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About Piracy
8 years ago
I frequently get messages about my patreon content being pirated to other sites before I release it myself on FA, so I figured I should let people know about my ethos as far as piracy is concerned.
Obviously I don't want piracy to happen, but I recognize that it's impossible to control distribution of my content on the internet. Piracy will happen regardless, even when it's going to be publicly posted eventually anyway.
Trying to ensure it doesn't happen by being stricter in my distribution methods would only harm my paying patrons by making it less simple and convenient to access the content they paid for. (Anyone who's dealt with an Adobe product license can probably attest to how ANNOYING anti-piracy measures are for the paying customers, while doing little to deter the actual pirates). It'd also be time consuming to try and get pirated stuff removed, and I'd rather spend that time making new content for my supporters.
So thank you for looking out for me and my work, that's very kind of you. In the future though nobody needs to let me know about reposted work. I'm aware of it, but I'm of the mindset that people who want/can support will do so, and the rest I should just live and let live.
I do want to clarify that I don’t condone piracy. I’m lucky to be at a place in my artistic career where piracy doesn’t prevent me from making enough money to live comfortably*. That cannot be said for all artists. I remember reading somewhere that on average less than 1% of a creator’s fan base will actually support them monetarily. This is reflected exactly in the number of patrons I have, which make up 0.83% of my 59,300 watchers**. I want people to be aware of those numbers so they understand why so many artists fade into inactive obscurity or fail to complete their projects. This is why it’s even more crucial to contribute when you can to little-known artists, because 1% isn’t enough to support the continuation of their work. The bottom line is that if you want to see more, you have to contribute, or you risk that Thing You Like falling into the pit of Never Finished and Never Seen Again.
That’s also not to say that piracy has no effect on more successful creators, but I won’t get into that. For those curious, I’ve put a link to an interesting post from a best-selling author about the effects of piracy on her own series, and the experiment she did which proved just how huge those effects were.
Thanks to everyone who has supported my work, past and present. It’s been 8 years since I first posted to FA, and a long time getting to the place where I’m making comics regularly. All my present-day comic work is only made possible because of your help and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it.
tl;dr I won’t waste time combating piracy, but I encourage people to contribute especially to lesser known artists who are struggling and to consider the ramifications of resorting to piracy.
*I live in the UK, the exchange rate and paypal fees result in an inflated number on Patreon. Cost of living here is not cheap :P
**Obviously not all of those watchers are active, obviously not everyone can afford to support their favourite artists, and obviously many of these followers could be more interested in personalized commissions or fanart than original art or comics, but equally obvious is that 99% of my watchers do not fall squarely into those categories.
***Maggie Stiefvater’s Piracy Experiment: http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com.....-a-story-about
Thanks for reading <3
Obviously I don't want piracy to happen, but I recognize that it's impossible to control distribution of my content on the internet. Piracy will happen regardless, even when it's going to be publicly posted eventually anyway.
Trying to ensure it doesn't happen by being stricter in my distribution methods would only harm my paying patrons by making it less simple and convenient to access the content they paid for. (Anyone who's dealt with an Adobe product license can probably attest to how ANNOYING anti-piracy measures are for the paying customers, while doing little to deter the actual pirates). It'd also be time consuming to try and get pirated stuff removed, and I'd rather spend that time making new content for my supporters.
So thank you for looking out for me and my work, that's very kind of you. In the future though nobody needs to let me know about reposted work. I'm aware of it, but I'm of the mindset that people who want/can support will do so, and the rest I should just live and let live.
I do want to clarify that I don’t condone piracy. I’m lucky to be at a place in my artistic career where piracy doesn’t prevent me from making enough money to live comfortably*. That cannot be said for all artists. I remember reading somewhere that on average less than 1% of a creator’s fan base will actually support them monetarily. This is reflected exactly in the number of patrons I have, which make up 0.83% of my 59,300 watchers**. I want people to be aware of those numbers so they understand why so many artists fade into inactive obscurity or fail to complete their projects. This is why it’s even more crucial to contribute when you can to little-known artists, because 1% isn’t enough to support the continuation of their work. The bottom line is that if you want to see more, you have to contribute, or you risk that Thing You Like falling into the pit of Never Finished and Never Seen Again.
