Hi everyone ^_^
I’m in the middle of writing the Weekly/Monthly Patreon update, however, there is some potentially troubling news I need to share with you all. If your’e in a rush, then skip to the end (I’ll put a line there) to see the summery and my plans to deal with it.
So …
Sadly, Patreon has recently lost a major legal battle that could see the business go bankrupt, which in turn is a major threat to the livelihood of a lot of adult creators.
The details of the matter are somewhat complex, but I’ll do my best to go into them without presenting any bias. Effectively, Patreon began removing creators from the site who at the time had not breached the terms of service (which in these instances were later altered to allow the removal of these individuals).
Recently a creator named Owen Benjamin was removed from the site, and him and his followers explored their legal options against Patreon for doing so. They discovered that they could request arbitration sessions in California with Patreon under the terms of service. For each arbitration case (and each patron of the ex-creator would be able to file separately), Patreon must pay legal fees and up front $10k to the arbitrator to be held during the proceedings.
Patreon attempted to legally battle this, and mid-way through the case removed this arbitration clause from their terms of service. However, as the legal case to shoot down the allowance for arbitration was already in motion, and the grievance was before the change in terms of service, the judge found against Patreon (and strongly so – Patreon did a serious bad move by trying to change those terms mid legal case). Without going too much into the law, as Patreon is only the middle man for matching up these creators with their fans in payment contracts, this can be seen as cases of tortious interference when Patreon (an outside business) attempts to dissolve that contract. The law on tortious interference is rather set in stone and well established.
What this means is that Patreon will need to enter literally hundreds (if not thousands) of arbitration instances against ex-patrons of creators thrown off of the site. Each instance is rather costly, and because Patreon needs to cover this up-front bond and the legal fees will require a huge amount of usable capital. The problem is that Patreon doesn’t really make that much money despite being considered within the Silicon Valley bubble, and like most businesses most of its capital is held in assets (like their building, stocks, etc). This could conceivably see the end of Patreon due to bankrupcy, or it being bought out by another major competitor such as Google or Facebook so they can add a crowdfunding wing to their digital empires.
News Article (there are few good sources at the moment) -> https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/1596377657-court-rules-against-patreon-fan-funding-service-in-key-case-over-cancelled-comedian
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In short, Patreon has legal issues that might bankrupt the business, leaving the future of the site and monetization for creators as rather uncertain.
So what does this mean for this Patreon Account? Well, it’s possible that Patreon might suddenly be off the internet, or come under new management that removes adult creators. As such, I implore you all to keep track of my alternative web-presences, such as; my personal website (here), the TFGames forums (here), the F95zone forum (here), and the Foxtalestimes forum (here). You can also find me on the alternative monetization platform, SubscribeStar at -> https://subscribestar.adult/jpmaggers-games.
If Patreon were to fall, either suddenly or slowly, my plan is to convert fully over to SubscribeStar for monetization, creating all of the current tiers over here on Patreon over there. For patrons who currently are on the commission level tiers, I would also attempt to personally contact you to offer you the chance to grab those new SubscribeStar commission tiers first (as it’s not your fault by any means if Patreon falls under). Until further notice though, I’m still more than happy to keep working here, these procedures/precautions are only a just-in-case matter.
Sorry for the wordy and sombre update, but thank you all for reading. Happy gaming ^_^