Alternatives to Patreon - Maybe for Adult games

[greyknight]

Meh, Hatreon takes ownership of anything you promote with them, then they can modify it and re-sell it as their property.

You have to renounce any rights you have over your creations... Forever... No royalties...
Read the TOS

That is standard language sites use to allow them to feature your work for advertising. Like the cool F95 game banners. Patreon has nearly the same exact terms.
Patreon:
"By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content. The purpose of this license is to allow us to operate Patreon, promote Patreon and promote your content on Patreon. We are not trying to steal your content or use it in an exploitative way."
Hatreon:
By posting content to Hatreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content. The purpose of this license is to allow us to operate Hatreon, promote Hatreon and promote your content on Hatreon. We are not trying to steal your content or use it in an exploitative way.

 

[9thCrux]

Hatreon:

Your Content
"By posting content to Hatreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content."

And then they go about how they're good guys, that they don't want to steal your work, and how they're good people they're very good people who will never steal someone else's work...

Dispute Resolution
"If you have a problem please talk to us, but you are limited in how you can resolve disputes. You waive your right to trial by jury and your right to participate in a class action proceeding."

I will not spend a single penny supporting people who fund extremists, neo nazis, gun nutts, far right views.
By spending money on any of their "businesses" you ARE supporting their views, beyond that you're funding them.

 

[OhWee]

So, I just looked over the kimochi.co terms of service...

9. User's Intellectual Property

Kimochi doesn’t own content you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you submit a project for review, or launch a project, you agree to these terms:

• We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.
• When we use the content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.
• You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Kimochi all the license rights outlined here).
• Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content, or on Kimochi’s hosting of that Content.
• You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If Kimochi or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.
• You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that content originated.
• We’re not responsible for mistakes in your content. Kimochi will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content.

So, if I read this right:
Crowdfund with us, and we can use your game (and any derivative we may come up with) however and wherever we like, and even make money on it, and not pay you for it when we use it...

 

[Cream]

The new rules on Patreon are only for Incest, Bestiality and Underaged characters.
These rules can easily be dodged by creators.

For Incest, you can just make it a Step Family instead, for underaged characters, you can just say they are 18 even though they don't look like it.
As for Bestiality it gets tricky but you could always refer to the animals as Therianthrope. (This is humans able to transform as will into animals.)
I don't know if it would still be considered bestiality if the sex occurs with a Therianthrope.

Now that the regulations have been dodged, nothing stop the creator from releasing a patch that change the game from Step-Family to real family, the characters to say that they are 16 instead of 18 or to just have pure bestiality.

Just take ''Man of the House'' for exemple, there is already an option to choose if it's your real family or step family.
Incest is sexual relations between close blood-relatives.
Therefore, having sex with your step mom or stepsisters is not incest.

Pretty sure that actually won't work...

Spoiler: Patreon response to faerin

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Aflso this seems a bit off topic, aren't we supposed to be analyzing the merits and cons of the services? I thought the patreon dumpster fire discussion was in this thread:

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[anne O'nymous]

So, I just looked over the kimochi.co terms of service...

So, if I read this right:
Crowdfund with us, and we can use your game (and any derivative we may come up with) however and wherever we like, and even make money on it, and not pay you for it when we use it...

"Use" doesn't mean distribute. Like @huntinga said above, it's the legal terms which mean, "we can use your artwork for both our own promotion and yours". Legally speaking, without this part, they can't even use your banner for the link to your page. Every single US site have this clause in a way or another, even Facebook have it and, obviously, Patreon have the exact same.

As for the, "you promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights." part, it's yet another thing. Here they cover their back.
Let's say that you use the art of a living painter, with his consent. If Kimochi use a part of your content which display this art, the painter can sue them because you have the right to do so, but not Kimochi. So, in this clause you promise that it will never happen, and if it happen Kimochi can sue you because of this.

 

[OhWee]

Except that's not what Kimochi's legalese says....

---

We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.
​

---

So yeah you may still own it, but you just gave them full use of it, irrevocably, and royalty-free. And incidentally, if YOU use any copyrighted content in your game, it's on you, not on them.

