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Re: Adult games's news

Postby Mortze » Wed, 18Mar14 15:31

In the European Union, and I believe that in Canada and Australia as well (can't say for the USA), the law forbids any company or business to practice discrimination in consumers or employees treatment. They can't favor hiring a white person over a black person and they can't refuse to serve a homosexual consumer. Those are rights protected in the Constitution of those countries (for those who have one). No one can't be discriminated because of gender, race, religion, sexual preference.
That said, I can vouch that nowhere in the EU is a business obligated to provide a service or sell something that wasn't contractually agreed beforehand. Some companies that provide a community service (such as power company, water company, gas company, transports company, etc) are obligated to provide a product but that's because they are contractually obligated to do so, and they deliver a public service delegated by the government.
Private companies, like Patreon, or your local ice-cream provider, aren't obligated to deliver anything. They are obligated NOT to deliver prohibited services or goods, but they aren't obligated to deliver anything. The only obligation is towards their share-holders, not the community, not the law.

Now, I'll suppose California laws function similarly, and Patreon has the liberty to allow creators to use its platform to promote anything it wants, to the extent that it's not a law-prohibited content. If it's legal content (such as Incest might be under Californian law or Federal law, I don't know), Patreon reserves to itself the right to arbitrary decide to allow it or not and no court of law has the power to decide otherwise.
The matter would be entirely different, and more complex, if Patreon decided to ban homosexual non-sexual content, like a gay person's blog about his life or something like that. If Patreon allowed heterosexual people to blog about their life but banned a homosexual blog that would be discrimination, and therefore an illegal treatment, eligible for court action. Despite that, if Patreon decided to ban ALL life blogs then it wouldn't be discrimination at all and that wouldn't be eligible to a court action.

Shark doesn't have legal substance to sue the store for his favorite ice-cream, I'm afraid. Unless he could prove that the store did that to avoid Shark, specifically, to set foot in the store, and therefore, practicing an indirect discrimination... and that would be a very long shot, without just cause in my opinion, because such discrimination would be based on Shark's volition. He could still enter the store and buy other ice-creams, and the store couldn't do anything about it.
Likewise, Patreon isn't banning anyone from its services. The webcam sexy host that depended on Patreon for her income wasn't banned from the site; her content was. She can always open a new page about a webcam hostess blog and try to make income from that.
Patreon has open arms to any creator who wants to do art. Patreon won't just accept any kind of art, because, let's face it, the concept of art has been perverted and abused for the sake of easy income. A webcam masturbation show for the 20$ tier patrons isn't - not to my sensibility - properly art.

It seems to me that Patreon didn't anticipated the abusive behaviors, and that was their sin. It may not have had guidelines about forbidding Incest from the start but it sure has always said, from the beginning, that it wasn't a pornography friendly platform. There no doubt about it.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby LRM » Wed, 18Mar14 18:39

Well put Mortze and Lady T.
I am not a lawyer, I do know Mortze is basically correct about discrimination in the US of A.

A couple of notable exceptions... some drug stores in Washington State have refused to provide birth control pills because the pharmacist claims it a violation of her/his religion. IMO If you can/will not dispense legal drugs you should not be in that profession!!!
I've heard of a couple of court cases pending and I'm unsure of current status. A florist and a baker have/had a suit filed against them for not providing flowers and/or a cake for same-sex couples, again based on religious reasons. IMO any such blatant denial of service based on race, religion, or sexual preference is wrong!

Patreon IMO has every right to refuse service for anything their rules prohibit. IMO they should have the right to change their rules provided everyone in violation of the new rule is treated equally, and the new rule violates no Federal or State law.
@ yahoo; Methinks thou doth protest too much... Does their enforcement have a negative impact on your income?

@Shark; Smuckers provides jam and jellies... They used to provide Red Current jelly and do no longer... I was disappointed and should I file suit to force they provide it again I'm quite sure the Judge would rule in their favor, look me in the eye, and declare "tough shit"... then require me to pay damages and lawyers fees.

@ Greyelf; Sorry I overlooked your post. You are well spoken and I agree with the vast majority of your posts. Thanks for being an active member.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby Mortze » Wed, 18Mar14 19:44

LRM wrote:Patreon IMO has every right to refuse service for anything their rules prohibit. IMO they should have the right to change their rules provided everyone in violation of the new rule is treated equally, and the new rule violates no Federal or State law.


The only problem I see is exactly that. I see Incest games creators that have had their content utterly banned and forced to do another type of game, and I see other creators that had their page under revision but now everything seems OK for them despite the game having nothing changed.
Despite all that I've said I think there hasn't been a fair treatment (meaning treating every incest game creator the same way) for everyone.
I won't speculate about the reasons why, I'm just stating a fact.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby yahoo » Wed, 18Mar14 20:50

Let me clarify something up front. I don't really care one way or another about incest creators. I'm not a lawyer, but in my opinion, it's legal content, and it would be similar to denying homosexual themes ~30-40 years ago. People would be having a largely similar discussion then, with the same arguments brought up. Hindsight is 20-20.

