Help me complete my goal

[logansryche]

Didn't know if this should go here or go to marketplace but here we go...

To get Cosmic Picks up and running faster, I've set up this page https://btcjam.com/listings/505.
As an incentive to reaching the goal, those that help will get a complementary custom pick as a thank you.

-MAtt

[1715417948]

1715417948

[caffeinewriter]

Good luck! I'll try and pledge some when I can

[logansryche]

any amount is appreciated, thanks

[logansryche]

Have changed strategies and deleted original listing for new listing.
I can still send out complementary guitar picks to those who help once I get stock in.

Thanks in advance to whoever helps!

[Rassah]

Have changed strategies and deleted original listing for new listing.
I can still send out complementary guitar picks to those who help once I get stock in.

https://btcjam.com/listings/479

Thanks in advance to whoever helps!

FYI, whoever is offering to sell you that card is likely trying to rip you off, unless they are selling it for you to play games on. GPU mining is a dead investment at this point.

[logansryche]

FYI, whoever is offering to sell you that card is likely trying to rip you off, unless they are selling it for you to play games on. GPU mining is a dead investment at this point.

why? the same was said about cpu mining and it's still available decently for those that can't afford a card.

[Rassah]

FYI, whoever is offering to sell you that card is likely trying to rip you off, unless they are selling it for you to play games on. GPU mining is a dead investment at this point.

why? the same was said about cpu mining and it's still available decently for those that can't afford a card.

Just saying that whatever you pay for your GPU, you will never make back from mining. Doesn't CPU mining earn something like $3 a month tops?

[logansryche]

I have no idea - I just started up cpu mining with btcmine yesterday. Thinking about everything, I might as well go put my original ad back up since that seemed better feasible since that I could pay back with funds generated from sales.

[logansryche]

yep, there it is. I think I put it together a bit more professionally then the first time. Also, the free complementary guitar pick still applies.

https://btcjam.com/listings/484

Thanks in advance to anyone/everyone who helps.

[logansryche]

bump for help

[repentance]

How are you ever going to make enough profit to pay back the loan if this is your business model?

...a regular pick will cost 35¢/ea(black on one side, our logo on the other). A custom logo pick will cost 50¢/ea, logo pick will cost 75¢/ea and an art pick will cost $1.35/ea. Shipping to the US will be $8 flat, Canada/Mexico will be $13/flat, and Australia/UK will be $20/flat. Shipping on quantities 10 and less will be 80¢ to USA/Canada/Mexico and $2 to Australia/UK.

[logansryche]

Prices are reasonable. If someone sat there and bought a bunch of full art picks, at $1.35 times say, 300. That's $405. I just made profit and able to pay back my loan. Same would work if someone bought 400 logo picks or 500 text picks. Point is, I will meet the loan terms and still have enough to make profit.


EDIT: I'm not ID verified on BTCJam and should be address verified soon.

[Rassah]

Can you make an Excel table showing your financials? Three columns, one per time period (quarter or year), with lines growing down showing the assumed number of sales of each kind of pick, then showing cost per pick multiplied by each number, price per pick multiplied by each number, and resulting profit per time period at the bottom? That was we can see what kind of profits you are expecting, how fast you'll make them, and what kind of sales assumptions you are using.

[logansryche]

Wouldn't that be info an established company would provide?

I explained to one user who PM'd me that the picks come from a supplier for less then 20 cents a pick. A regular pick with a blank front, our logo on the back would be priced at 35 cents. A pick with text would be priced at 80 cents, a pick with a logo would be priced at 1.00 and a pick with full art would be priced at 1.35.

The amount requested is to cover stock qty of 100 of each in black, blue, red, white, purple, turtle, red perloid, gold perloid, purple perloid, white perloid, black perloid, camo, teal perloid, and a few other colors I can't think off the top of my head. Only projection I have is selling one type of pick and custom orders here, with the majority of business taking place in USD.

Also now ID verified on BTCJam, still waiting for address verification.

[Rassah]

Wouldn't that be info an established company would provide?

Not at all. An established company would provide a plain table with actual numbers showing actual performance. A company in planning stages would set up a table like this where every cell in formula driven, so that it would be easy to see what kind of assumptions are being used, and more importantly be easy to change those assumptions and the table instantly give adjusted results, so that it would be easy to see what will happen in best and worst case scenarios.
This is called a pro-forma statement, and is pretty much step 1 when seeing if your business idea makes sense, and showing your idea to potential investors.

