You should have read this thread made by theymos about the copper membership and why theymos implemented it. I will quote it for you and read it. As you can see, the main purpose of thw copper membership is that the newbied are not like member rank which have the same capacity of signature space and can post images which a normal newbie can't post yet.
By popular demand, newbies can now pay to have some of their restrictions lifted. If you pay the fee, you become a
Copper Member, and you can post images. That's the main point of this: allowing newbies to post images. Additionally (and these might change depending on how things go), Copper Members currently have these bonuses:
- Some of the same permissions as Member-rank members, such as reduced signature styling restrictions. (But none of the PM-related restrictions are currently lifted, such as the style limit or per-hour PM limit.)
- Your "you must wait ____ seconds between ___" counter is reduced by 75%. So if you're naturally of Newbie rank, you only have to wait 360-75% = 90 seconds.
If you paid an "evil IP" registration fee, then whatever you paid (in BTC terms) is subtracted from the upgrade fee. If you paid a registration fee a long time ago, you might even get a free Copper Membership due to the increase in BTC price. Just visit the link at the bottom of this post to check whether you have it already.
I am aware that for most people the benefits of this membership are pretty lame. This membership is only intended to fill a specific niche; if you don't need it, don't buy it. It is not intended to be the lower-cost Donator/VIP alternative which I've talked about before as a possibility.
I wrote the system so that I can easily add additional paid memberships in the future, but I might not ever do so. Not sure.
You can buy it here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote
