PSA: Patreon pledgers will pay a processing fee in two weeks.

[habisain]

HentaiWriter For what it's worth, with my legalese hat on, the "sub-licensable" term in Patreon's ToS pretty much supercede's transferable in my books. If a company can sub-license your work then they don't need to transfer their license; they can create a new copy of the license and give it to whomever they choose, so the right to transfer the license is kinda a moot point. As to Drip's explicit mention of what it can do, I don't think it's really relevant; both ToS's seem to be a license for pretty much everything associated with the work that is submitted to the site, and so I would be gobsmacked if a court of law decided Patreon's license didn't include these items. There might be a difference in that Drip's license explicitly mentions commercialisation of work submitted to Drip, but again I would be gobsmacked if Patreon's license didn't cover commercialisation anyway.

It certainly would be interesting to find out exactly what Kickstarter classifies as Pornography though. I have an intuition that the term is being kept a bit vague so they can kick off anything problematic.

Yoshiiki The licenses are in legalese, but both Patreon's ToS and Drip's ToS are very, very broad licenses. They both pretty much say "if you submit anything to our site, we can do whatever we want with it, forever, and you cannot revoke this permission". Of course though the creator can also still do things with their work because they still own it, except license that work exclusively (because the crowdfunder has a license which cannot be revoked). As I stated before, if you want to use sites with a ToS like this, you really do have to be very careful what you submit to the site. Hence why I would not personally submit anything that isn't something I am prepared to put in the public domain through these sites, and instead use my own hosting for such content.

 

[Yoshiiki]

HentaiWriter For what it's worth, with my legalese hat on, the "sub-licensable" term in Patreon's ToS pretty much supercede's transferable in my books. If a company can sub-license your work then they don't need to transfer their license; they can create a new copy of the license and give it to whomever they choose, so the right to transfer the license is kinda a moot point. As to Drip's explicit mention of what it can do, I don't think it's really relevant; both ToS's seem to be a license for pretty much everything associated with the work that is submitted to the site, and so I would be gobsmacked if a court of law decided Patreon's license didn't include these items. There might be a difference in that Drip's license explicitly mentions commercialisation of work submitted to Drip, but again I would be gobsmacked if Patreon's license didn't cover commercialisation anyway.

It certainly would be interesting to find out exactly what Kickstarter classifies as Pornography though. I have an intuition that the term is being kept a bit vague so they can kick off anything problematic.

Yoshiiki The licenses are in legalese, but both Patreon's ToS and Drip's ToS are very, very broad licenses. They both pretty much say "if you submit anything to our site, we can do whatever we want with it, forever, and you cannot revoke this permission". Of course though the creator can also still do things with their work because they still own it, except license that work exclusively (because the crowdfunder has a license which cannot be revoked). As I stated before, if you want to use sites with a ToS like this, you really do have to be very careful what you submit to the site. Hence why I would not personally submit anything that isn't something I am prepared to put in the public domain through these sites, and instead use my own hosting for such content.

Interesting... But I guess it's more of a international thing? Or it doesn't really matter?
Also, how hotlinking falls under that? Technically content shows on their website, but it's not stored there. Asking, because it seems I may have gotten few things wrong so it would be good to see more on the issue.

 

[habisain]

Interesting... But I guess it's more of a international thing? Or it doesn't really matter?
Also, how hotlinking falls under that? Technically content shows on their website, but it's not stored there. Asking, because it seems I may have gotten few things wrong so it would be good to see more on the issue.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer - although I'm normally pretty good at deciphering this stuff. But consult with someone qualified if you're going to make any kind of important decision on this.

I believe both licenses actually specify that you may only bring legal action in a specific place. "International thing" doesn't really matter, I suspect.

My understanding is that any content submitted to any of these sites is automatically licensed to them by virtue of you agreeing the terms of service. This would include any posts you write, and any images you upload to them. In this case the content is licensed to them in full and they can do pretty much whatever they want. I would also say that on the balance of probabilities, if you embedded an image which was hosted on a different site then it would also be licensed to them, because the image forms a part of the work you submitted - regardless of where the image is actually hosted. (There's probably some exemptions on this if you embedded something for the purpose of critiquing it, but I'm not going down the rabbit hole of "what is fair use" in this post. Also that might actually fall fowl of the ToS on these sites which seems to be rule out something like this.)

On the other hand, if you just put in a link to something rather than embed it in a submitted post, then I would say that it does not form a part of the content submitted, and so is not licensed to the site (e.g. I can link to another article on a different site, and that's clearly a different work).

So in short, it all comes down to what the content you submitted actually is. If the image is embedded in the work and is an integral part of it, then I don't think it really matters where it's hosted. You submitted a piece of content to the site, they have a license on that piece of content. Simple as that. If the image is a discrete piece of work that is only linked to, then they don't have a license to it.

