Tag: ELoE

Or at least they’re going to try. Patreon’s lawyers are now running around making ludicrous threats about how they are going to overturn California’s consumer protection laws, Patreon’s own Terms of Use, and the JAMS arbitration rules by shrieking very loudly about how unfair it is for Patreon’s users to make it live up to the terms of its own contract. It’s a bold move, Cotton, and it’s obviously inspired by Patreon’s hope to go public before the markets crash.

When is the Patreon IPO date?

The official date for the Patreon IPO has yet to be announced, but it will become public information once Patreon publicizes their paperwork with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). As of February, they maintained a confidential filing to keep investors out of the loop for as long as possible. While it sounds malicious, it’s quite common—particularly during an era of extreme unpredictability in the market and economy alike. 

What investors need to know ahead of the Patreon IPO 

Regardless of what method the company uses to get to market, investors ought to act with caution and ensure they do adequate research before putting money into any company or security. This is called doing your due diligence, and it is truly up to every individual investor to do so.

While a direct listing may seem “easier” to access for retail investors when compared to a traditional IPO, that doesn’t mean that it makes it a guaranteed better investment than other companies.

In regards to Patreon, the platform has seen extensive growth over the past years, and has brought on plenty of new talent to the platform as well. Their loyalty lies with the content creators that call Patreon home, as evidenced by their recent hire of Joe Budden as head of creator equity. In this role, Budden will act as a liaison of sorts between the platform and creators. It shows that Patreon is committed to a just corporate structure that benefits their creators rather than solely uplifting the executive chairs.

You might be wondering what the difference between Patreon and a GoFundMe-type platform is. Honestly, it’s a valid question whether or not you’re an investor. 

Patreon’s market niche lies within their offering of month-to-month subscription services, much like a cable television subscription or other monthly subscription boxes that have gained in popularity as of late. Whereas a GoFundMe centers largely around a one-time donation, Patreon gives fans the opportunity to receive exclusive content for a monthly premium. Exclusive, a word that is usually just for show, holds substantial value on Patreon. 

Creators post content that their fans won’t be able to find anywhere else, things like exclusive podcast episodes, tutorials, or access to merchandise. This adds another layer to Patreon’s appeal for both creators and fans alike. 

Investors would have to be totally crazy to buy into Patreon’s IPO, especially at the obvious peak of the financial bubble. A lot of that “content that their fans won’t be able to find anywhere else” is adult content that very often crosses the line into illegal content. As of March 31, 24 percent of Patreon’s revenue is derived from NSFW content, more than half of which is NSFW games, comics, and animation. These NSFW games are some of Patreon’s top creators, bringing in as much as $98,500 in monthly revenue while blatantly violating the fake “zero tolerance” policy that supposedly bans “rape, incest, and bestiality”. 

8797 Adult Drawing

8381 Adult Cosplay

6821 Adult Other

5130 Adult Comics

4164 Adult Games

3329 Adult Writing

2507 Adult Photography

1810 Adult Animation

1618 Adult Podcasts

_805 Adult Music

_224 Adult Dance & Theater

__99 Adult Magazine

__76 Adult Crafts

In other words, a not-inconsiderable portion of the exclusive content they are advertising can’t be found anywhere else can’t be found anywhere else because it is illegal. And the very worst stuff is what brings in the most money. Innocuous-sounding “games” like “Summertime Saga” and “Wild Life” go well beyond what you likely imagine NSFW game content to be, while other more openly dire creations are even worse than they sound. We’re not talking about Grand Theft Auto or Doom here, and despite being less than one-tenth of the NSFW creators, these obscene so-called games bring in about one-third of the aforementioned $6 million every month for the Filth Factory.

In addition to attempting to keep the full extent of their NSFW content under wraps, the reason Patreon is attempting to keep investors out of the loop is because the Filth Factory doesn’t want to let them know how much investor money has been blown on totally unnecessary litigation expenses, which based on the lawyer’s rants could already be rapidly approaching their entire annual net revenue for 2020. Now, imagine what would have happened if Sargon and all the others who were deplatformed had decided to stand up for their rights for once rather than whining and crying on the sympathy circuit.

Patreon wrongly thought that the Bears were afraid of court and tried to use it to get them out of arbitration. Now they’re doing precisely the opposite by trying to keep the Bears in arbitration, out of court, and off the public record. If you think about it, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out their motivation.

Apparently France permits lawsuits against tech companies breaching their own terms of service:

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched a lawsuit against Facebook in France, accusing the social media giant of breaching its own terms of service by allowing hate speech and misinformation to spread on its site.