That’s also not to say that piracy has no effect on more successful creators, but I won’t get into that. For those curious, I’ve put a link to an interesting post from a best-selling author about the effects of piracy on her own series, and the experiment she did which proved just how huge those effects were.
Thanks to everyone who has supported my work, past and present. It’s been 8 years since I first posted to FA, and a long time getting to the place where I’m making comics regularly. All my present-day comic work is only made possible because of your help and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it.
tl;dr I won’t waste time combating piracy, but I encourage people to contribute especially to lesser known artists who are struggling and to consider the ramifications of resorting to piracy.
*I live in the UK, the exchange rate and paypal fees result in an inflated number on Patreon. Cost of living here is not cheap :P
**Obviously not all of those watchers are active, obviously not everyone can afford to support their favourite artists, and obviously many of these followers could be more interested in personalized commissions or fanart than original art or comics, but equally obvious is that 99% of my watchers do not fall squarely into those categories.
***Maggie Stiefvater’s Piracy Experiment: http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com.....-a-story-about
Thanks for reading <3
Not everyone is in a privileged position to comfortably donate money they don't have.
And you won't have the majority defending the act of taking down sites like PornHub.
It's not a necessity and if you can't afford it, then you shouldn't be taking up collecting an artist's portfolio as your main hobby.
Fuck....
Those who will support the artists will do so. Those who won't ... won't. However, it's not a completely bad thing. Art found on sites like u18chan help the artist's content be shown to more, acting highly as commercial for their content. This can and does attract those who are willing to support the artists.
We can argue about how "wrong" it is for people to get porn for free when others pay for it, but the actual scenario won't change one lick. So instead, it's best to look at both the bad and good of the situation, identifying what makes each aspect positive/negative, accepting the facts, and moving forward with the knowledge.
I would appreciate my art being shared, because I know I'd get some more watchers who like my work, if any.
I would also set up a form of income that is way more steady than a shaky foundation via Patreon.
I actually am a musician, playing the piano and singing in a choir, to name a couple things. But those aren't the only things I do. I am responsible in my actions towards making an actual living.
I'm sorry if you are having difficulty doing the same.
The end lmfao.
Cause otherwise, all you do is spout hot air. That does absolutely nothing.
Unless you're someone who enjoys stealing other people's work and perhaps income just because you want to jack it.
👀👀👀👀
You enjoy stealing from people, we get it!
Because you're such a steadfast hero who gets shit done ... instead of complaining behind a computer, and not much else.
I'm certainly doing a lot more than some moron on furaffinity trying to defend their stance on stealing from artists.
Once again, we get it.
You enjoy stealing other peoples work.
in the end you just have to do your best and hope that people appreciate what you do enough which it sounds like your doing well with!
The sites where you see a lot of the pirated material seem to have less of a "here's stuff for people who can't afford to donate" and more of a "why should I pay an ARTIST to do something I want? Fuck them, I'm going to distribute their stuff out of spite". There's a difference between pirating software from a multinational corporation, and another from someone who is working from home doing their own business, and these people either don't see it or are too stuck up themselves to care.
It's correct that there's no way to clamp down on piracy, and every time you do another site gleefully pops up to abuse the system. Maybe the onus of preventing piracy should fall more on the fans than the artist themself. If people know of someone who maliciously spreads paid content then educate the shit out of them. That kind of attitude is toxic and needs to be cut out entirely.
On the other hand, there are things an artist can do to mitigate piracy. Releasing content a few weeks later publicly is probably the best because the paywall is only time-based rather than "pay or you'll never see this". If there are any other methods then they're not readily obvious.
Of course, the best way to avoid piracy is to not be any good. It's a tried and tested method and has worked for me so far!