This doesn't draw the line at promotional purposes only. You've just handed them a full use license to your game. And they can share your game and it's contents with anyone they say is acting on their behalf, and you won't see a dime of it.

Here's Patreon's take:

---

Your Content


You keep complete ownership of all content, but give us permission to use it on Patreon. Make sure you have permission to use content that you post on Patreon.

You keep full ownership of all content that you post on Patreon, but to operate we need licenses from you.

By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content. The purpose of this license is to allow us to operate Patreon, promote Patreon and promote your content on Patreon. We are not trying to steal your content or use it in an exploitative way.

You may not post content that infringes on others' intellectual property or proprietary rights.

Patrons may not use content posted by creators in any way not authorized by the creator.
​

---

While it's subtle, that 'We are not trying to steal your content or use it in an exploitative way' line doesn't exist in Kimochi's guidelines. In fact, by agreeing to Kimochi's TOS, you agree to allow Kimochi to exploit AND commercialize your content.

Also, with Patreon, It appears that you are only granting the right to derivative works of your content. Creating an ad banner that includes your game art would be one use, but derivative works can allow much more detailed things to happen as well.

So with Patreon, IMHO you are just granting the 'performance rights' to your work so to speak, while with Kimochi you are granting a lot more...

I'm sure the lawyer types among us can comment if they'd like.

 

[anne O'nymous]

We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.
[...]
Also, with Patreon, It appears that you are only granting the right to derivative works of your content.

You must be registered to see the links

"By posting content to Patreon you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display or prepare derivative works of your content."

Sorry, but no. I'm not 100% sure of the ToS for Kimochi, since it's all legal
verbiage and I'm not sure enough of my English skills. But there's a thing I'm 200% sure, "or" doesn't mean "forget the words before". So, Patreon ask the same things than Kimochi and the right to prepare derivative works.

 

[OhWee]

My problem with Kimochi's legalese is that Kimochi is part of Nutaku, which offers adult games for free:

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I see absolutely nothing stopping Nutaku from offering a full version of your game on their website, for free, or even as a subscription, without you having any say in the matter once you've agreed to the TOS on Kimochi, which is a subsidiary of Nutaku as far as I can tell...

Note that's it's Nutaku's social media page, not Kimochi's that is suggested on this page:

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[IvoryOwl]

I posted in another thread but I think this is one is more fitting for this kind of argument.

From what I've gathered Patreon was never meant to be used as a crowdfunding source for any kind of pornography, be it artistic like videogames or real life cam sessions. The old guidelines were a bit too broad and vague and that created a grey area that some took advantage of till it became a trend and the go-to place for people, regardless of skill or intent, to crowdfund their projects, businesses or hobbies.

People say their guidelines are still vague but I think they just made it clearer that they are heavily against any and all kinds of pornography, specially the kind involving taboo topics like incest, pedophilia, bestiality, sexual abuse and others of a similar nature. The only thing they tolerate is what we call "graphical art" aka drawings and paintings, because, according to them "some of the world's most beautiful and historically significant art often depicts nudity and sexual expression".

Art turned pornography, such as videogames, is still pornography... no matter how many flowery terms you use to describe and defend it. Now the only debate left is to know what exactly is considered "true art" and what ins't... but that's a topic for another time and place.

In conclusion, it seems adult content creators will have to find greener pastures. Who knows, maybe these changes were enough to push someone, somewhere, to create their own crowdfunding platform more tolerant of adult content. One can hope at least.

 

[Drafox]

Spoiler

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Not going to lie, sounds to me like you're defending their "open mindedness". I'm lost here but aren't you supposed to set the rules for a website like this from the very beginning or was the money from these 'dirty' projects too sweet to pass up, now that they've grown bigger and 'clean' companies started noticing their presence, it seems to me like they want to get rid of their past and render their image like that of a virgin princess that everyone wants to marry and have babies with.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I see absolutely nothing stopping Nutaku from offering a full version of your game on their website, for free, or even as a subscription, without you having any say in the matter once you've agreed to the TOS on Kimochi, which is a subsidiary of Nutaku as far as I can tell...