The media watchdog group took the step to challenge Facebook over what it described as “misleading commercial practices” and a “massive proliferation” of problematic content on the company’s platform.

The legal action focuses on a section of Facebook’s policies that pledge to provide “a safe, secure and error-free environment” for users but RSF argues that hate speech and false information mean that the company is in breach of its own guidelines.

While the lawsuit has been filed in a French court, the group has named Facebook France and Facebook Ireland, as the Irish side manages some of the actions of the French branch.

If a court agrees that Facebook has engaged in “misleading commercial practices”, the company could face a fine of €1.5 million ($1.79 million), which can be increased to 10{3549d4179a0cbfd35266a886b325f66920645bb4445f165578a9e086cbc22d08} of the company’s average annual revenue over a three year period. 

I wonder if there might happen to be any other tech companies operating in the European Union that are engaged in misleading commercial practices that breach its own terms of service by allowing content for which it claims to have “zero tolerance”?

Hi Vox Day,

We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.

We know this is probably very upsetting news, but it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all. If we think a channel severely violates our policies, we take it down to protect other users on the platform – but if you believe we’ve made the wrong call, you can appeal this decision. You’ll find more information about the policy in question and how to submit an appeal below.

What our policy says

 Spam, scams or commercially deceptive content are not allowed on YouTube.

We have permanently removed your channel from YouTube. Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels. 

If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us here.

Sincerely,

The YouTube Team 

And so it begins… Although I have to observe that it is rather a puzzling hill for them to choose to defend. They backed down after posting false claims about the blog, so to make equally false claims about the YouTube channel barely one month later makes me suspect that it’s another low-level SJW abusing his position rather than corporate policy.

However, if they want a fight, then by all means, we will not hesitate to give them one! This is the one skull I’ve long dreamed of adding to my collection. And if you want to help, subscribe to UATV!

The Ride Never Ends.

Patreon tried to destroy consumer arbitration in America. The Legal Legion stopped them.

This is a little complicated, and obviously I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll try to explain what I am reliably informed by multiple sources has been taking place over the last two months in the Bears vs Patreon arbitrations. Keep in mind that these arbitrations are entirely separate matters from the Patreon vs Bears lawsuit, which has been underway since May in the San Francisco Superior Court.

Like all corporations that mandate arbitration but forbid group action in their terms of use, Patreon blanched at the cost of actually paying for all the arbitrations that its contract with its users requires it to pay. This is normal, and every company that has been hit by mass arbitrations from employees or consumers, from Uber to Doordash, has desperately – and unsuccessfully – tried to get out of paying for the costs that its own lawyers required it to pay when they wrote the contract that was forced upon its users or employees. I’ve written in some detail about the irony of these entirely predictable reactions in Corporate Cancer.

Patreon behaved like all the other corporations before it in trying to evade these obligatory expenses, which is why it filed the lawsuit against the Bears in order to try to stop the arbitrations. That lawsuit is doomed to fail, just like all the other previous corporations’ lawsuits have, which is presumably why Patreon’s lawyers came up with a clever, and very nasty, little legal trick that is based on a little-known California law called 998. It’s complicated, I’d never even heard of it, and I’m still not sure I understand it completely despite reading through it several times, but basically it works like this:

1. One party makes an offer to declare the second party the winner. This offer is monetary and may or may not include an offer to pay the second party’s legal fees.
2. If the second party accepts the offer, it’s over. 
3. If the second party does not accept the offer, the first party has the right to have all of its legal fees and legal costs paid by the second party if the second party does not win an award that is greater than the amount offered by the first party.

It’s a sort of legal ju-jitsu, in which one party’s victory in court or arbitration can be transformed into a massively expensive defeat by a properly calibrated 998 offer. Fortunately, the Legal Legion immediately recognized that the way these offers put the Bears in potential danger of being forced to pay Patreon’s legal costs was an obvious violation of the JAMS rules as well as the California consumer protection laws. So, they objected to the offers and pointed out how the offers were a violation of JAMS policy as well as the law. JAMS agreed and banned the offers, but Patreon objected to the ban, so JAMS said its version of the Supreme Court, which interprets the JAMS rules and sets its official policies, would permit all of the interested parties to make their points about the pros and cons of the ban.

Patreon made its arguments, the Legal Legion presented its arguments, and I’m told that yesterday, the JAMS Supreme Court affirmed the JAMS ban on 998 offers in consumer arbitration, which means that Patreon’s most recent attempt to escape its growing arbitration and legal costs is as dead as all of the previous attempts made by every other corporation that requires arbitration when actually faced with it.