I think the spiteful few are the ones that bewilder me the most. That and the people who do it because 'fight capitalism.' As if an indie artist is comparable to Steve Jobs or Walmart? Cooooool....
It's all stupid, and these people need a smack up the side of the head.
I've been considering starting my own Patreon in the new year, and things like this have been on my mind quite a lot. How I should feel about piracy, what steps I should take to deter or try and prevent it. I think I am coming into a view kind of like this, though. I know it will happen, and I think trying very hard to stop it will take more energy and do more harm, than trying to just roll with it. I'm in a similar position, though, where it may not impact my livelihood as much as an artist with a smaller following.
I wish this was talked about more. I see so many artists thinking it's a personal failing to not have more patrons/support, when I think a lot of it is just math, and how these things tend to work. And then, on the other hand, I see people who pirate work from Patreons saying that it can't possibly make a difference, which just isn't true. But those are both a bit beside your point, so I digress.
Been a fan of your work for years. I can't wait to see what you continue to make!
Your outlook is the best~ There's no avoiding piracy anymore, being harsher seems to only encourage piracy I've seen =/ Didn't realise it was so bad sometimes! Eyes have been opened up, TIL.
Loads of games screw with people who pirate. If I recall, one of the Sims games had it so the Sim would go for a shower or to the toilet, get the pixellation, then the pixellation would stay and every subsequent bathroom visit increased the amount of pixellation.
I was only aware of the Game Dev one, because I saw it in an article shared around. I wouldn't be surprised, probably Sims 3 xD I don't recall if Sims 4 was made online only DRM, it wouldn't surprise me it is an EA and Ubisoft favourite on PC. Which makes it harder to play the games if you have bad internet connection and doesn't stop piracy in any way~
Fun Fact: apparently some people saw it as a challenge, and now the "invincible scorpion run" is a legit hardcore run of the game XD
Really? But... he's invincible... how does one even win? xD is there a win?
Basically the idea is to keep running, manage to avoid most of his bullets and heal often so you can go trough all levels and still complete the game (very hard though!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQkGbQZnlks
At what point does someone have a right to step in and say "you can't charge for this content"? More to the point, if the paywall doesn't hide content but delays it for non-payers, why is that wrong? You don't NEED the content to survive. It's not a basic human right.
As to the entertainment industry not giving everything for free, these are businesses producing things you, again, don't really need. If they can't monetise it in some way, how are they going o be able to afford to keep creating content?
all due to a majority of twats that cant be arsed to pay for something they are consuming? im sure these people will like their food from the stores free as well, whilst sitting down behind their desks doing jackshit.
I know this is just my stance and won't represent everyone; My preoccupation these days is to see freedom winning over tyranny, while at the same time I'm used to working in open-source software environments and even release my art under a CC license. Not everyone can do the same thing I know... just explaining why I wish to be the one defending this view more. I'd like to see a way that artists can keep getting paid, without people having to be restricted in how they can see or watch a work... sadly society hasn't come to a consensus here in several decades.
Your entire argument is faulty because it's built on the premise that there are consequences for people pirating, whereas this is generally not the case. But there's always consequences for small-time, independent artists and authors that have their things pirated. It's not a matter of freedom--it's a matter of people recognizing that their actions have consequences for others and to not cause those consequences if at all possible. And it is very much possible.
With food you can go to the store and get a refund if it's not up to snuff; most grocery stores have this policy just many choose to toss out the food than to bother with a return. However, when you purchase a movie ticket, you cannot get a refund if it turns out to be a bad movie. Piracy in a sense prevents people from selling a bad product as noted by the increase in record sales because it was actually used largely as a means for people to listen to an album and decide if they wanted to drop down $20 on a cd when they only like one or two songs. This in turn led to the recording industry to make a gradual shift to purchasing music by the track. Others engage in it likely due to a lack of disposable income (especially in 3rd world nations where having an internet connection is a luxury in of itself) with a minority of pirates doing so for the sake of getting something for free.