Er... Personally I see a lot of things stopping them to do so, starting by the fact that Nutaku is not what you seem to think.

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:
"Nutaku is the first English-language game platform dedicated to adult titles. With a talented team of website developers and media specialists, we provide game makers a comprehensive distribution platform that offers unparalleled options for bringing their products to market."

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:
"Whether premium or freemium, we provide payment solutions that allow your players to make purchases with every major credit card, PayPal, and other international local processors."

They just are an adult version of steam. And one day they started a Patreon-like site because there's creators that need money before they finish their games. For them it's all benefits. They make money because you use Kimochi to fund your creation process, then why not making more money because you'll also use Nutaku to distribute your game ?

According to their ToS, they both (Kimochi and Nutaku) depend of the laws of Luxembourg, and the Grand Duchy is member of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. This imply that they can't do anything they want and can't deprived you of your basics rights over your creations.
Yes, they cover their ass in their ToS, and perhaps are a little aggressive by doing it, but for me that's all. They'll not shoot themselves in the foot with a naval gun by starting stealing works of their own customers.
Anyway, I'm still not sure that they really are aggressive. When you remove the annoying verbiage, you get : "You grant to us, [..] the [ right ] to [...] exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content."
My English skills can be in fault, but for me this part don't even give them the right to use your game by itself.

I understand that you fear for your works, but for me it's more paranoia than anything else. It's not bad to be paranoid, especially in case like this one, but it shouldn't stop you to also be realist.

 

[OhWee]

Except that you've given Kimochi the rights to COMMERCIALIZE and EXPLOIT as well as modify your game, not just a derivative of it. Patreon uses the derivative word, Kimochi does not, and Patreon doesn't use the words Commercialize and Exploit, in fact Patreon states the opposite, mentioning that they WON'T use it in an exploitative way.

And if you had not agreed to the TOS, yeah maybe the rights of whatever province might carry more weight, but you WILL BE agreeing to sign your rights away with that TOS, which will count against you in court.

At least Patreon expresses their intent in their licensing text:

The purpose of this license is to allow us to operate Patreon, promote Patreon and promote your content on Patreon. We are not trying to steal your content or use it in an exploitative way.
​

Kimochi says no such thing in that section of Kimochi's TOS.

Feel free to take your chances with Kimochi though, if you are comfortable with their TOS and corporate structure, and them exploiting your game for their own purposes, without having to pay you royalties in the process. Nothing is stopping you.


I want to see the same thing as most everyone else in this thread (a practical alternative to Patreon), but I for one wouldn't give away the full rights to my own stuff so easily...

 

[Ark Thompson]

This whole speech over Kimochi is a bit sterile for the simple reason that Kimochi/Nutaku forbids bestiality and underage too (and maybe even incest, I didn't ask when they got bought by Nutaku). So it's just NOT a good alternative.

As for the whole Hatreon thing, I'll simply say that it's easy for people to say "don't go there, they're fuckers", but when you have litterally NO OTHER CHOICES, you take that one rather than putting an end to your game-making career.

For those interested I made a huge post on the "main" Patreon topic about Enty, the Japanese Patreon.

 

[Ignazzio]

This whole speech over Kimochi is a bit sterile for the simple reason that Kimochi/Nutaku forbids bestiality and underage too

Isn't underage forbidden everywhere? I don't talk about japanese-like loli but straight underage.
As for Enty - it's the best alternative indeed but has some serious flaws. It looks very similiar to Patreon and therefore it's really useful. It's Japanese so you can post any fetish and don't care about USA. But they don't use a Paypal which is the major flaw as well as they seem to be unprepared for an english-speaking audience (yen pledges?). If they would fix it, it would easily like a better Patreon. It could work as a bridge between western and japanese industry widening them both. But it's easy to say. I doubt they can make paypal transactions and that's a big deal

 

[greyknight]

Isn't underage forbidden everywhere? I don't talk about japanese-like loli but straight underage.

