Please do something about leaking patreon feed to Yiff Party

The website name Yiff Party.
shared ‘all’ patrons’ only post on there website. “FOR FREE”
This situation effect my friends and I who working on creating NSFW arts.
Any way to prevent this kind of acts? ‘The patron’s only’ are now not patrons only at all.
Patreon’s support please look into this situation.

6 Likes

Yeah, it has affected me as well.

The best way to prevent skimmers is to DM your content to your patrons directly and not post it in the blog. (I post web sized/teasers and WIP’s to the blog but everything high res or big bundle projects I only DM directly to people. So, sometimes my images do get leaked but at least they are only the small web size that will get posted eventually publicly anyways.)

If you have the Pay Upfront feature, you can use that but make sure that you read all the information on it because once you use it, you cannot stop using it. It is permanent. If you don’t have it, @carla may be able to look into getting it setup for you.

Otherwise, this is unfortunately a problem we’ve had since the early days of patreon. Since people can pledge and view content without having to pay, people skim content and repost it. The only sure fire way to deliver content to paid people only (as long as one of them isn’t paying just to repost) is to message them privately.

2 Likes

Thank you very much for the advice. I will try using this methods.
Are there any process to get a paid up front? Or only DM to @carla?

1 Like

No problem.

You are supposed to get the feature if you have been an active patreon creator for a few months but that seems to not be working for everyone. I know people who are super active and have been for years and still don’t have it. We usually just add a staff member to the thread about it and it usually gets handled. Maybe wait a couple days and see if @carla responds here, then maybe DM her if you don’t hear back?

Let me dig into this! I’ll report back :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Thank you so much! :blush:

One option is to file DMCA complaints with yiff.party’s web hosting company, gandi.net. Their form is here: https://v4.gandi.net/abuse

2 Likes

To be honest, leaking is part of a larger problem that more boils down to how you wanna allocate your resources / run your page.

I’m not gonna say something like “paywalls aren’t good” or whatever, but it’s something you have to consider if choosing to rely mostly on locked content. You gotta be prepared to devote resources to tackling leakers and reposters. (Or, you can try to ignore them.)

Fact of the matter is, even if you take down Yiff Party, it’s not gonna stop this from being a problem. The broader a population, the more leaks you’ll find. It’s always been a problem for digital artists. Usually the people using these sites were never planning to pay in the first place, so it doesn’t have as big an impact on your earnings / pledges as you’d initially think.

The ideology behind a Patreon, even from its own guides and advice and even public perceptions, is it’s a way to support creators first and foremost, not just a way to get access to art or whatnot. People usually will pledge because they want to support you, not just to get the rewards. This isn’t a rule or anything and doesn’t mean you need to avoid paywalls, but it’s still worth a consideration with how you view scenarios like this. (I’ve had a few patrons pledge JUST because they wanted art from me and it really did result in a strained relationship with them that wasn’t healthy.)

I personally don’t wall off my content–all of it is freely viewable after a certain time period through my blogs. My patrons know this, and they can get a few days early access (or a few weeks if it’s an animation), as well as things like source files or higher res pictures. As a result it’s not a big deal when my stuff gets booted over to sites like Gelbooru–I’ve already posted it publicly by the time it gets there. And for my animations I can put ina big ol’ disclaimer that “This was supported through Patreon! Consider pledging to help more things like this be made” etc. (This is a bit less of an option for static art.) I’ve actually gained patrons from people reuploading my animations to aggregate sites.

This obviously might not work for everyone, but at the very least it is a possible successful model. Overall though the point is leaks lose a lot of power if you’re publicly offering your stuff regardless in some way, and that’s a consideration to make when debating whether or not to paywall content.

(Just don’t send a DMCA directly to Yiff Party because they WILL post your information publicly.)

5 Likes

I’ve heard about these sites but this is the first one I’ve actually seen myself. Not terribly pleased to find stuff on there I released specifically for my patrons. I do distribute some material through messages only to combat this (and obviously these people can’t get my physical rewards, which is one reason I offer them) but it’s still frustrating to see all my posts dumped in the open where anyone can get at them.

I’ve asked for charge upfront with no response before. I’d at least like the ability to turn off access to my material before a patron has paid. Every month I have a few people who sign up with very obviously fake accounts who, if I don’t block them, turn out to be fraud come the next pay cycle. Once someone used a whole name and avatar from a Twitter account I contacted about it and the Twitter user said it was not their Patreon account. Some of those may be people looking to skim my posts. There simply needs to be better fraud protection as a priority improvement if we can’t get charge upfront available for everyone now.

3 Likes

I think @Zedrin has a good point. Piracy is not a new problem, and it’s not really a solvable one.
And pirates aren’t your customers anyway. They’re never going to convert to paying customers. Their customers aren’t going to convert either. :confused:

Making sure you’ve got a link on your images somewhere that leads back to your website is about as good as you can manage to get the people who might have twinges of conscience to come look you up. If you can prevent people from cropping that (people are lazy though, they sometimes don’t). Doesn’t look like these people even care to fail to name the artist, so that’s at least something going for you. :,

Technological arms races can only be won by culture change, not by a new technology. We just have to keep finding ways to teach people that artists deserve to be paid for their services.

1 Like

I totally agree on making sure your website URL is on your piece and trying to teach people. Though certainly a pick your battles sort of deal. A good number of people don’t care and don’t want to hear what you have to say because they think we have no rights because it’s the internet.