Personally if my work I choose to upload somewhere gets pirated I really wouldn't care. I wouldn't take the plunge and depend on something like Patreon as a primary source of income until I'd be well established enough to where I could afford it. I would hope that those that did download the stuff decide it's worthwhile to support my endeavors and help me out financially through whatever means I have available to them to do so. It's really not as simple as "twats that cant be arsed to pay for something they are consuming."
Also, with things like seeing a movie in the cinema, you're not really paying for a product, but a service. So while you may dislike the resulting product, you've been given the service you paid for, and that's why you don't get a refund. That's their reasoning, anyway. And, like you said, merchandising is a big thing...so those two things together are why piracy doesn't really even touch the film industry. Same sort of thing for the music industry--artists primarily make money from concerts/performances, from the service they're providing, while the record labels were the ones profiting from CDs. Of course, they're so behind the times, they don't realize if they just make music easily available and not outrageously-priced, plenty of people will pay for it. Which is why Apple struck gold with iTunes, because if you like a single song from an album, it's so much easier to just buy a download for 99 cents than it is to go pay $20 for the entire thing. I do think, when Napster was a thing, part of the reason sales went up was because, with the ability to hear songs beforehand, people were more likely to purchase CDs because at that time less people would create their own CDs with the pirated music. Nowadays everyone uses their smartphone and most music can be listened to freely with things like Pandora and YouTube... However, people still pay for music because, for the most part, people will generally be more than willing to pay for convenience.
With indie artists, it's a bit different, because the means of getting their content is already convenient. For instance, with Patreon, everything is automatic and you get notified as soon as new content is available to view. Can't really get any more convenient than that. But there are people out there (not everyone, of course, but enough that it's kinda disturbing) that are offended at the idea of paying for art at all, to the point where they see Patreon, and any artists that use it, as the epitome of evil or something. These are the people most likely to go out of their way to pirate from small-time artists...and it really makes no sense compared to other trends, because that takes so much more effort, and most people would think it wasn't worth it. But some people are just...bizarre. C'est la vie, I guess.
"You should support the good, hard-working artists!"
Okay. What happens when a ton of artists fit that description? Are fans expected to pay buttloads to see beyond all the paywalls in the name of supporting the artists? In a field like furry porn where the majority just put all their work for free viewing pleasure on their gallery, that's asking for a lot.
It would be very similar as to why sites like PornHub are so successful. It's completely lawful, yet it offers content that is usually locked behind paywalls.
If it was clean art, I'd be able to defend it more on a moral basis ... but the vast majority of Patreon-locked content is porn. It's very difficult to defend paying for porn for a *lot* of people when it's pretty much one of the easiest things to get for free, en masse.
"I'm poor," isn't an excuse to not pay for luxuries.
Can't say I'm interested in that, so you have fun doing that with others who are.
The 2 on patron I do give munies to they di dnt want much 5 bucks on one and 4 bucks on the other.
I've seen many artists take up the whole "pay me or you wont see shit" attitude and I've noticed that it actually seems to hurt them... they either stop making art altogether, or end up start posting everything for free anyway because they think patreon isn't worth it, because not enough people were joining them.
The timed release method, imo, is the best. After all, your public galleries then start acting as free advertising because people will find your work in other people's favorites, and then start watching you, and then eventually discover your patreon (which is how I found you btw. :) )
So good on your for doing this mate!
My main issue with paywalling is basically, you're screwing over all the watchers you had before you even made a patreon. I mean, they're the ones that gave you the views, the popularity, ect, to give you the ability to even create a workable patreon, so why tell them they aren't welcome to view your art unless they pay up?
I personally will more likely support an artist who does timed release stuff of all of their art, including all versions, because I know that not everyone has the money to spend on that stuff.
And, if anything, watchers benefit from an artist being supported. Someone who makes a living off of their artwork is someone who produces artwork, and the majority will always share at least a portion of their art for free. Meanwhile, plenty of other artists become inactive because they have to make their money elsewhere, and so many people don't have the time and/or energy to keep up with creative projects the way they would if they didn't have to do other work.