[paraipan]

Wouldn't that be info an established company would provide?

Not at all. An established company would provide a plain table with actual numbers showing actual performance. A company in planning stages would set up a table like this where every cell in formula driven, so that it would be easy to see what kind of assumptions are being used, and more importantly be easy to change those assumptions and the table instantly give adjusted results, so that it would be easy to see what will happen in best and worst case scenarios.
This is called a pro-forma statement, and is pretty much step 1 when seeing if your business idea makes sense, and showing your idea to potential investors.

Can you link to a sample doc Rassah?

[logansryche]

I think that would help, I want to do this right.

[Rassah]

Just whipped this up for you as an example. Everything in green are assumptions you can change.
http://goo.gl/41oua

According to this, if the best case scenario for you is that Bitcoin only grows 5% per month, you start selling 18 picks a months, your monthly sales growth is 15%, and your printing costs are very low (just guessing on a lot of this, and don't even know where you'll get your art), you will end up going further in debt for the first 7 months (I'm assuming this will be extra out-of-pocket expense of about $45), otherwise you'll need to add another line of debt interest payments), will make a $4.94 profit in month 8, and will finally break even on month 15. Granted the expectation is that you'll be selling 206 picks a month by then.

[logansryche]

That link didn't bring me to a spreadsheet or anything. Any chance in posting the example in google documents?

[Rassah]

I think a more realistic scenario will be Bitcoin growing at 10%, your business growing at 3%, your first month's pick sales to be at 5, 2, 1, and 1 respectively, which, when changed in the sheet, will mean you will need an extra $311 of working cash by month 12, and you won't break even by month 25, with profits of around $50 to $60 a month. And, again, this assumes very low operating costs (hosting, printing/painting, etc). My sales number estimation is based on you not doing any mass advertising (you don't have money for it), and your business performing comparatively to all other small, self-started home businesses like yours. What this says, though, is that you will either have to increase the amount you need to borrow, which will increase your risk, interest rate, and monthly expense, or prove that you have $300 to play with, with the borrowed amount being supplemental cash, otherwise your first month's profit isn't going to cover your monthly debt payment, and you'll be in default in month one.

Sorry, it's http://goo.gl/41oua
It's Google docs

[logansryche]

That's a nifty spreadsheet - haven't seen one go live before.
I've changed some of the values to reflect actual costs.

[Rassah]

Do your actual costs include the cost of collecting, buying, and printing/painting text and art? Who will be doing the art printing on the picks, whom is the art and logo coming from and how much are they charging, and will you need to buy specialized printing hardware to print stuff onto the picks? Or will all text, logos, and art be done freehand with paint and brush, by yourself, for free?

[logansryche]

Do your actual costs include the cost of collecting, buying, and printing/painting text and art? Who will be doing the art printing on the picks, whom is the art and logo coming from and how much are they charging, and will you need to buy specialized printing hardware to print stuff onto the picks? Or will all text, logos, and art be done freehand with paint and brush, by yourself, for free?

Art comes from a creative commons license that allows me to print any logo I wish as long as I don't claim copyright to it(which I don't). Art will be done by printer with transfer sheets.

[Rassah]

Art will be done by printer with transfer sheets.

Then you'll need to estimate the cost of ink and transfer sheet per pick. Then figure out your inventory, and reduce the loan to only buy what you actually need

[Rassah]

Actually, if each pick only costs $0.05, I'm not sure why you need a loan in the first place. Why not spend $20 of our own money to buy 400 picks, sell those, and use the sales proceeds to buy more? The only reason for borrowing is if you were fairly confident you could sell a few thousand picks in your first month or two (or to dump the business risk on the lenders, letting them pay for Tor business, and defaulting on them if the business fails).

Also, what reason would people have to buy a blank pick with your logo from you for $0.35, instead of a completely blank pick from your supplier for $0.05? What is the value that you are adding that you at charging $0.30 for? Honest question.

[logansryche]

Actually, if each pick only costs $0.05, I'm not sure why you need a loan in the first place. Why not spend $20 of our own money to buy 400 picks, sell those, and use the sales proceeds to buy more? The only reason for borrowing is if you were fairly confident you could sell a few thousand picks in your first month or two (or to dump the business risk on the lenders, letting them pay for Tor business, and defaulting on them if the business fails).