 

[Scherzo]

The fee actually makes a lot of sense for Patreon's intended and stated purpose.

It's supposed to be tip jar. A freely given donation to support an artist producing ongoing content. If you were giving altruistically, no strings attached, eating the fee as the donar does make sense on that level.


However, most of us have been using it more like a storefront or payment processor. I pay you X amount of money to receive Y product or service. I think patreon is trying to push away from being perceived in this way, becasue that can put them legally on the hook for customer service, enforcing fulfillment of pledge rewards and so forth. I know a lot of people argue that they SHOULD do these things to help weed out 'scam patreons' but do keep in mind the manpower and lost/refunded transaction that this would entail will result in higher fees for both artists and donors.

But if you're using patreon seeing yourself as a customer rather than a donor, the fee goes from being annoying, to being a completely ridiculous tax. And yes, the fee structure is stupid, but the flat fee+ percentage thing is par for the course for credit card processors.

The fee isn't nessesarily price gouging so much as it is Patreon playing hot potato with who eats the payment processing fees. The price gouge-y part is that they refuse to eat that fee on their end and let it cut into profits.

But I do think that moving the fee to the patrons is a bad move just because people LIKE paying even amounts for things and it makes it easier to track your spending. Even if you don't care about the extra change on pledges it makes the math so much more annoying for pledgers to multiple projects. I don't know how common it is for people to be multiple pledgers compared to the amount of users that literally just pledge to a single creator, but if single pledgers are much more common it probably won't hurt the bottom line of patreon itself.

 

[Hentaispider]

The fee isn't nessesarily price gouging so much as it is Patreon playing hot potato with who eats the payment processing fees. The price gouge-y part is that they refuse to eat that fee on their end and let it cut into profits.

With regards to that, the REAL kicker is that they're charging the new fee per pledge, NOT per transaction. Or in other words, if you're pledging to more than one creator, Patreon takes extra $0.35 per pledge on top of their claimed 5% share. And they ALREADY weren't paying those fees, they were passing them to creators.

 

[Papanomics]

Well, hopefully there is an alternative for creators, or Patreon decides to keep things as they were. Most creators I've supported seemed fine with the way things were.

 

[Buffmuffin]

I quit Patreon last week, when they hopped on board the so-called 'Net Neutrality' bandwagon.

Ironic. Remember this is the same company concerned about people 'tampering' with your speech rights, as they censor content and shift costs to the consumer...

 

[arpaschad]

As Jim says regarding this change in Patreon ""When push comes to shove, I ain't gonna let you push me off the cliff, I'll jump. And I'll have a fucking parachute, cause I'm Jim Fuckin' Sterling, Son."

You must be registered to see the links

also, 95% of a dollar doesn't mean much when you're not paying a dollar. 95 cents of $1.33 isn't 95% of the value so you don't actually give the creator 95%. If I gave $100 and there was a $99.05 fee, I guess you could say that I gave 95% of a dollar but that would be a misleading and bullshit thing to say wouldn't it?

 

[lazycat]

also, 95% of a dollar doesn't mean much when you're not paying a dollar. 95 cents of $1.33 isn't 95% of the value so you don't actually give the creator 95%. If I gave $100 and there was a $99.05 fee, I guess you could say that I gave 95% of a dollar but that would be a misleading and bullshit thing to say wouldn't it?

You already don't give the creator 95% as is.

Previously that processing fee is taken off the $1 you paid, though I'm pretty sure the amount was lower than now (iirc Paypal charge 10% of the amount transferred, up to $20) so if they'd simply shift the old cost over instead of making this 2.9% + 0.35 number I think there'd be less outrage.

 

[PlatinumTH]

The fee actually makes a lot of sense for Patreon's intended and stated purpose.

It's supposed to be tip jar. A freely given donation to support an artist producing ongoing content. If you were giving altruistically, no strings attached, eating the fee as the donar does make sense on that level.


However, most of us have been using it more like a storefront or payment processor. I pay you X amount of money to receive Y product or service. I think patreon is trying to push away from being perceived in this way, becasue that can put them legally on the hook for customer service, enforcing fulfillment of pledge rewards and so forth. I know a lot of people argue that they SHOULD do these things to help weed out 'scam patreons' but do keep in mind the manpower and lost/refunded transaction that this would entail will result in higher fees for both artists and donors.

But if you're using patreon seeing yourself as a customer rather than a donor, the fee goes from being annoying, to being a completely ridiculous tax. And yes, the fee structure is stupid, but the flat fee+ percentage thing is par for the course for credit card processors.

The fee isn't nessesarily price gouging so much as it is Patreon playing hot potato with who eats the payment processing fees. The price gouge-y part is that they refuse to eat that fee on their end and let it cut into profits.