Patreon is a no barrier access site, assuming you follow their rules. Those rules are stated in their terms of use and these terms of use are subject to change, but you imagine the changes would be motivated by law, such as by a binding court order, some executive order, or regulations. Not because the site owners change something on a whim.
Or so you might think, because those rules were revised in November (or was it October), and a lot of content went under review.
As I mentioned in my first post, it's unlikely to be because of Patreon proper, I think it's likely due to Paypal, and I suppose the affected creators were told in no uncertain terms to take this up to Paypal if they feel like fighting.

Was the treatment fair? In my opinion, no. This affected the income of quite a lot of people, not only the creators themselves, but also people employed by them. The big problem was that there was no grandfathering of rules, no way to discuss terms with Patreon, no way to find a middle ground, or even compromise such as, "from now on, you cannot be funded by Paypal, until you comply with their rules, but you can be funded by other means."

Perhaps I muddied the waters here by comparing the situation to a shopkeeper, but it's more like a landlord throwing out tenants because they pained their apartment green. It was a single-sided change of terms of tenancy, and the landlord previously agreed to the green color. Now that he found other tenants (more agreeable to other tenants or their guests), he's pleased to throw them out.

This could have been handle much better by Patreon. As such, it's a perfect example of how not to handle things like this.

Stepping away from the legalities, shucks, I'm glad to see incest content gone. If anything, this will mean that some creators out for a quick buck will have to look harder for themes to easily exploit -- I noticed nearly every project that stayed at 0.0.1 release carried incest.
Also, those titles slurred Patreon's good name very effectively. For every high quality release that took lots of effort, it looked like there were twenty that were mediocre, if not terrible, where the creator only cared for a quick buck for a month or three.

However, some of the titles had top notch art and execution. Maybe redoing those games without incest will actually attract more patrons, maybe not. Certainly there's room for improvement.

Finally, some of those games were downright nasty, and carried content that's clearly illegal. I'm curious as to whether Patreon will crack down on them, too. By nasty/illegal, I mean games that feature harassment, rape, manipulation, voyeurism, and so on.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby MaxCarna » Wed, 18Mar14 21:43

Just adding some info on the discussion, this are the 100 top Patreon's creatores https://graphtreon.com/patreon-creators. NSFW is very representative, in numbers of Patrons, is not a small part of Patreon's public.

About law's discussion, considering my knowledge and my countrie's law code, even if Patreon decide to ban all NFSW content, there is no reason to someone sue them. Looking for the international context, this is even harder to consider, every country having their own jurisprudence.

My point of concern was: will Patreon sustain the current guideline and it's secure for me invest money in hardwares, graphic props, invest days and nights just on planning, expecting to sustain a project based on their platform? Or Patreon can change the guideline again and start to consider my content improper, abruptaly cutting my income?

I know that many people think that making games is an art, it should not be seen as a business, but it is a venture. You have to plan, allocate resources, make schedules, define a delivery model, and so on.

Creators that are there before Patreon, like many here, probably have others incomes, others business models, webpages... but new creators don't have this expertise, the structure. They are more exposed to these changes.

Personally, gathering everything said, I will keep my current dedication, but keeping the eye opened to new guideline changes and for a new competitor to show up. New hardwares acquision definetely on hold. Thankfully Daz are not making good offers lately, so I'm slowing down there too.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby Mortze » Wed, 18Mar14 23:23

Personally, I'm just thinking that what Patreon did to some NSFW creators, Paypal did to Patreon just before.
Paypal must have issued an ultimatum to Patreon to either quickly filter some content they didn't like or find another money transfer system.
Patreon then found itself in the ungrateful situation where they had to choose between staying true to their principles and loose Paypal as a platform or cutting income to some of its creators.
I'm not knowledgeable on good and serious alternatives for Paypal, or Patreon's contractual terms with Paypal, but I think Patreon didn't have much choice.
It just smells to me like it was something they didn't desire but were forced to do.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby shark » Thu, 18Mar15 00:27

I think that when patreon negotiated with paypal, at first, it did not expect the website to be invaded by pornography (that paypal don't like very much).
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby MaxCarna » Thu, 18Mar15 02:28

Mortze wrote:Personally, I'm just thinking that what Patreon did to some NSFW creators, Paypal did to Patreon just before.


That's true, not only with Patreon, it was something very broadly. They had to call back later

The irony is that I only received my first payout through Paypal and I hated it. Payoneer is thousand times better. But seems most of patrons pay through Paypal.

I have many friends that have their payments frozen because Paypal declare some kind of fraud, with no evidence at all. But let's wait, many fast payments services are popping up.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby tlaero » Thu, 18Mar15 04:21

shark wrote: I ask a question : is there a country where you can force a merchant to sell a product?


I'm aware of one case of this. In many places in the USA, Cable Television opperators were given state-granted monopolies but were required to carry a few government channels (CSpan, etc). But, effectively, the government paid for the few channels with the monopoly, so that's not really the same.

I guess I can think of a second case. Schools have nutritional requirements in their lunches. They're effectively saying, "You must sell vegetables."