Also, what reason would people have to buy a blank pick with your logo from you for $0.35, instead of a completely blank pick from your supplier for $0.05? What is the value that you are adding that you at charging $0.30 for? Honest question.

Yeah I supose I could do that. Start smaller and work my way out. Reasoning is simple. There's no US supplier that cheap. Supplier I found is out of china with free shipping.

[paraipan]

That's a nifty spreadsheet - haven't seen one go live before.
...

+1 

[logansryche]

Took Rassah's advice and redit BTCJam add for 2btc, stretching it out as far as I can so monthly payments will be low.

https://btcjam.com/listings/505

[Rassah]

Updated spreadsheet to reflect your new loan info, with best and good case scenarios. Seems like an OK business, assuming you can get the sales numbers going (you'll need to find A LOT of guitar players every month). If you can, you should be able to make a profit, but you are basically signing yourself up for a salesman position. Good luck! 

[logansryche]

Yep I know, apreciate the help. Wasn't that long ago I discovered people were making earings and bracelets and necklaces with custom picks.
Very interesting thing besides playing with the darn things.

[repentance]

Art comes from a creative commons license that allows me to print any logo I wish as long as I don't claim copyright to it(which I don't). Art will be done by printer with transfer sheets.

That is not how creative commons licences work.  Creators who choose to release their work through creative commons licences can still impose limitations on the use of their work disallowing its use for commercial purposes or disallowing any modification of the original.

If you want to be able to use the work of others without restriction, you need to look for works which have a specific type of creative commons licence called a free culture licence.  Even though this is the most liberal of the creative commons licences, it still requires you to attribute the work to the creator and to publish the licence notice.  You can search for works which have been released under creative commons licences here.

http://search.creativecommons.org/

There is no such thing as a licence which you can obtain that allows you to use any logo you wish.  Many logos are trademarked and can't be used for commercial purposes without the express permission of the trademark holder (even non-commercial use can be a violation but they're less likely to pursue someone for that).

Seems like an OK business, assuming you can get the sales numbers going (you'll need to find A LOT of guitar players every month). If you can, you should be able to make a profit, but you are basically signing yourself up for a salesman position.

He also needs to factor in the time he spends on trying to sell his stock.  A hobby business like this which is likely to make only a small paper profit each month can have a significant opportunity cost if getting enough sales to stay in the black takes up a considerable amount of his time - and bulk orders aren't likely to just come to him, he's most likely going to have to do a lot of cold calling and other marketing.

I found guitar pick cutters for under USD 30, which means that it would be extremely economical for people wanting large quantities of custom picks to cut their own.  To make this business viable, logansryche needs to be able to offer images and/or materials which people can't easily obtain themselves.  Embedded images are more time consuming to produce so that market might be a more viable one.  The PVC sheeting for embedding images is relatively cheap (~10 cents per pick for small quantities) as is the glue.  Sanding the edges takes a little time, but you'd be doing that with any picks you punched from credit cards and the like, anyway.

Necklaces are likely to be way more profitable because the sale price is so much greater than the additional materials cost and they don't require a great deal more time to create.

[logansryche]

That is not how creative commons licences work.  Creators who choose to release their work through creative commons licences can still impose limitations on the use of their work disallowing its use for commercial purposes or disallowing any modification of the original. If you want to be able to use the work of others without restriction, you need to look for works which have a specific type of creative commons licence called a free culture licence.  Even though this is the most liberal of the creative commons licences, it still requires you to attribute the work to the creator and to publish the licence notice.  You can search for works which have been released under creative commons licences here. There is no such thing as a licence which you can obtain that allows you to use any logo you wish.  Many logos are trademarked and can't be used for commercial purposes without the express permission of the trademark holder (even non-commercial use can be a violation but they're less likely to pursue someone for that).

I dunno, seems like it works in my favor to me... http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Even spoke to a few of the local lawyers and they agree that I can use this CC to obtain the pick images as long as I lay no claim that I own the images(which I don't). Trust me, I researched this license out carefully before using it.

