Feelings About the Leaked Content From My Patreon (Patreon)

So currently, my love and belief in my artistic vision and profession is being put to the acid test again, and it is not easy to put my thoughts into clear words.

Out of curiosity, I just wanted to see what the search engines would show when I searched for my pictures and artist name and stumbled across an entry that caught my eye right away because it used metadata and Patreon-intern images that I never gave out in public yet. This was when the corresponding link referred me to a website.
It was an online archive where the entire paywall content of nearly every 2D, NSFW and anime artist I know, and nearly every service site including Patreon, Pixiv Fanbox, DLsite, Fantia, Gumroad, and Subscripstar is being leaked, and probably for quite a while. It seems like this archive site is like an open secret in the community, even some of my friends knew about this site for years, which gave me quite mixed feelings about the whole situation.

The way it works is that the content is automatically "scraped" with the help of a supporter who has subscribed to the artist and need to provide a session key to the archive page via the cookies associated with the subscription account so that their bots can gain access to the supporter's feed, which eventually duplicates any post that has been "liked" by that user. The entire post is copied to this archive page, along with the link, ZIP folders. Even comments below the post. From that point on, it's freely available to the public. The content of thousands of artists got exposed there - big and small, no matter if with only one, two or over 1000 supporters, no matter of their prices.

It is all explained in detail on their FAQ in their site. There is no point in keeping the method a secret, this is clearly a security leak and that's how they got the content in the first place.

I saw my all my content, from my SFW Patreon account and my fanbox NSFW, as well. I felt paralyzed, and my first intuitive emotion was my loss of motivation for anything and hope.

*For people who don't know, I run two different accounts for demographic reasons and because of the algorithm restrictions + there are also supporters who like NSFW and the ones who don't. It is anything as easy to run two different content sites, and it took years of trials and errors to figure out that it might be the best way to get at least bit income from both, because at the end, it still doubles the work. Seeing all this exposed on that archive site is devastating.

I also just learned that some artists already know about this site, which makes them stop to work on their content in the first place. It is heart-breaking and beyond words how powerless it makes you feel.

The sad thing is that these people on that site - as one can see in the threads and the chat comments - seriously think they're doing something good for everyone by making everything accessible without exception, with zero thought to the fact that for many artists this is one of the really few sources of making any money at all in their struggling life - and the irony is... that this site itself is making profit thanks to the high traffic through ad banners. Profit from the work and sacrifices of others.
It is another heart-crushing example of how the genuine passion and work of artists get exploited. They lump everyone together and just think we are the greedy ones, when they are actually taking advantage of everyone's content. In my case, the earning of my support art sites barely cover the entire rent and living costs, and I have always to keep my commission queue constantly running. I manage those two support services mainly because it can be really exhausting and uncertain to rely on working in my commission hamster wheel alone all night and day.

Of course, there will be many theft defenders with the known tiresome apple and orange comparison and straw man arguments who say "But the artists themselves steal characters and IPs through the fanarts, how is this different?".
1st: It is not all fanarts, there are many original content creators among the artists whose content is exposed, as well. Some combines both, like me.
And 2nd: As an artist you create everything from scratch with a drawing, 3d model or animation, whether fanart or not. You put hours into it, add new context and meaning to it, do detail work, even a sketch can cost time and energy, and more until it become a detailed artwork.

Stop using this pathetic argument to justify everything. It just shows how little you know about the hardships and feelings of a creator and what drives them to create artworks in the first place.

And that is NOT the same as someone who is just stealing the work, or pretending to be the artist and even selling it under their name without the artist's consent (as it was the case with the NFTs). Those people have not done this work for all the artworks themselves. All the profit and credit that are due to the artist and yes, believe it or not, also exposure and "traffic".

