Pricing / Posting Updates

Pricing Change

Eight years...  In the eight-plus years I've been on Patreon I have never changed any tier pricing. Honestly, I hate to do it, but...effective today (May 4th) the $1 tier will increase to $2 monthly for NEW MEMBERS ONLY. Existing members WILL NOT be affected by this pricing change and will continue to be charged $1 per month. If, however, you should leave the tier and come back at a later date, you will be charged at the $2 per month rate.

All other tiers ARE NOT affected by this change.

Posting Update

Art theft is real. Scraper sites such as Kemono Party and the like operate under the guise of being "public archivers" of content from sites such as Patreon, Pixiv, SubscribeStar, etc. In reality, many of these sites incentivize contributors to join an artist's paid subscription site and then post/scrape their content, often paying the contributors to do so. The scraper site then effectively bypasses the content creator's paywall...and then pays the contributor, usually on some per-click pyramid scheme, earning fractions of a cent per click.

How exactly the scraper sites earn money, legally or otherwise, I have no idea. I do, however, know that all of that server space ain't cheap.

I see this sort of activity on an almost daily basis now. A new patron joins a tier and immediately cancels their membership. Most of the time this is simply someone joining to see if they like what I have to offer and will renew their membership at the beginning of the next month...or not. A minority of these joiner/cancellers are scraper contributors looking to get paid.

Honestly, I get it...but, then again, I don't get it. In my case, the majority of my finished content goes public after a week, though at a reduced (2k) size. All of their efforts are rendered useless after a couple of days. Other creators, however, hold back A LOT of content...you only see a fraction of it when (or if) they post it publicly. These creators are the vulture's real prize.

How about sending the scraper sites a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request? Believe me, I've thought about that. 99% of these scrapers and their service providers operate from (or have servers located in) countries that do not comply with the DMCA...and do not respond to copyright take-down notices.

In order to curb some of this activity, effective this past Friday, May 2nd, all post download links will expire after 30 days. Likewise, the monthly update post links will also expire after 30 days.  This won't stop the scapers/contributors/vultures/thieves, but it will make it a little less appetizing for them.

The only real alternative is to do a weekly or monthly on-mass post and then email download links. That, however, isn't me...and it sounds like a total pain in the ass...and I hate the idea of making people wait to see my garbage art. :P :D