He also needs to factor in the time he spends on trying to sell his stock.  A hobby business like this which is likely to make only a small paper profit each month can have a significant opportunity cost if getting enough sales to stay in the black takes up a considerable amount of his time - and bulk orders aren't likely to just come to him, he's most likely going to have to do a lot of cold calling and other marketing. I found guitar pick cutters for under USD 30, which means that it would be extremely economical for people wanting large quantities of custom picks to cut their own.  To make this business viable, logansryche needs to be able to offer images and/or materials which people can't easily obtain themselves.  Embedded images are more time consuming to produce so that market might be a more viable one.  The PVC sheeting for embedding images is relatively cheap (~10 cents per pick for small quantities) as is the glue.  Sanding the edges takes a little time, but you'd be doing that with any picks you punched from credit cards and the like, anyway. Necklaces are likely to be way more profitable because the sale price is so much greater than the additional materials cost and they don't require a great deal more time to create.

I dunno about you, but I don't know of any one that's willing to sit there and buy the sheet stock and then cut it, do you? I might offer in the future the option to have the pick punched for necklaces and the like. I believe you're over complicating what I'm trying to do, but to each their own.

[Snaer]

So the images you want to use have that CC licens attached to them? Can you show me some examples of the images you want to put on your picks, hon?

-Zoey

[repentance]

I dunno, seems like it works in my favor to me... http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Even spoke to a few of the local lawyers and they agree that I can use this CC to obtain the pick images as long as I lay no claim that I own the images(which I don't). Trust me, I researched this license out carefully before using it.

Do you have problems with reading comprehension or something?  The very site you use as a reference clearly states that a creative commons licence is issued by the creator or rights holder of a work.  A free culture licence is the least restrictive of the creative commons licences but you can only reproduce something under a CC licence if the author has chosen to licence it that way.  There are 6 different types of CC licence and not all of them allow commercial use of a work even when it is a CC licensed work.  

General lawyers know shit all about IP law.  If the lawyers you've consulted have actually read anything about creative commons licensing rather than just relying on your total misinterpretation of how it works, then they would know damned well that only the creator or the rights holder of the work can licence it under CC.  

The only works which you can use in the manner you intend to use them are those where the creator/rights holder has chosen to make those works available under a free culture licence or those which are public domain.  You can't just use anyone's logo or trademark - the person who owns that IP has to specifically make it available under CC and they get to decide whether you can modify it in any way or use it commercially.

You can search for public domain images here.

http://www.public-domain-image.com/

There are multiple places you can search for CC images.

You seem to have a history of not grasping IP issues, whether in relation to TaleSpin, your movie theatre restoration project, or using images owned by others to make guitar picks you intend to sell.

[logansryche]

Do you have problems with reading comprehension or something?  The very site you use as a reference clearly states that a creative commons licence is issued by the creator or rights holder of a work.  A free culture licence is the least restrictive of the creative commons licences but you can only reproduce something under a CC licence if the author has chosen to licence it that way.  There are 6 different types of CC licence and not all of them allow commercial use of a work even when it is a CC licensed work.  

General lawyers know shit all about IP law.  If the lawyers you've consulted have actually read anything about creative commons licensing rather than just relying on your total misinterpretation of how it works, then they would know damned well that only the creator or the rights holder of the work can licence it under CC.  

The only works which you can use in the manner you intend to use them are those where the creator/rights holder has chosen to make those works available under a free culture licence or those which are public domain.  You can't just use anyone's logo or trademark - the person who owns that IP has to specifically make it available under CC and they get to decide whether you can modify it in any way or use it commercially.

You can search for public domain images here.

http://www.public-domain-image.com/

There are multiple places you can search for CC images.

You seem to have a history of not grasping IP issues, whether in relation to TaleSpin, your movie theatre restoration project, or using images owned by others to make guitar picks you intend to sell.

It's funny you mention those... Anyhow, did you read the entire cc past the summary? If you did, you'd also see that as a curtisy, I would ask the image holder permission to release the work under that license, which I have done with most of the images planned on being used for full art picks and some of the logos. No one's told me no yet either. I believe this project will stick, even if their not bought by users of this forum. That's the main point.

[repentance]

It's funny you mention those... Anyhow, did you read the entire cc past the summary? If you did, you'd also see that as a curtisy, I would ask the image holder permission to release the work under that license, which I have done with most of the images planned on being used for full art picks and some of the logos. No one's told me no yet either. I believe this project will stick, even if their not bought by users of this forum. That's the main point.