In the US this is a grey area, depends on your State. In Texas, photos of minors as Porn is illegal, but the statute does not say anything about literature or computer graphics (as long as they aren't photo-realistic or made to obviously resemble a specific child). Basically unless a State has an explicit law banning it these issues tend to fall under the general obscenity standard which you can paraphrase as reasonable people or your community would agree that this material is disgusting stuff with no educational, literary, etc. value. At that point you have to look at case law to see if the State ever tried to get fictional material banned and succeeded. If the State has a big winning track record no company is going to want to touch that stuff even though there may not be a specific law against it. I am not a lawyer, I just like free speech, so don't take what I say as legal advice.

Oh one more thing. Adult sites don't operate in a silo. They have to rely on banks, paypal, credit card companies that each have a TOS agreement for the financial back end. Also the ISP and web hosting companies have TOS too. All these private entities can restrict what content a site can allow. It's not just about the law.

 

[Ark Thompson]

Isn't underage forbidden everywhere? I don't talk about japanese-like loli but straight underage.

Hm... So to you a loli isn't a straight underage depiction? Why so? Are you actually meaning that you oppose 2D to 3D?

And as strange as it can sound, the fetish being the most feared isn't underage but bestiality. BOTH in Japan and US.

In Japan, bestiality is a banned keyword on sites like DLsite or DMM. While those sell loli stuff without any problem (And I'm not talking 13 years old lolis...). And in the US, mangagamer refused to sell my game because there's bestiality while they sell loli stuff (like

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or

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) Do I need to mention that games like Euphoria (also starring technically underaged characters since they're high schoolers) are also okay cause they ONLY picture torture and snuff? 8D

So no, the biggest problem is bestiality. As it looks like, there are more and more sites that consider this particular fetish to be THE fetish to ban D:

 

[Drafox]

Is furry considered bestiality? I'm not into bestiality but I like furries lol

 

[greyknight]

Is furry considered bestiality? I'm not into bestiality but I like furries lol

I think sites generally consider furry ok. For example, Amazon is a hard no to bestiality but they allow ecchi monster girl books and manga to be sold, which is a distinction without a difference IMHO. There is also a huge amount of were-animal paranormal erotica too. On Patreon, Fek and Fenoxo Fenfen still seem to be alive and well.

 

[Benn Swagger]

I think the whole Kimochi's speculation/assesment can only be done by practical example and wait from any whistle-blower-user who use their site. Sometimes, it just about miscommunication, but sometimes, it's happening as prediction. I'm gonna wait for it, while still suggesting people to using Patreon with respecting their ToS & Guidelines but hidden your true content in someways.

Come on, nothing to lose still using Patreon but hidden your true content with many tricks. If they caught you, then you try any other alternative you can think of. But until then, Patreon proven they didn't steal your content while other Patreon-Wannabe still have a lot of doubts and lots to prove that they can be the new safe haven harbor for any ex-Patreon-reject.

 

[Ark Thompson]

Is furry considered bestiality? I'm not into bestiality but I like furries lol

In 95% of cases no, furry isn't considered bestiality. Cause furry bestiality exists. You can find pics of what... That rabbit from zootopia getting fucked by a normal dog. The difference is huge. A furry's basically a human with an animal skin. While animals are... well, animals x)

For example, Amazon is a hard no to bestiality but they allow ecchi monster girl books and manga to be sold, which is a distinction without a difference IMHO.

In the US maybe, not in Japan. They sell bestiality mangas without any problems. As long as there's money to do, they don't care. Reason it's forbidden in the US is because of the laws, not because of their ethics or else it would be forbidden everywhere But yeah, monster girls are very close to the concept of furry (at least for me) so it's normal it's allowed.

I think the whole Kimochi's speculation/assesment can only be done by practical example and wait from any whistle-blower-user who use their site.

I'd like to point out I'm not speculating about what I said: I worked with Kimochi before their Steam-like software was available and I even sold my games through it. I got kicked out when they got bought by Nutaku cause loli and bestiality where no more allowed.