SenryuSensei
patreon
Piracy
🕑 Added 2020-05-28 15:31:25 +0000 UTCHello!
Today I come with a little riflession on piracy:
As all of you, or most of, probably know, my games are free and will always be;
I only give 15 days of early access to "Uncommon" (5$) and above tiers patrons / subscribers. Unfortunately I can't post public links of my games here, due to Patreon's rules, but I'm sure you know where to get them. ;D
Now, while I know how the internet works, and I can't do much about those site who are offering my games for free, but without permission, it came to my attention, that some s**t are actually selling links for my, and a LOT of other's game; not only that, but, even worse, they're doing so while using patreon...
I've already tried to contact Patreon on the matter, and firstly they asked me to send a proper DMCA notice for the issue, but even after doing that, I just got ignored, which led me to the conclusion that they don't give a damn about protecting their own creators from those scammers.
So if you ever see a website (not a platform like patron, subscribestar, or itch.io) charging for my games, rest assured that they don't have my permission, and you're being scammed.
Comments
Ver Greeneyes
Don't take this as official legal advice, but I'd recommend looking up a template for a DMCA take down letter online and using that. The more official it looks the less likely they are to ignore you. But if Patreon are systematically ignoring take down requests, then at some point people will have to band together to sue them.
Senryu-Sensei
and anyway, a lot of other devs did the same, with the same result -.-'
Senryu-Sensei
I'm not sure how it works, anyway first I sent an email to guidelines@patreon.com, explaining the issue, but they told me than I needed to send a proper DMCA notice, so I sent another email to copyright@patreon.com , stating that I'm the rightful owner of Succubus tales game, linked my page, and that an external website (liked the cuplit page), and his patreon page (liked again) Are selling my content without my permission, using their Patreon pages as paywalls. Stated that the website is selling thousands of other creator's works, and are misrepresenting the origin of said work. This is blatant copyright infringement and fraud en mass, and against Patreon Terms of Service and Guidelines. "As the legitimate creator of the above work, and a creator myself on your platform, I trust you will remove the above pages expeditiously, in line with your own Terms of Service". that was sent a week ago, still no answer as of now...
Ver Greeneyes
Patreon (and any company operating within the USA) are required by law to take down content upon receiving a DMCA takedown request, no questions asked. The takedown can then be appealed, and if the appeal is left uncontested then the content must be restored. If you do contest the appeal, they have to take you to court to get the content restored (obviously, given that they're stealing it in the first place, they wouldn't do that). If Patreon are ignoring your DMCA takedown requests, they are in violation of the law.