But this victory is arguably more important than the others, because I’m told that Patreon’s 998 tactic, if successful, would have completely eliminated consumer arbitration in California, which is where most US technology corporations are headquartered. So this is not only good news for the Bears, it is good news for America. It is probably not, however, good news for DLive….

Patreon changes its Terms of Use again:

Dispute resolution

To summarize: If you have a problem please talk to us. Any disputes with us must be resolved in San Francisco under California law.

We encourage you to contact us if you have an issue. If a dispute does arise out of these terms or in relation to your use of Patreon, then the dispute will be resolved in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco, California. Both parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the San Francisco courts for the purpose of resolving any such dispute.

California law, excluding its conflict of law provisions, governs these terms, all other Patreon policies, and any dispute that arises between you and Patreon.

Translation: they’re losing the consumer arbitrations so badly that they’re running away from arbitration altogether. Compare it to the old terms if you don’t understand what the new language signifies.

The lesson, as always, is this: don’t fuck with the Legal Legion.

They’re practically begging for it now. That’s straight-up defamation and it is completely and utterly untrue. The only entity recording information here is Google themselves.

PLEASE STOP SENDING RED SCREEN SCREENSHOTS. I already have hundreds. 

Then we dance, and ever so beautifully:

Google put up a full page red warning against this page. A warning that it contains malicious software. It did let me through after a couple clicks.

Smells like defamation. This may have been a major miscalculation on some low-level SJWs part that will hand us skulls on a silver platter. First, there are no apps or software on this site. Second, this site is hosted by a Google-owned company. Third, I know what they’re doing and how to prove it to a jury. So, if you’re outside the USA and you know how to take a video of your screen, email me and I will provide you with instructions. We only need one video per country, so if you see your country crossed off, don’t email me.

• USA
• UK
• Brazil
• Canada
• Singapore
• Denmark
• Hungary
• Japan
• Germany
• France
• Italy
• Portugal
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Slovakia

Somewhat to our surprise, the arbitrator in Owen’s case ruled that Patreon does have the contractual right it claims to kick anyone off its platform at any time without any reason, regardless of whether the user being kicked off has violated any rules or community guidelines or not. That right to terminate any user at any time at will was the reason he gave for granting Patreon’s request for summary disposition.

The arbitrator also appeared to make the mistake of confusing “terminating the contract” with “deleting the creator page”, but given his very broad grant of permissions to Patreon, I can’t see how that matters. So, this means that Owen’s arbitration is pretty much over.

What does it mean for the metacase and for the hundreds of other ongoing and pending arbitrations? Nothing at all. Arbitrations are arbitrary and they set absolutely no precedent from one proceeding to the next. In fact, even Owen’s arbitrator pointed out in his ruling that Patreon’s attempt to cite other arbitrator’s rulings in his arbitration were not valid and could not be taken into account.

This is not the first tactical loss, and it probably won’t be the last, but neither the tactical wins nor the losses will make any difference as things proceed toward the inevitable end.

More and more people are reaching the conclusion that Patreon has landed itself in some very deep doo-doo and are taking steps accordingly:

PATREON AS A PLATFORM IS IN TROUBLE ! (IMPORTANT)

Everyone Patreon is facing a situation that has come to our attention. We’re not really sure what the future holds for our orange logo’d subscription based platform, and honestly it has us worried. We do feel that our current steady income is at risk, so….here’s our statement. XD

With the future being so uncertain, we talked about it through out the following days to come up with an alternative that could help us and YOU to keep your monthly rewards

Since there’s a lot to unpack here, we decided to make a QnA to inform you all of the decisions we have taken as a preventive measure.

What’s interesting is that many, if not most, of these people are not exactly the sort of folks you’d expect to find in the Big Bear fan club, but they can clearly see that the ship is not only infected with Covid-19 and a nasty stomach bug, but is taking on water fast. So, they’re abandoning ship.

I’ve been teeter-totting on whether or not I should stay on Patreon for a while, and this for me is the  kick of the bucket. You’re dead to me. First of all, I’m recognizing all of the red flags here. You’re losing money, you’re in a lawsuit that you’re going to lose. Patreon has always been kind of shady with their creators and it goes to show that they don’t think their creators have rights.

People are getting sick of it. Guys, there’s only so much you can take, at some point you have to jump ship, especially when the ship is sinking into a volcano and everyone on the ship has diarrhea. I don’t want to be covered in hot… to those of you who are giving to my Patreon account, thank you and I’m sorry. I am closing it.