Italian website selling porn games and claiming to own the copyright for them

[saintvermillion]

AFAIK: We've four legaly scopes here. The payment processors, the website, it's hoster and the dev itself.
As payment processors usully use credit cards and if they use them will have a similar acceptance to this content.
The website (and company behind) must have a ToS that pleased their national law, payment processors and hoster, if their don't host it theirself.
The dev thus must please all the above and should also have their game in the legal scope of their national law, to be 100% safe.

Also the Patreon's purge of adult content came after the adult content was on their site. Most likely that content was "hide" well enough behind all the other. But then they have gained in audience and thus the spotlight was much intensive than before and most likely trigger their 3rd party companies.

I believe that most other "alternative" sites will have to face the same diffuclties than Patreon. The most accepted payment variante on the net is the CC or Paypal as their im most case simple work as a proxy for your CC.

All the other alternatives are either, in my eyes, unusable or ask to much detailes.

• Wire transfer needs details of both parties and even then must follow some rules
• Same for all other types of "card" cash regardles if it's debit cards, gift cards and so own
• Cryptocurrency seen the only option to avoid this additional rule set.

But cryptocurrency has their own set of diffculties.

• They, from payment processors, and thus to some degree also goverment, side aren't well regard and if they could do it simple would most likely to put them in some iron corset.
• You must buy or scrape them.
  • If you buy, then you have again your payment processors
  • And scraping is time intensive and cost intensive, which is for most of us inpractical. Also I don't wan't to have to wait for a game only because I must scrape my coins first.
• Exchanges rate is most instable. Sure other countries has sometimes the same issue, but the "big" currency are "most" stable. So your x coins of cryptocurrency are today m $ worth and tomorrow n $ worth. It is all nice if m >= n, but if n >> m then it sucks.

As always, only my two cents.

The way I see the ideal system:

1. Setup your account on the crowdfunding platform
2. Setup a crypto wallet account
3. Connect your crypto wallet to your crowdfunding account
4. Connect your credit card to your crypto wallet account
5. Buy monies for crypto wallet account using a credit card
6. Donate using crypto wallet account to whoever you want on the crowdfunding platform

CC/bank account->crypto wallet->crowdfunding platform->creator's crypto->creator's CC/bank account
(or maybe CC/bank account->paypal->crypto wallet->crowdfunding platform->creator's crypto->creator's paypal->creator's CC/bank account if paypal is needed to buy/receive crypto)

The previous system is:

CC/bank account->paypal->crowdfunding platform->creator's paypal->creator's CC/bank account

There shouldn't be any issues with both donators and creators buying or receiving crypto. No reason for payment processors to get in the way of that. The issues come when you have the payment processors dictating to the crowdfunding platform what they can and can't do because the crowdfunding platform needs them to move any money. If you're using a cryptocurrency like bitcoin for all money dealings with the crowdfunding platform the only laws or rules you need to worry about in the process is what is legal in the crowdfunding platform's country, the developers country and how closely the crowdfunding platform's TOS aligns with their countries laws(i.e not taking it upon themselves to enforce things they don't need to by law).

Speaking of TOS's if you are a developer getting money from anything adult content related sent to your Paypal or Payoneer account it is against there TOS and they can take the money and close your account so unless you are getting a direct wire transfer of your payments for the other sites then you are walking a fine line. Which is why it is better to use crypto. Also lots of bashing my site

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like I said before it's in beta we have not added a CC processor yet as it's quite costly on our end and would need investors to help pull that off. Also, the two major factors are its crowdfunding plus adult content which both by themselves is high risk. You add in Taboo content makes it even costlier. Subscribestar is owned by some Russian oligarch who is out to make money off of you. I'm simply trying to make a site for Developers by Developers. Also adding in CC will add fees as well no way around that.

My point is.. why go CC at all? why not just go full crypto? Sure it's more attractive to donators because it's easier and by extension to creators aswell because they don't want to miss out on any donations but if taking a little extra time to set up a bitcoin wallet means both creators can make games censorship free, donators can support and play games censorship free i think people would take the time to do it. It seems like a vunerability in the system to beholden to the payment processors in any sense but if it's possible to do it without opening the door to censorship i say go for it, add that extra option in. Also serious props for chasing this project up with the intent of helping the community. It makes me glad to see this and sad to see so many developers's freedom restricted by corporate and government entities and 10% of nearly all donations going to a useless intermediary.

 

[c3p0]

In my eyes cryptocurrency has two main flaws, at least for me.

I must set up a crypto wallet and which one? It exist over a dozen one (and at least two that are importend).

