Update Delayed, Transparency, Changes to uploads, and Unfortunately I will now take piracy seriously. (Patreon)
Content
Hi everyone, no not a rant. But thought I'd clear something up in the process. After the transparency topic below, the rest is information for pirates who may start wondering why some sites start disappearing, and their forums start being flooded in the near future.
First off, unfortunately the game update is delayed to sometime in Nov. If you pledged $5+ this month I will send it out on release if you unpledged this month. I apologize but as some idiot uploaded my Patreon to Kem today, I've just lost the will to try finish it up and post it tomorrow because I now have to deal with this. I'll add some extra stuff in if I can to make up for it. I'm not taking it out on you guys, seriously, but it's hard to focus on work when you're being forced to focus on something else uncontrollably. I really do apologize. I have a macro that I can click and everything on Kem/Patreon is overwritten in 2 minutes so it doesn't waste my time much. But after release I'm going to be changing how things are shared on here next month. Most likely this will be in an online mega drive which will change the link a few times daily automatically. Everyone is wired to work differently, for me that's getting distractions out of my face so I can work properly.
Transparency
I keep my earnings public so people can see I'm working my butt off to try get stuff out there, and I really thank everyone who's legitimately helped me to do this from the bottom of my heart. To me, this is honestly pocket money that's barely liveable, I can't save (I spent $14k+ of my own savings when I started) I barely made enough money back from Comic 1 to cover it that I can't get Comic Pt2 done yet until I find a good artist as some of you have seen.
Normally I really don't care about little kids like above screenshot who expect you to survive for that much happily, and guess what you do with your income because they live in their mum's basement ($1300 goes to my normal weekly rent alone a month, $50-100 to savings, and everything else to fees and content). But I'll share some things I don't normally post because it also affects others in our community and I didn't want to give you guys nightmares. When it comes to resources, I try to look for and hire someone in our community first. Especially due to covid and losing jobs, it's been hard and some people have no idea what to do for their family and need some help. The 3rd screenshot is of just 1 person from a few who I keep a record with on how much I owe for jobs that I try to give them. The 2nd screenshot is from Fiverr where around 70% of my monthly work goes to, the horrific screenshots are a few of the stuff you don't see that I post from artists gone wrong, can't fix myself, are just flat out unacceptable, or some of the scammer artists I have to deal with every so often. On top of this I have to pay commercial use licenses (sometimes luckily a large one off sum if I can), I've got Fiverr fees and GST (Aus Tax) on top which add up to about 20% extra on top of each order etc. As mentioned before, I don't advertise as I haven't finished a single game yet and I'm not proud of how far it's come so far only. It also stops me being pirated as much so I can focus on work.
The 'macho'/aggro towards piracy: I used to follow a rule until now, don't mess with me and I don't do anything back at you. I get to focus on my work and I'm happy that way. Most of you probably know I do this because of severe health issues and this is my only income currently. My previous local jobs I would earn between 80-100k+. I chose to work for myself and do something I love doing, helping others (especially the younger ones of us who had no-one to explain gts/vore and highlighting how bad the harassment is), making others smile with humour and to make a world for others to enjoy with a good story. My main goal has been to turn around the community and make it a better place. And to do this I needed to have a stable income. Most of us are very shy/lurkers and the loudest people sadly tend to be those who make you cringe from their comments and painting a very disgusting image of us to others. If you've seen the way I post, or how I actually am in my discord then you know I treat people back the same way they treat me, and I'm not judgemental.
Aside from the usual bull excuses you hear just to make everything free, here's stuff pirates don't think about or care for and why I fight it:
- Your work is stolen and resold more often than you realize, especially on Chinese sites. You get aggravated and sick of seeing child abuse images in caches that are being resold in bundles that has your content stolen in it. Why should you have to deal with being traumatized from coming across these in the first place? Sites like the subscription tube one set up earlier this year are people who adds malware to 'shared' content, bundled it together, and think a VPN and host company in the Netherlands will put most people off from getting it taken down.
- New creators are pirated same day, have no chance at continuing, then pirates cry there's a 'drought' or no good content. Muses alone shows how bad it is with their forums taken over for stuff just released that same day. You can't even make back what it cost you originally for half a year.
- You are greatly abused regularly as a creator, even if asking nicely or explaining please don't pirate my stuff so I can continue. Above is one such creator who was bullied into submission and forced to agree with pirates. If you don't have thick skin/care about stupid peoples opinions when you know they're giving excuses. You're effectively stopped from being the best creator you can be and will probably resent your work.
- In my case, I have no support, no fall back, and it's my only income currently. If I was making $5k+ monthly then I'm in my happy range and would share nearly everything free, hence the $5k goal.
- How are creators supposed to pay for the next content? Comic Pt2 I really wanted to get out there, and lots of Patreons do too. But considering how much it takes to find someone good, available, and willing to draw gts/vore. How do we do things like that when I can't even make back what the first comic cost, especially if it costs twice as much for the second?
So here's what I'm going to be doing. Call it vigilante whatever.
Phase 1: Anti Piracy Resources will be made available publicly:
I held off this because it will make me hated by quite a few patreons, it was going to take me a few weeks, and I'll be targeted as well and not just from within the community. Once my site is up with helpful resources for people in our community and their partners. I'm going to be making step by step easy guides for creators on how to get their work taken down, especially when it's uploaded to sites that tend to be a bit harder to get work taken down because they don't know what to do or which government agency to contact and the laws of that country. In the past I only targeted sites that didn't listen to my requests to take stuff down, but getting sick of people stealing my work and selling it as their own is just ridiculous. One of the above screenshots is of one I had taken down and will be suing now that I have their contact details if he ignores a takedown request again. If you're going to be making money off my content, I will come after you. I played ball, but if you're selling my content, I'll see you in court, or you can say hi to the CCP. I'm signing up for https://www.dmca.com/ to find things for me before end of the year.
These guides will range from how to overwrite content easily like what I do on Kem, to finding the host/domain company with direct links on who to talk to to get stuff taken down, to how to find your content when it's uploaded easily without much work, how to set up a baidu account outside China and how to report links easily etc. They won't contain everything I know for obvious reasons and to stop people abusing the resources, but easy enough that any creator can do something about their content for once. And how to search Non-English websites and what the main ones are.
Phase 2: Retaliation
This is something I know will eventually happen sadly. When I start becoming targeted even more. People will find out on their piracy forums (where my stuff is posted) how far someone hired with a bot net will do for $15 legally. Some stuff you can't take down, but you can make it a lot harder for them to navigate and force the site to do something about floods of posts or limiting them. Maybe even ban them from posting my stuff. I will make even more resources, even pay a programmer to make some software or macros more readily available for other creators so they can protect their work. I will start contacting creators directly regularly on where and when their work is uploaded currently at the time.
I just want to make cool content. Not waste my time searching for it. No more warnings, this isn't a threat, it's action on multiple warnings and people who don't care about others. People say I waste my time searching through each day, I'm not, I'm just told about it because others do it for me.
I apologize again to every Patreon, I'm not taking it out on you guys at all or even angry (I'd be swearing directly at someone if I'm angry). Just explaining I no longer have a choice if I want to keep continuing my work. I'm sick of being kicked while I'm down by kids in our community. After the guides are up, I don't think piracy will make me feel as bad anymore when it happens so production should still be good and not needing a pause due to focus. T2