You realise that free culture licences require that you both attribute the work AND that you make clear the terms of the licence under which the work has been produced - you will need to put that information on the guitar pick itself to satisfy those requirements.

It doesn't matter if no-one's told you no yet.  Either the work must already be released under a CC licence or the rights holder will need to release it under a CC licence.  You cannot just write to Disney - for example - asking them to let you use TalesSpin images under a CC licence and then use those images to make guitar picks because they didn't tell you no; they must specifically tell you "yes" and specify exactly what kind of licence you can use the images under and what limitations apply to using it.

[Snaer]

Do you have problems with reading comprehension or something?  The very site you use as a reference clearly states that a creative commons licence is issued by the creator or rights holder of a work.  A free culture licence is the least restrictive of the creative commons licences but you can only reproduce something under a CC licence if the author has chosen to licence it that way.  There are 6 different types of CC licence and not all of them allow commercial use of a work even when it is a CC licensed work.  

General lawyers know shit all about IP law.  If the lawyers you've consulted have actually read anything about creative commons licensing rather than just relying on your total misinterpretation of how it works, then they would know damned well that only the creator or the rights holder of the work can licence it under CC.  

The only works which you can use in the manner you intend to use them are those where the creator/rights holder has chosen to make those works available under a free culture licence or those which are public domain.  You can't just use anyone's logo or trademark - the person who owns that IP has to specifically make it available under CC and they get to decide whether you can modify it in any way or use it commercially.

You can search for public domain images here.

http://www.public-domain-image.com/

There are multiple places you can search for CC images.

You seem to have a history of not grasping IP issues, whether in relation to TaleSpin, your movie theatre restoration project, or using images owned by others to make guitar picks you intend to sell.

It's funny you mention those... Anyhow, did you read the entire cc past the summary? If you did, you'd also see that as a curtisy, I would ask the image holder permission to release the work under that license, which I have done with most of the images planned on being used for full art picks and some of the logos. No one's told me no yet either. I believe this project will stick, even if their not bought by users of this forum. That's the main point.

So the images you are using have CC licenses attached? I asked above but you might have missed it.

Can you give us some examples of the logos you want to use?

Thanks hon.

-Zoey

[logansryche]

So the images you are using have CC licenses attached? I asked above but you might have missed it.
Can you give us some examples of the logos you want to use?
Thanks hon.

-Zoey

Not sure what you mean as I have alot.

You realise that free culture licences require that you both attribute the work AND that you make clear the terms of the licence under which the work has been produced - you will need to put that information on the guitar pick itself to satisfy those requirements. It doesn't matter if no-one's told you no yet.  Either the work must already be released under a CC licence or the rights holder will need to release it under a CC licence.  You cannot just write to Disney - for example - asking them to let you use TalesSpin images under a CC licence and then use those images to make guitar picks because they didn't tell you no; they must specifically tell you "yes" and specify exactly what kind of licence you can use the images under and what limitations apply to using it.

Well.. duh and no, I don't have to put it on the pick itself, but it is all over the cart I set up, but I won't show that until I'm ready to start production. You're still obviously misconstruing what this CC allows me to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CC-BY-SA-3.0

[repentance]

Well.. duh and no, I don't have to put it on the pick itself, but it is all over the cart I set up, but I won't show that until I'm ready to start production. You're still obviously misconstruing what this CC allows me to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CC-BY-SA-3.0

Do you even read the things you use as references?

Your own citation specifically states that attribution and citing the specific type of CC licence under which you are using the work are required.

- Include any copyright notices (if applicable). If the work itself contains any copyright notices placed there by the copyright holder, those notices must be left intact, or reproduced in a way that is reasonable to the medium in which the work is being re-published.
- Cite the author's name, screen name, or user ID, etc. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice to link that name to the person's profile page, if such a page exists.
- Cite the work's title or name (if applicable), if such a thing exists. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice to link the name or title directly to the original work.
- Cite the specific CC license the work is under. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice if the license citation links to the license on the CC website.
- Mention if the work is a derivative work or adaptation, in addition to the above, one needs to identify that their work is a derivative work i.e., “This is a Finnish translation of [original work] by [author].” or “Screenplay based on [original work] by [author].”

Additionally, the CC agreement itself to which you linked above explicitly states that

4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:

You may Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work only under the terms of this License. You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform.