Its a complicated matter that doesn't need to be.
The point I was trying to make, and that you seem to have missed, is that patreon exclusive stuff hurts an artist more than anything. This is why I like timed exclusive stuff the most. It allows the artist to gain a paycheck every month, PLUS has the added benefit of having free advertising by posting onto FA or other sites. Which includes uncensored work.
And yes, I've unwatched artists who post censored work and they say "if you want the lewds, pay up to $5 or more!" And sadly, its ALWAYS set at $5 or more...which is pretty much impossible to support all my favorite artists if they did that, just due to the massive influx of artists on patreon these days...
^This is basically your entire argument. The majority of artists don't put all, or even most, of their work as pay-to-view (because contrary to popular belief, artists are well aware that you can't draw in new people without showing them examples--this is freelancing 101). It's not that I missed your point, it's that your point is entirely moot. Which was my point, that you aren't getting.
The fact of the matter is, you don't owe artists anything, but likewise, artists don't owe you anything either. Different people will try different things to find a way that works best for them. If they're doing something shitty, you just refuse to support them in any way. It's really that simple. And if they're not doing anything shitty, well...you don't need to support every single artist you like. You probably won't even miss out on anything, really. There is so much art on this website and others that the amount of Patreon-exclusive content is, in comparison, a negligible percentage.
Seems like a hypocrite though given he expects people to respect his money by not sharing the rewards yet milks people for their money through a convenient loophole in Patreon's payment model.
And to the artists who don't realize that, I couldn't care a lick more or less if these kinds of things happen to them.
Also, yeah the extent anti-piracy measure go these days in other content (software for example) does more to inconvenience the customer than pirates. A lot of time, money and energy goes into this and at the end of the day it's typically the paying people that must deal with the inconveniences caused by anti-piracy protections. Had that happen with a game once long ago. Couldn't even play it for nearly a month after I got it waiting for a patch.
Very good journal, it is always nice to see people talking directly about those polemic themes. Congratulations!
I wish I could support more Patreons, but currently I can only spare so much without damaging my finances for bills or food.
As far as just posting things -later- goes, I already have a telegram channel I advertise as having -tons- of unposted work, and not many have taken me up on that either. Like for free.
But eventually I'd like to find a way to monetize some of my own content, because it's easy to get burnt out never doing stuff for me at all, and always crunching on other people's projects to pay the bills.
Like it or not, the furry community is powered far more by penis than many nay-sayers would like to admit. Unless you were touched by an art god, the chances of you being as successful in the furry community for doing SFW art when compared to those who draw porn ... The gap is too large. Adding that penis and a blue/red boarder to the thumbnail gets it SO many more views.
Art is not a career.
it's a living, but not a career.
Disney died a long time ago, and Eisner made it the cash cow it is.... and now, Robert Iger, the sweet irony of an Ashkenazi being the CEO
>"animators themselves hate their careers."
How utterly fascinating.
as long as your hands hold out. you dont piss off the wrong people, and have plenty of contingencies to fall back on.
In my experience I've seen people be scumbags on both side of the piracy debate. Ever since patreon came out I've had to un-watch an increasing number of artists because I found them engaging in what I consider very scummy behavior, like taking all the art they had posted for free for years and putting it behind a rather expensive paywall, or doing things like putting people's COMMISSIONS on their patreon just to nickel and dime more money out of people for something they were ALREADY paid to create. My favorite artists are of course the free ones, but I certainly respect people's right to ask for money for their work. A happy medium to me is when they put things on patreon then release them for free later. We don't need to be paying 10 dollars a month for your 5 year old art or something, like some artists seem okay doing now.
Not every artist is innocent, not in the slightest. But I also see how pirates can be really scummy in the same way, distributing things just to spite people or other trashy behavior. But the story linked is also very anecdotal, throwing out fake books and seeing a surge in sales the first week doesn't really imply that if piracy didn't exist then everyone would suddenly make more money. It's a complex debate with complex issues that occur for different reasons, even including things like the economy.