I feel like even if it is a normal way of the world currently, that we should still fight back with DMCA’s where possible and stand up for our rights. Sometimes, that is a way of teaching and sometimes it’s really just the only way (and sometimes it only enrages people. Again, pick your battles wisely.)

Regardless, I still would think that having the option to, or simply having the feature that people cannot see content until they’ve successfully paid, is overall a good thing. Piracy will always happen but culturally as well, companies like Patreon and other such places, doing more to help protect artists’ content can also shift the balance of how people today view this sort of thing. It can influence change.

2 Likes

One other thing worth noting: you can also register your copyrights.

This would allow you to pursue a lawsuit against people who do this kind of stuff, beyond just a takedown notice that they can ignore.

It’s a matter of if you think that’s a battle you want to take.

1 Like

I use charge upfront, and I’m not an adult creator, and all but 50 of my ~430 posts have been stolen and posted to this site. They have a tool specifically to import from charge upfront creators that relies on patrons uploading the content of the creators they pledge to: https://yiff.party/import

My personal leaker hasn’t shared my patron-only posts since October 15 and is/was probably in my $2 tier. Now only my public posts are being shared - including early access posts that have gone public.

As @Temrin said, what hasn’t been stolen and posted (yet) is my higher tier rewards which I host on an offsite password-protected gallery. I DM the login to the patrons in the tier every time the gallery is updated.

Needless to say, I’d love to see this site taken down.

3 Likes

Sorry to double-post on this, but after looking closer, the thing I find even more disturbing than the leaking of my content itself is the fact that my patrons’ comments are leaked as well, along with direct links to their Patreon profiles.

@carla Any news about how/whether Patreon can intervene in handling this site? If it will be left to creators to take legal action (which, of course, isn’t feasible for all of us), what can be done to protect the privacy of patrons who thought they were posting comments to protected feeds?

3 Likes

Yea, I saw this the other night… As a creator that releases all my content for free after a set amount of time the leaks themselves aren’t much more than a big annoyance (and a bit of a slap in the face), but I must agree that the comments leaking is a pretty huge deal. It’s a big privacy issue. Far from everyone wants it publicly known who they support or what they say in their comments.

I’m not enough of a computer wizz to really propose any good solutions, but I need to voice my concern anyhow.

1 Like

Thanks raised this to the Trust & Safety – will report back.

3 Likes

OK - please know we’re continuing to monitor, but here is the current advice from our Community Happiness team:

Unfortunately, Patreon cannot take direct legal action against the website since all the content on your Patreon page is owned by you. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows you as the Copyright owner to request an internet service provider to take down any content that you believe infringes your original work by submitting a DMCA takedown notice.

A DMCA takedown notice is a message sent to an internet service provider notifying them that a user is utilizing their service to host or transmit copyrighted works. It serves as an order to the service provider to review and remove any infringing material. If a service provider fails to take down the content after receiving a DMCA notice fulfilling all the requirements, then they open themselves up for potential liability for assisting with copyright infringement.

Please find below the contact information for Service Providers hosting Yiff.Party .

(i) Domain Registrar:
Name: Gandi SAS
Email address: abuse@support.gandi.net
Online complaint form: https://v4.gandi.net/abuse

(ii) Hosting / CDN provider:
Name: CloudFlare, Inc.
Online complaint form: https://www.cloudflare.com/abuse/form

We encourage you to reach out to the above persons and submit a “DMCA takedown notice for Copyright infringement” under the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §512(g)(3) if you believe that your content is being infringed upon by Yiff.Party. You can fill out the online form available on their website or send them a Notice via email. We suggest doing both if there is an email address available.

Your DMCA takedown notice must include the following information:

Your electronic or physical signature, or the electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on your (owner of the copyrighted interest’s) behalf;
A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Site - you can include the hyperlinks to the exact location of your content on the Yiff.Party website;
Your address, telephone number, and email address;
A statement by you that you understand that under 17 U.S.C § 512(f) you may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, if you knowingly and materially misrepresent that reported material or activity is infringing;
A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
A statement by you that the information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.
For the above declarations, you can use this statement: “I, <<>> attest, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that use of the material in this complaint is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; AND I am authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner; AND I understand that, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), I may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, if I knowingly materially misrepresent reported material.”

Please send the notice in English language only.

As mentioned above, once you send the notice fulfilling all requirements, the service providers are liable under the DMCA rules to review the content and remove the content if it is infringing upon your copyright.

Since the DMCA notice is a legal process, we cannot provide legal advice on whether you should send a DMCA notice. We strongly suggest that you consult an outside Legal Counsel before submitting the notification, or to answer any further questions about the DMCA. We are providing the information here only as general guidance and it may not apply to your specific situation.

5 Likes

@carla, can Patreon take any action on behalf of patrons whose comments on non-public posts are being made public?

Also, just a heads up to creators: do not waste your time sending DMCA materials to anyone at yiff.party. They think the complaints are hilarious, and will post the personal information you put on the form. Send the DMCA to the web hosting company.

3 Likes

I’ve raised this to Trust & Safety and will report back if they have an answer.

1 Like

Ouch, that’s terrible. I had switched to emailing content a while back because of people signing up to download everything, then cancelling the pledge. I saved myself the headache this go around though.