You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform.

Every copy.  Not just a notice on the cart section of your website.  The reason it needs to be with every copy is because the terms of the licence itself mean that others can reproduce/modify it under the same licence which allowed you to reproduce/modify the work - the "share alike" provisions of a free culture CC licence require you to make others aware of that.  If you fail to do that, your right to reproduce the work under CC will be revoked automatically.

7. Termination

This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License.

[logansryche]

Well.. duh and no, I don't have to put it on the pick itself, but it is all over the cart I set up, but I won't show that until I'm ready to start production. You're still obviously misconstruing what this CC allows me to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CC-BY-SA-3.0

Do you even read the things you use as references?

Your own citation specifically states that attribution and citing the specific type of CC licence under which you are using the work are required.

- Include any copyright notices (if applicable). If the work itself contains any copyright notices placed there by the copyright holder, those notices must be left intact, or reproduced in a way that is reasonable to the medium in which the work is being re-published.
- Cite the author's name, screen name, or user ID, etc. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice to link that name to the person's profile page, if such a page exists.
- Cite the work's title or name (if applicable), if such a thing exists. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice to link the name or title directly to the original work.
- Cite the specific CC license the work is under. If the work is being published on the Internet, it is nice if the license citation links to the license on the CC website.
- Mention if the work is a derivative work or adaptation, in addition to the above, one needs to identify that their work is a derivative work i.e., “This is a Finnish translation of [original work] by [author].” or “Screenplay based on [original work] by [author].”

Additionally, the CC agreement itself to which you linked above explicitly states that

4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:

You may Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work only under the terms of this License. You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform.

You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform.

Every copy.  Not just a notice on the cart section of your website.  The reason it needs to be with every copy is because the terms of the licence itself mean that others can reproduce/modify it under the same licence which allowed you to reproduce/modify the work - the "share alike" provisions of a free culture CC licence require you to make others aware of that.  If you fail to do that, your right to reproduce the work under CC will be revoked automatically.

7. Termination

This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License.

Look, I know you're not trying to ride me but trying to make sure I'm doing things right, and I do appreciate it.
I do have all my bases covered(legally anyway), but now that you've brought up another point. Including a letter with the CC on it with ordered picks should be enough right? I mean, I don't just have a link to the CC on the main page but rather each pick states who the author is and that the pick image/logo was released under the CC-BY-SA. I believe the bitcoin logo falls under this somewhere.

[repentance]

a letter with the CC on it with ordered picks should be enough right? I mean, I don't just have a link to the CC on the main page but rather each pick states who the author is and that the pick image/logo was released under the CC-BY-SA. I believe the bitcoin logo falls under this somewhere.

I would definitely include the letter, to make sure that the attribution aspect is covered and that the "intact" requirement of the notice is satisfied.

You've already said that you're intending to put your own logo on the back of the picks.  I'd consider stamping them with the recognised symbol for CC-BY-SA as well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/CC-BY-SA.png

[logansryche]

Was planning on it - that way customers know that the images were obtained by CC.
It was also brought to my attention the the link on the first post was out of date and is fixed now >.<

[Snaer]

So the images you are using have CC licenses attached? I asked above but you might have missed it.
Can you give us some examples of the logos you want to use?
Thanks hon.

-Zoey

Not sure what you mean as I have alot.

That's fine. Just give us 5 examples of the logos you're going to use. Are they from popular brands like Coca-Cola? Is the BitCoin logo on there?

Just some examples hon!

-Zoey

[logansryche]

was thinking of the bitcoin logo, the 7-11 logo, black and decker logo, the borderlands logo and a few others(I have a list of what I want to put onto a pick somewhere). If you came to me and wanted a logo put onto a pick, I'd do that as well and only charge the logo price(currently 80 cents). All orders(regular and custom) would obviously have a minimum order of 1.

This brings me to my next point: shipping. Shiping on pick orders 1-20 in the US would run you 80 cents, and $2 worldwide I think(I'll have to look). Pick orders 20+ will then carry the US flat rate of $8, Mexico/Canada $12, and Australia/UK $20. I'm only restricting orders to Nigeria for obvious reasons. I don't think I can get the rates any cheaper then what they are.

[Snaer]

You can't use any of those logos as they're not licensed under Creative Commons, hon. 

