What does it mean to have a resource in Early Access?
Early Access (EA for short) is a significant step in helping the creator community monetize in a way that's fair to the open-source ecosystem. Resources in EA require a Buzz payment to become accessible. However, resources can only be in EA for a set amount of time; once that time has elapsed, the resource goes back into the model feed and is available for everyone.
What does this do for creators?
We've made no secret that helping creators monetize is one of our core goals, and this is a step towards doing so while ensuring models will become available for everyone. Creators get 100% of the Buzz spent on their resource. As previously stated, we'll be opening the creator program soon to allow users to sell their Buzz back to Civitai for real money.
We wanted to get EA out first since there is required functionality needed that will be used in the creator program itself.
Early Access Types
A resource can be in EA in three different ways:
Downloading: The price the creator has designated must be paid before the option to download a model can be unlocked.
Generating: The price the creator has designated must be paid before the option to generate with a model on-site can be unlocked.
Donation Goal: Like Kickstarter, the creator has set a goal number to reach that, when hit, will bring the resource out of EA. If the goal isn't hit, the resource will still come out of EA once the time has elapsed.
A resource isn't limited to utilizing just one method of EA; all three EA options could be enabled at once.
Who can use Early Access?
Early Access won't be available to everyone. To qualify, you'll need to have proven you're a good actor within the open-source community. As a base requirement, you'll need to have posted at least one resource previously, meet account lifetime requirements, and have had enough positive interactions on the site. The more trustworthy your account, the more resources you can have in EA and the longer they can remain there. We're keeping the formula for this secret right now to prevent bad actors from gaming it, but generally speaking, the more genuine engagement you have.
Preventing Abuse
Anytime you attach a monetary value to something, you make it ripe for potential abuse. EA will have strict requirements and limitations at first to ensure it isn't being taken advantage of. For example, putting a resource into EA just to unpublish it and put it back into EA when its term expires will result in the immediate loss of EA privileges.