images wouldn't eat too much into the overall profit of a post. And creative types might be able to earn a bit of SBD from designing shareable memes.
You did a great job, but I can understand your logic in wanting to change and I love the idea of making it on STeem its a good thing for the platform
Yeah I'm still figuring out how to do it, but I agree that it's going to be way better when it's done on Steem itself. No point in promoting another platform really.
I look forward to seeing it as it develops,. I use all my own photos but will support as I can
I think that would be awesome to build something on Steem if you can find someone with the skills to help you do it. I would totally be an advocate for that. I prefer to use my own images, but that isn't always possible. I think people fall back to Pixabay because it is free, but I would not be opposed to using something built on Steem and donating .5 SBD here or there whenever I needed an image. I had read a while ago about a block chain that was doing something like this for image licensing, but I don't remember the name of the token and I am not sure if anything ever became of it.
Yeah I think it should be possible to build something like that with some help. I'm currently talking with some people who might be willing to code something for this. I'll see how that goes :)
That is awesome! Keep me updated for sure. My dad was a freelance photographer. I might be able to snag some photos from him that he is indifferent about to start the library.
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Hi @daan!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.621 which ranks you at #5471 across all Steem accounts.
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Hey @daan! It's all part of the learning/experimental process. Through yout effort we all observed the successes and failures of your venture. It's all basically experimentation here, after all. I can empathize based on the experience with my "Steemit-Twitter Marketing Campaign" series. The key is to NOT care about the results. Just do the work for work's sake. HOWEVER, it is also important to find the "winning formula" -because who the HELL wants to expend energy for no return at all, right??? WE have learned a lot from the successes and failures of your effort, as YOU will continue to learn from the successes and failures of OTHER people's efforts. The key is, in my opinion, to DUST oneslef off, learn from one's failures, and attack the issue from a more WISE position into the future. Keep up the good work....
Congratulations! This post has been chosen as one of the daily Whistle Stops for The STEEM Engine!
You can see your post's place along the track here: The Daily Whistle Stops, Issue 286 (10/19/18)