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Re: Adult games's news

Postby LRM » Thu, 18Mar15 06:14

tlaero wrote:
shark wrote: I ask a question : is there a country where you can force a merchant to sell a product?


I'm aware of one case of this. In many places in the USA, Cable Television opperators were given state-granted monopolies but were required to carry a few government channels (CSpan, etc). But, effectively, the government paid for the few channels with the monopoly, so that's not really the same.

I guess I can think of a second case. Schools have nutritional requirements in their lunches. They're effectively saying, "You must sell vegetables."

Tlaero

But the Federal government pays a sizable portion of school lunch cost... of course, they also mandate what the lunch is comprised of... where else can you call ketchup a vegetable?
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby yahoo » Thu, 18Mar15 11:28

LRM wrote:But the Federal government pays a sizable portion of school lunch cost... of course, they also mandate what the lunch is comprised of... where else can you call ketchup a vegetable?

I remember it was the literal implementation of "5 portions of fruit/vegatables per day", and I seem to recall that there was a discussion whether to include a ketchup as a portion of vegetables or not, and it was a classic example of a fight between ideology and facts, where one faction argued that ketchup fulfills all the definitions provided, while the other appealed to the "spirit" of the rules, where they wanted to nurture new eating trends by curbing junk foods instead of the ostensible goal.

--

Back to the topic, I'd like to extend my landlord analogy to cover both sides.
The creators shut out of Patreon would argue that it's the green walls controversy.
I guess a more apt comparison would be that the tenant being thrown out was listening to dubstep (or any other disagreeable "music", whumpa-whumpa), and the landlord changed the rules to prohibit dubstep, even though there were no such prohibitions before. Whether the change is on a whim or forced by a 3rd party (city council akin to Paypal) is immaterial, the tenant hears the rule change from the landlord who bears full responsibility for catering to demands of all.

It's unfair treatment, since Patreon has no upper limit to the number of creators that can use it, and technologically doesn't have any reason to deny service.

Thinking about it, I don't think there's any way for legal recourse here.
Paypal is too big to be affected or successfully sued for this, Patreon could be sued, but would simply defend by showing Paypal's decision and unless Paypal exploited its monopoly position by forbidding Patreon to use alternative payment processors, there's really nothing to fight for here.
Especially since you wouldn't find a lawyer to voluntarily take a case to court for incest creators.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby Greyelf » Fri, 18Mar16 04:15

yahoo wrote:The big problem was that there was no grandfathering of rules...

One potential legal issue with grandfathering(1) is that it can be seen as a form of discrimination, because it would end up in a situation where one set of general account holders (those with older projects) are officially being allowed to do something that another set of general account holders aren't. Which is one reason why grandfathering is generally not a good idea.

(1) in this use-case officially letting a set of account holders create restricted content.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby yahoo » Fri, 18Mar16 07:13

Greyelf wrote:
yahoo wrote:The big problem was that there was no grandfathering of rules...

One potential legal issue with grandfathering(1) is that it can be seen as a form of discrimination, because it would end up in a situation where one set of general account holders (those with older projects) are officially being allowed to do something that another set of general account holders aren't. Which is one reason why grandfathering is generally not a good idea.

(1) in this use-case officially letting a set of account holders create restricted content.

I was thinking more along the lines of, "We'll let you finish the project(s) you're working on right now, but you need to show commitment, make a roadmap that shows your direction, duration of the project, and a clear finish; also, you can't back off from where you already are now, start from scratch or transfer it to any other creator."
That would be enough to let projects taper off and do so at a predictable pace. If the roadmap is not satisfactory to Patreon or patrons (drags out too long or doesn't have anything substantial), it could be rejected, or patrons could start withdrawing their pledges, so everyone is happy.

By the way, looking at high profile incest creators, did anyone else notice that Gumdrop Games didn't appear hit by this rule enforcement? That's even though his game is very clearly in the genre and, to be honest, I can't see a way for him to back out of the content without creating a completely different game.
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby MaxCarna » Fri, 18Mar16 09:30

yahoo wrote:I can't see a way for him to back out of the content without creating a completely different game.


Nothing is impossible, in some games they just replaced "mom" for "landlady" and "sister" for a actual name like "Alice" and they are good to go.

Audacity or just a try to see if the system was that serious, seems to have worked
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Re: Adult games's news

Postby yahoo » Tue, 18Mar20 19:53

I gave it another thought and it seems incest creators don't have a leg to stand on, it seems that they absolutely were violating rules, although Patreon did nothing about it for the first few years.
What still amazes me is how many incest creators there were and how some other site can pop up, catering specifically to them.
It doesn't seem now that Patreon might take down adult content since they managed to convince Paypal to agree to provide funding for adult content, but in case there is ever another crackdown, I don't think it will be directed at erotic games, it's more likely to be directed at straight up porn.
If I were in any way reliant on Patreon for any sizable portion of my income, I would definitely make contingency plans to migrate to another service as a precaution, and communicate that plan to my patrons. As in have a website and have all patrons know its address, so I can let them know I switched providers as soon as it happens.
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