Hey everyone, let's talk

Let me know if this summary of your opinion is correct: I should not be able to put triumph scened, for example, on my patreon, unless I get the explicit approval of every person who has made a part so far. Yes?

Because that sounds pretty unfair to me :/ It's still going up on youtube, I'm not charging anyone to see it, and anyone is free to do whatever they like with the track files, as always.

rabid squirrel wrote:Let me know if this summary of your opinion is correct: I should not be able to put triumph scened, for example, on my patreon, unless I get the explicit approval of every person who has made a part so far. Yes?

Because that sounds pretty unfair to me :/ It's still going up on youtube, I'm not charging anyone to see it, and anyone is free to do whatever they like with the track files, as always.

Yes, because even though there is a free version of the track on youtube you are still able to gain monetization off of others work/art without permission, unless you gain that right: the monetization is unrightfully gained.

rabid squirrel wrote:I sort of feel like a broken record here, repeating myself forever, but I'll go at this again.

1) Yes, I've been remiss about informing people about putting large collabs on patreon. I underestimated how much people would care about me making a tiny amount of money off voluntary donations from friends and family. There's not much I can do about parts that have already been made but going forward I'll make sure everyone is aware.

2) It would be fine (well sort of dickish but not wrong per se) for sheldon to record, edit, and release a version of blackheart excluding my part and upload it to his own channel. But instead, he reuploaded a preview that I CREATED as a private preview, which is why the post was deleted.

Then all is technically fine in my eyes.
You understand where you went wrong, and you'll fix it in the future.
Sheldon putting up your edited version is wrong, but in a way, the entire project as a whole is both of yours, and since you let your Patreons see the entire thing, he can let his subscribers see the entire thing. That's my bad opinion.

So the real issues comes down to the trolling on the website. I still think it deserves more than a day ban.

Traxis wrote:So the real issues comes down to the trolling on the website. I still think it deserves more than a day ban.

You must have missed the part where they got 30 day bans for doing that. The one day ban was in response to repeatedly attempting to repost the deleted thread.

rich wrote:even though there is a free version of the track on youtube you are still able to gain monetization off of others work/art without permission, unless you gain that right: the monetization is unrightfully gained.

Maybe the part that isn't being grasped is that I am asking for donations for my role in these collaborations (in this case primarily as director of the project), not for other people's work (everyone's parts). It's only courteous of me to let people know about this and let them participate or not, but I don't think I should need to ask for permission from everyone for a project that is already well underway. Though I agree it's not the best of situations, for sure.

Another thing I've decided to do based on the responses to this controversy.

I am re-prioritizing the goals on my patreon.

Previous Goals:
$50 (per major release) - Start paying developers
$100 - Start paying WRTL staff
$150(?) - Start paying collaborators

New goals:
$40 - Start paying collaborators
$70 - Start paying developers
$100 - Start paying WRTL staff

I'm currently at $30. Once I reach $40 I will start sending collaborators money. This includes people who have already collaborated with me. Top priorities are currently OTDE (conceptualized and made about 1/3 of Daisies) and Sheldon (made the most important part in Blackheart).

rabid squirrel wrote:Let me know if this summary of your opinion is correct: I should not be able to put triumph scened, for example, on my patreon, unless I get the explicit approval of every person who has made a part so far. Yes?

Because that sounds pretty unfair to me :/ It's still going up on youtube, I'm not charging anyone to see it, and anyone is free to do whatever they like with the track files, as always.

I for one wouldn't mind if you monetized one of your projects if I participated in it. I understand your interpretation of it as getting reward for your efforts in the project. The thing is, I see a lot of people who perceive it differently.

TheRevTastic wrote:To be honest, I don't think you should be monetizing any project you don't make completley by yourself.

Z_N-Freak wrote:Even if what Rabid did was unjust, I don't think Sheldon's (and Dap's) actions are justified. If I'd be put in that situation, I'd make a thread about it explaining that I think what rabid is doing is unjust and try to get people to support me, hopefully somehow changing rabid's mind and show him he did something wrong.

mhenr18 wrote:Unless you're absolutely certain that a contributor to the track consents to there being an exclusive release window for the track, you shouldn't accept their contributions.