Because artists, especially the smaller ones among us, have to fight every day for attention and their existence and always have a hard time to get through the algorithm of various online platforms who often fall under the radar, while those piracy archives or repost accounts who just collect the stolen art from elsewhere without any effort get bigger and benefit from someone else's work. All the exposure that could have the potential to get us fed through commission inquiries from interested people who didn't know us yet, for instance.

The Twitter account that promotes this scrapersite is also huge, on top of that, and thanks to the profit they constantly expand their servers by several dozens of TB. In any case, THESE are people with a lot of money and resources, unlike the artists you are actively stealing from. You fight the wrong fight with the wrong people, you actively destroy the main source of the things you enjoy. 

Some random loose existential thoughts for the end... 

I still don't know exactly how to deal with all this, every time something new is added to the misery, which makes it more and more tough to be reminded of the reasons why I'm doing all this in the first place. We artists, almost every artist I know, we want to share our joy and passion with others, and if possible make a living of our work. Some of us still earn less than a minimum wage. Therefore, it will remain alien to me where the hostility and twisted image of arrogance is coming from, be it from those scrapers or those people who "look forward to seeing the fall of the artists when AI image generators will replace them".

I for myself always pray every day that my exhausted body and my drawing hand won't fail me, I naturally hope that I don't have to longer make sacrifices like spending more time on overwork instead of family and friends - NOT because we artists WANT to or being masochists, but because in the hope for a better prospect, life situation and future while staying true to our artistic vision and beliefs. 

It's really not that I want to sacrifice, I just firmly believe that art and entertainment is not worthless, and I want to fight for this belief. I choose the path of the artist, because I have something to express and to tell, because I can still cherish the fun of the creation process, because I want to join other aspiring artists on their journey.

But it gets more and more challenging, since every day I'm chased by existential fears and doubts, getting confronted with the twisted hatred towards artists, and constantly have to find ways to keep myself motivated while fighting the growing depression and pressure. I hope some day, I can give my family and friends at least some certainty and their worries away from them that I'm on my best way to see my hard work coming to fruition. It's difficult to hope and work hard for something that your surroundings and a big portion of the global society aren't convinced of.

Final thoughts

I can't say if disappointment would be the right word for my feeling, knowing that all my content is exposed for free. Even the content I consider pretty intimate because most of them was still a work in progress and that made me still feel not comfortable to show to the public yet, but of course also content where I was looking forward to showing it online as soon as it was finished.

Because yeah, I don't entirely see this content as something "exclusive that only 'rich' people should get to see" (as those people on their imageboard wrote). If anything, I want to get my work out there and want to see how people enjoy my content and all those previews were considered a special thanks for genuine supporters  - and posting all this should be my own personal decision. By exposing this content without my consent, I felt like I was robbed of my own power and control over my art and everything I stand for.

I never understand people who live a life completely with the "everything for free" mindset. Tbh I really hate the modern mentality of how many take everything around their lifestyle for granted.
Surely this will be an invitation to many double standard debates and strawman arguments, but all I'm saying is: From nothing comes nothing, and your life and lifestyle won't work out forever if you always take EVERYTHING for granted by stealing from everyone. Try at least to understand the perspective from the people, who find joy and fun in their work and don't rob off the few things about the craft and work they cherish. Again, you are just destroying the main souce of the things you enjoy like that.

I'm still not sure what to do from this point on, but I assure you that if there would be any realistic solution, I would take this opportunity. At least, I learned about this now and see all my content here in another context now, but it won't change the fact that it is still something personally dedicated to my genuine supporters.

Until then, I can only say to people who scrap my content, if you enjoy my work, cool - just don't let me starve...

To the rest of my supporters... Maybe some of you support me, because they actually view this content as an exclusivity, but I also hope, that you're supporting me also, because you share and support my artistic belief and my passion for my work. In any case, be assured how grateful I am, so, thank you for all your support, be it through you active support on this site, on my social media or through art projects and commissions. Words will always fail me, but I do my best to not let all your kindness and help go to waste.

Yours sincerely, Thaumana