Second and this is for me the main issue: If I transfer today 100$ to my crypto wallet it gives me 0.0278 bitcoin. But only over a year the value of one bitcoin was between 3'000$ and over 11'000$. So I don't count bitcoin to a currency that I would like to have my savings in it.

If some cryptocurrency exist that is widespread and short and long time "stable", then my main issue would be solved.


Other than that and AFAIK, banks must know their money flow if some limit is exceed (because money laundering and similar reasons). Thus they would mostly ask, if you receive a lot of money each months that they can't track or recognise.

So even then, at least for a successful dev, it wouldn't be 100% granted that their is none payment proccessor "bitching" about your adult content...

 

[saintvermillion]

In my eyes cryptocurrency has two main flaws, at least for me.

I must set up a crypto wallet and which one? It exist over a dozen one (and at least two that are importend).

Second and this is for me the main issue: If I transfer today 100$ to my crypto wallet it gives me 0.0278 bitcoin. But only over a year the value of one bitcoin was between 3'000$ and over 11'000$. So I don't count bitcoin to a currency that I would like to have my savings in it.

If some cryptocurrency exist that is widespread and short and long time "stable", then my main issue would be solved.


Other than that and AFAIK, banks must know their money flow if some limit is exceed (because money laundering and similar reasons). Thus they would mostly ask, if you receive a lot of money each months that they can't track or recognise.

So even then, at least for a successful dev, it wouldn't be 100% granted that their is none payment proccessor "bitching" about your adult content...

The limits for money laundering questions being asked or for tax agency declarations of single transfers are extremely high. You'd have to be making insane amounts off your game each month for that to ever be an issue and even then if they did follow up nothing a quick conversation wouldn't likely resolve. As for cryptocurrency instability an easy solution is making transfers through that part of the process instant or near instant. That way how much bitcoin as an example fluctuates over a year is completely irrelevant. I wouldn't be putting your savings into bitcoin unless you're a gambling man but it works fine as a quick intermediary between people and the crowdfunding platforms.

edit: I'm not sure about crypto wallet choices but i figure some of them must stand out as popular reliable options.

 

[Amenahek]

The limits for money laundering questions being asked or for tax agency declarations of single transfers are extremely high. You'd have to be making insane amounts off your game each month for that to ever be an issue and even then if they did follow up nothing a quick conversation wouldn't likely resolve. As for cryptocurrency instability an easy solution is making transfers through that part of the process instant or near instant. That way how much bitcoin as an example fluctuates over a year is completely irrelevant. I wouldn't be putting your savings into bitcoin unless you're a gambling man but it works fine as a quick intermediary between people and the crowdfunding platforms.

edit: I'm not sure about crypto wallet choices but i figure some of them must stand out as popular reliable options.

On crypto instability, I share c3p0's concern. The instant or near instant transfer would be helpful, but another issue is how a creator prices their product in that system, if they set it as an amount of crypto, then crypto fluctuation would still effectively cause the amount you're paying for the product to change. Having an instant transfer/conversion would mean little for pricing stability when a creator sets their price in a volatile currency.

This is one of the reasons why I have not gotten into the crypto community myself, it's like playing the stock market as a day trader and then using your stocks to buy material goods. I prefer simplicity.

 

[saintvermillion]

On crypto instability, I share c3p0's concern. The instant or near instant transfer would be helpful, but another issue is how a creator prices their product in that system, if they set it as an amount of crypto, then crypto fluctuation would still effectively cause the amount you're paying for the product to change. Having an instant transfer/conversion would mean little for pricing stability when a creator sets their price in a volatile currency.

This is one of the reasons why I have not gotten into the crypto community myself, it's like playing the stock market as a day trader and then using your stocks to buy material goods. I prefer simplicity.

I never considered this, upon closer inspection it is a completely valid point. One solution would be to let people donate what they want/avoid a tiered system like patreon.

 

[Master of Puppets]

On crypto instability, I share c3p0's concern. The instant or near instant transfer would be helpful, but another issue is how a creator prices their product in that system, if they set it as an amount of crypto, then crypto fluctuation would still effectively cause the amount you're paying for the product to change. Having an instant transfer/conversion would mean little for pricing stability when a creator sets their price in a volatile currency.

Would that really be a problem? If it's an instant system, then the amount of crypto could be calculated on the fly based on a threshold set in dollars. I regularly pay for things with the price set in a currency other than my own.

 

[Hones]

Would that really be a problem? If it's an instant system, then the amount of crypto could be calculated on the fly based on a threshold set in dollars. I regularly pay for things with the price set in a currency other than my own.

No the biggest problem would likely come from people unfamiliar with crypto or not wanting to setup wallets etc, drastically reducing the amount of potential supporters. Most would likely see that they could only support with crypto and just not want to bother.