-Zoey

[logansryche]

Actually I can ask they be released to me under CC for my use(although not sure who to ask for releasing the bitcoin logo under CC o.O)

[Snaer]

No, whomever creates the work has to release it under a Creative Commons license. If the designer of a work does not specifically release their work under some sort of license it's automatically considered under copyright by US law. The logo designer can get more protection by filing for a copyright or trademark.

None of these corporations are going to release any of their corporate logos under a Creative Commons license as that would most likely invalidate their trademark and at the very least dilute their brand.

You could request to use their logo for your commercial product, but they would charge in the ten of thousands of dollars if they did it at all.

The CC license doesn't give you the right to use any work you wish, it's not like a drivers license, hon. It's something that the producer of the content has to apply to their work.

-Zoey

[repentance]

was thinking of the bitcoin logo, the 7-11 logo, black and decker logo, the borderlands logo and a few others(I have a list of what I want to put onto a pick somewhere). If you came to me and wanted a logo put onto a pick, I'd do that as well and only charge the logo price(currently 80 cents). All orders(regular and custom) would obviously have a minimum order of 1.

This brings me to my next point: shipping. Shiping on pick orders 1-20 in the US would run you 80 cents, and $2 worldwide I think(I'll have to look). Pick orders 20+ will then carry the US flat rate of $8, Mexico/Canada $12, and Australia/UK $20. I'm only restricting orders to Nigeria for obvious reasons. I don't think I can get the rates any cheaper then what they are.

The Black and Decker logo is a trademark registered with the US Patent & Trademark Office.  The 7-11 logo is also a registered trademark.  They are additionally protected by copyright laws and your intended use does not fall within fair use provisions.  Using someone else's registered trademark for a commercial purpose is something which requires the express permission of the trademark holder (and the copyright holder as well if they are different people/entities).  It's very easy to find out if a company logo is a registered trademark.  

Actually I can ask they be released to me under CC for my use(although not sure who to ask for releasing the bitcoin logo under CC o.O)

Actually, you can't.  By definition, a CC licence makes a work available for use by everyone, not just by you.  The reason people trademark logos is so that they can control who uses that logo and when they do licence others to use their logo (which isn't especially uncommon) there are generally significant licensing fees and/or royalties involved.  Many companies have existing merchandising/licensing agreements contracts which they would be breaking if they were to suddenly make their images available for use by everyone free of charge.

You might be able to get away with cutting picks from expired gift/store cards issued by the companies concerned, but I wouldn't count on it if your actually selling them and especially in large quantities.  That's the kind of thing they generally don't care about if you're doing it for personal use but can get very shitty about if you're doing it commercially.

It should not cost $20 to ship 20 guitar picks to Australia.  Amazon has sent me books by international express post for less than that and guitar picks weigh a lot less than books.

[logansryche]

If you look up a small padded envelope by priority mail to australia is $19 and change, and yes, my words once again getting me in trouble. B&D is a trademark, correct. The bitcoin logo, however is not, although not sure who i'd ask permission to use that on a pick. I'd probly have to knock off logo picks then if I truely can't use them.

EDIT: I just found a site offering royalty free logos for grabs, I might end up using them or find some way to use licensed logos. Good thing you folks are here to help iron things out o.O

[repentance]

If you look up a small padded envelope by priority mail to australia is $19 and change, and yes, my words once again getting me in trouble. B&D is a trademark, correct. The bitcoin logo, however is not, although not sure who i'd ask permission to use that on a pick. I'd probly have to knock off logo picks then if I truely can't use them.

I'm not sure whether the Bitcoin logo itself has ever been trademarked (there are reasons why it might be difficult to trademark).  There are several trademark registrations of the Bitcoin name though.  I can't remember who holds which trademark in what class and where but MtGox holds at least one,  Paymium holds another, and someone else holds the trademark in France.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=105638.msg1231502#msg1231502

For the most part, people have registered the Bitcoin trademarks so that patent/trademark trolls can't register them in "first to file" countries and prevent them being used by the community.  For a very long time one of the reasons people wanted a Bitcoin foundation was so that it could hold the trademarks for the benefit of all Bitcoin users.

People have been using the various Bitcoin logos on commercial products for a while now without any dramas so you're probably safe in respect of that one.