But I do think that moving the fee to the patrons is a bad move just because people LIKE paying even amounts for things and it makes it easier to track your spending. Even if you don't care about the extra change on pledges it makes the math so much more annoying for pledgers to multiple projects. I don't know how common it is for people to be multiple pledgers compared to the amount of users that literally just pledge to a single creator, but if single pledgers are much more common it probably won't hurt the bottom line of patreon itself.

Very well put !

But to be honest, most people only perceive it as a store-front. Rewarding is always an essential part of society and people always expect a reward for whatever they do, be it more or less important. I, as a creator always felt like I should probably offer more to people who show their support on a higher extent as I could put myself into their position and through my imagination I figured I would want to get something extra for my extra implication. However, at the end, most creators just put out their filtered and finished "creations" without any charges.

So if you look at it on a long-term, as long as the end product is not being sold but made available without charge to everyone, regardless of their contribution, you can see that, it would be fair for those who saw to it that the projects receive help in their creation process to be somehow rewarded with either decision making or early access to the contents..

 

[arpaschad]

all this looks like to me is Patreon trying to catch up to Paypal's processing rate...

the only downside is instead of them shouldering the cost they make those 1$ pledgers shoulder it...which ironically comprises 95% of a content creator's donor base...

I can't say for sure this is an EA-esque move or them trying to be "competitive"...

anyway, there are other options for content creators to get donations like Hatreon.net or Plumfund...if Enty were available in English then that would be a good place as well...it's basically the Japanese version of Patreon...without the processing fee price hike...yet

 

[habisain]

Honestly, there's a simple-ish band-aid that could be applied to ameliorate the problem, and I don't know why this hasn't been discussed, other than the fact that it introduces complexity. Patreon could create a "Patreon Wallet"; Patreon's deposit funds in the wallet (either manually or automatically) and Patreon distributes these funds internally to the creators. This reduces the impact of fees on low donation Patreons, because it means users can pay once per month, reducing the number of transactions and hence fees.

 

[Enlit3D]

Good news everyone. Patreon decided against the change in the end:

You must be registered to see the links

.

 

[Yoshiiki]

Good news everyone. Patreon decided against the change in the end:

You must be registered to see the links

.

Why do I have a feeling it was money impact that they heard loud and clear? Well, it is a thing that does have a lot of power on any company.
Damage is already done, if I were them, I would keep away from any serious decisions for the time being, unless they did enough research to make sure it will not blow right in their face. Then again, it was obvious what will happen with this and that the scale won't be small, so let's hope they will think thrice in the future before deciding on doing something.

Personally, after that NSFW fiasco and this, I am treating patreon like a suicidal emo kid with a loaded gun.

 

[Omnikuken]

^ Patreon sure feels like they want to destroy themselves recently, and/or are run by complete tards .......

 

[beanjam]

They've just reached that inevitable stage in any business venture where they decide that they've established themselves as indispensable and therefor they can do whatever they want in order to better exploit their customer base and minimize risk. It sucks, but it is what it is.

 

[Scherzo]

They may have established themselves as 'indispensable" to creatives looking for funding, but they've very much failed to read the room when it comes to the backers. Thanks to about 3 dozen too many high profile failed/disappointing crowdfunding projects in recent memory, between patreon/kickstarter/indiegogo/etc a lot of customers are weary of crowdfunding in general. Doing ANYTHING that upsets a large portion of the backer base is going to be the straw that breaks the camels back to further discourage them from backing projects at all. This was very bad timing on Patreon's part to try to pull something like this.

Keeping the backers happy is the #1 tantamount thing to keeping the platform viable at all and keeping the money rolling in for both patreon and the projects on it. The immediate backlash of pulled pledges just from the announcement probably woke Patreon up to those consequences.

That said, on Patreon's end, Processing a bunch of $1 micro-payments IS actually fairly more costly for them and eats into revenue and finding a way to offset that might actually be necessary. It's just that a good chunk of most of those potential ways either make Patreon more like a 'bank' which opens up a lot of very costly or prohibitive legal issues which could affect their business model. They might be able to use a points system where backers buy 'patreon points' or whatever as a single transaction subscription. Then break it up among the projects they want to fund, then the creatives can cash them out in whatever interval is convenient. Not sure if that would actually give them a legal loophole over just having an account wallet with actual currency (Which is exactly what they are probably trying to avoid)

 

[Renmaru]

You're all still going on about it and they scrapped the idea and even apologized for trying to do it in the first place. Guess enough people said "Hey whoa, stop." that they kinda had to listen.

 

[Omnikuken]

^ They did what EA did : removed a shitstorm before it erupted, went back to the drawing board to find a less evident way to fuck people over, wait a few weeks for the dust to settle and release another pos that will still fuck everyone around. Just because they copy/pasted a pre-made apology doesn't mean they'll stop there.