 

[saintvermillion]

No the biggest problem would likely come from people unfamiliar with crypto or not wanting to setup wallets etc, drastically reducing the amount of potential supporters. Most would likely see that they could only support with crypto and just not want to bother.

I see this as the biggest issue to overcome too which is why there is serious benefit for developers sticking with one new decent crowdfunding alternative. Splitting it up between even two of them would be a big demotivator for donations. Patreon was so successful because it was a one stop shop for donating. My question is though is it possible to still use a credit card processor other than paypal as a crowdfunding platform and still be censorship free? If it is then having both options(CC and crypto) is the ideal and if it is not then just crypto.

 

[xslayermkdx]

True, but if you scared them or report them i am sure someone will force them to shut down or patreon it self will react cause they can lost profit!

 

[saintvermillion]

True, but if you scared them or report them i am sure someone will force them to shut down or patreon it self will react cause they can lost profit!

I'm not sure if you're talking about the original topic of this thread or the tangent about cryptocurrency and patreon alternatives which highlights how off-topic we are going. A sure way to getting this thread dumped in off-topic which would be a disservice to alot of developers.

So if you want to continue the conversation about patreon alternatives:

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[Passenger3D]

One solution would be if ALL nsfw developers decided in unity boycot patreon and move to sobscribestar - or something. But unlikely scenario. nsfw is what made patreon big, why wouldnt it do to some other platform. just a thought

 

[saintvermillion]

One solution would be if ALL nsfw developers decided in unity boycot patreon and move to sobscribestar - or something. But unlikely scenario. nsfw is what made patreon big, why wouldnt it do to some other platform. just a thought

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As to the actual topic of the thread has anyone tried reporting the scam artists to their payment processor? Anyone know what the payment proccesor is?

 

[c3p0]

Runey was wise enough to gather every important information in his first

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including their payment proccesor.

Edit: Could a friendly powerful force move the off topic post about possible and "better" Patreon sites and their pro and cons to saintvermillions new thread? Thanks.

 

[Runey]

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As to the actual topic of the thread has anyone tried reporting the scam artists to their payment processor? Anyone know what the payment proccesor is?

I, and many others have contacted Securion. It's been nearly a week without response.

 

[c3p0]

I, and many others have contacted Securion. It's been nearly a week without response.

I always think in this situation the more formal variant with a old style mail and sent registered works like a charm.

Some time ago some debt collectors came to me, because of a very late paid invoice. I reached to them with email to settle this cause as they has written in their letter that you could reached to them if you have questions and so one, but nothing happened.
After I send them the same with a registered mail they wrote back innert useful time.

 

[saintvermillion]

I, and many others have contacted Securion. It's been nearly a week without response.

Well that's not promising. Any thoughts on the registered mail idea? or what the next step should be?

 

[recreation]

I, and many others have contacted Securion. It's been nearly a week without response.

This doesn't nessecarily have to mean anything. If they're doing something against him you won't see it instantly, the most steps will happen behind closed doors.
I just had a look at the payment methods on the italian site. I took a random game and all I could choose was paysafecard and bank transfer. That's not much, so maybe something happend already.

 

[Runey]

This doesn't nessecarily have to mean anything. If they're doing something against him you won't see it instantly, the most steps will happen behind closed doors.
I just had a look at the payment methods on the italian site. I took a random game and all I could choose was paysafecard and bank transfer. That's not much, so maybe something happend already.

Securion would will likely reach back to me to show them proof.

Well that's not promising. Any thoughts on the registered mail idea? or what the next step should be?

I'll try to talk with some people in the morning, see what other options we have. Although, again, I urge no one to do anything illegal, I mean this seriously. They hold absolutely 0 legal ground, if someone responds with illegal activities or harassment, then he gains ground.

 

[Deleted member 480187]

Too bad the guy made a really stupid move to claim copyright and attempted to resell the games as own work. I'm sure he could have easily gotten permission from devs to distribute translations while only asking for donations from his market to support the services. And the way he's choosing to respond to the confrontation by a dev...sigh. Not too bright to instigate a legal fight with the original developers. This guy is clearly lacking some sense.

 

[User_228865]

I know it frustrating for you, but I think going after them is going to cost you far more than you're going to benefit from it. I've checked their site stats and looks like they receive about 500 page views per day which is absolute peanuts, compared to this site for example which receives around 500,000: a large majority of page views are lurkers and don't actively participate in a site, so only a minute fraction of that would actually subscribe to the website.

Arguably it's already cost you since they filed a complaint with Patreon against you, so it may be the most rational option, albeit the most frustrating one, to just let it go.