Definitely keep looking for logos and other images which are already in the public domain or already licensed under CC.  Expired trademarks might also be a good thing to look for as many people will have never seen some old corporate logos from decades ago so they might have a certain "retro" appeal just because they're different.

[logansryche]

yep, doing that now so it doesn't bite me later.

[logansryche]

I'd like to thank everyone who's pushed me to get this started correctly, however, it was suggested privately by some people that I preorder a jalapeno and use the coins mined from that to fund this and any other future projects. I think i'm going to go in that direction. It'll give me more time to iron out any other issues I may or might have.

-Matt

[Snaer]

Hon, by the time the Jalapeño gets to you, BFL's ASIC boxes will have pushed the difficulty so far up you'll never make your money back. Why don't you just put the money you'd spend on a Jalapeño towards this project?

At this point you're not going to have enough, or make enough money to catch up on mining. (My finance classes are finally paying off. Cost-Benefit-Analysis FTW! LOL!)

-Zoey

[logansryche]

At this point you're not going to have enough, or make enough money to catch up on mining. (My finance classes are finally paying off. Cost-Benefit-Analysis FTW! LOL!)

-Zoey

If what you're saying is true, then even if I wanted to get into mining I couldn't get into mining.
I feel a big bubble bursting if the difficulty gets too high.

[repentance]

At this point you're not going to have enough, or make enough money to catch up on mining. (My finance classes are finally paying off. Cost-Benefit-Analysis FTW! LOL!)

-Zoey

If what you're saying is true, then even if I wanted to get into mining I couldn't get into mining.
I feel a big bubble bursting if the difficulty gets too high.

Your two big issues are that you're not going to get your jalapenos before the block reward halves and that by the time people who place orders now receive their ASICs a whole heap of hashing power will have been thrown at the network by those who had earlier pre-orders and received the first deliveries.  You will still be able to mine some BTC, but your returns may be slow and small.    Hopefully they'd be enough to cover your loan repayments and your electricity costs, but you need someone to run the numbers for you (lots of people in the custom hardware forum are good at this) and work out whether you'd have anything left to put into funding the things you want to do with the coins you mine. 

You could probably earn the $300 you borrow to buy the ASICs a whole lot faster by doing odd jobs in the real world than you can earn it by mining.  Likewise, you could probably earn $20 to buy stock for your guitar pick business by mowing one lawn.  The amount you can earn from mining with your jalapenos once they're paid off might be good for "hobby" money, but it's unlikely to be enough for funding expenses, whether they're business or personal.

The guitar pick business is also unlikely to bring in more than "hobby" money at first, so you really need to be looking at setting up a lot of income streams if you're going to choose ones which don't earn much or you need to think about income streams which will provide a greater return.  You need to be making a weekly profit in excess of what you would earn in a minimum wage job in order to make these ventures worthwhile.

[logansryche]

Well I guess it my situation everything would be considered a hobby, but yeah. Things to consider before continuing.

[Snaer]

Well I guess it my situation everything would be considered a hobby, but yeah. Things to consider before continuing.

Do you have a real world job hon? Following your threads on here it seems like you have a lot of ideas and are very passionate about things.

-Zoey

[logansryche]

Do you have a real world job hon? Following your threads on here it seems like you have a lot of ideas and are very passionate about things.

-Zoey

I don't and I won't go into why for personal reasons. I'm a self-proclaimed ideas man. I always have.
I literally dream ideas in my sleep, and with bitcoins setup the way they are, my ideas gear themselves towards that.

[Snaer]

Welcome to Cosmic Picks
Ever shop for a custom guitar pick to find out either the minumum order is 100 or the prices are astronimical? We at Cosmic Picks understand and pride ourselves at having the nations lowest price on regular and custom guitar picks! Guitar picks come in a variety of colors and materials using the 351 standard and theres no minimum order!
Whither you're looking for picks to throw to adoring fans, need a cool way to promote your company or event, or looking for some rock'n favors for a wedding or birthday, Cosmic Picks is here to help.

Hon, you might want to run a spell check on this. I also can't figure out why you've got pictures of iPods up there? It also looks like you're still trying to sell picks with corporate logos on them. I thought you decided not to do that?

-Zoey

[logansryche]

Thanks for pointing that out, website is now in maintenance mode.
Visitors can visit, but will be prompted with a maintenance prompt.