Traxis wrote:If you're doing a solo project, it's your work. Do whatever you want.
If you're doing a collab you plan on monetizing, ask every participant if they're cool with you monetizing it.

Helios Pavonine wrote:Don't know if this is rational or not, but personally it feels weird and wrong that you're indirectly making money off my work*, which I didn't even know about till after the release. I know you probably disagree.

EDIT: *and, more importantly, the hard work from everybody else involved

JealousCloud wrote:

Helios Pavonine wrote:Don't know if this is rational or not, but personally it feels weird and wrong that you're indirectly making money off my work, which I didn't even know about till after the release.

I don't know the details but if it's true that's pretty screwed.

(Skype chat notwithstanding)

Maybe the fact that .boo started and partly directed this project has a role in peoples' opinion. Either way, I think unless people change their mind (to those people: please say if you do) it'd be wise to ask people for permission to avoid more controversy in the future and refrain from monetizing Blackheart, if that's still possible. I doubt people will disagree when you ask for permission anyway, the most important thing is that you ask them.

Rafael wrote:I doubt people will disagree when you ask for permission anyway.

I would have thought the same before this controversy, but now I am almost certain that there are people in all the large scale collaborations I am currently working to make happen who would want to prevent me from putting it on my patreon. But I still hold that while I should have informed everyone and I regret not doing so as directly as I should have, it's also not their business to control what I do with the project, the same way it's not my business to control what they do with it. It's not the best situation, I know, but I don't feel like it's right to have any one contributor in a large collab to be able to dictate to me how they want it released months after they made their part. What it comes down to is that we have no prior agreement, and we are two different contributors, who want to distribute the track in different ways, but neither of us can really claim ownership over the whole thing (mhenr if you're reading this, I'm not talking about copyright law, just talking common sense) and thus neither of us should be able to control what the other does with it, unless one of us is suffering (e.g. monetary damages) from the way the other is distributing it (which would be almost impossible to argue). Going forward, of course, I'm going to make sure I have everyone's permission to satisfy the opinions you quoted.

tldr - I hold that nobody can claim ownership over the entire large scale collab without a prior agreement, so unless the way one person is distributing the track is causing harm to another person everyone should be able to distribute it how they see fit.

@ Rafael,

I think you might have a different interpretation of my post than how I meant it. I was mainly argueing against the actions Sheldon & Dap took after things didn't go their way.

I'm not sure if what Rabid did is wrong perse. I personally wouldn't mind if I'd make a part in a collab like this and Rabid would make some money on Patreon of it. But I understand that some people are from a principle standpoint not with him on this. I would agree he doesn't have the "right" to make money off of other people's work just because he put the most effort into it.

I think this is easy to see if you scale things up. I wouldn't be simply okay with somebody else making millions off of something I created, however small my part. So the organizer (i.e. anyone who plans to make money off of the project) needs to ask all creators in the collaboration for consent and make some form of agreement at the start. Therefore you could argue that on a small scale, this principle still holds and it's not okay for Rabid to make money off of other people's work without their consent.

However, I also think that in this case the amount of money involved is negligible and I don't understand why we as a community aren't more supportive of Rabid having his patreon and trying to make a few bucks by doing the thing he loves. I'm quite confused that people aren't more supportive of it, as Rabid has only good intentions from what I can see.

So I think it would be best for future projects that Rabid organizes and wants to monetize, that he has a disclaimer saying he will monetize it. For clarity sake. The fact that he's willing to share money with the contributers after a certain threshold, only goes to show there is good intentions. So I'd love to see people calm down and be more supportive.

[3/cents]

ZNF, thank you, that is exactly it. I agree with everything in your post 100%.

Z_N-Freak wrote:@ Rafael,

I think you might have a different interpretation of my post than how I meant it. I was mainly argueing against the actions Sheldon & Dap took after things didn't go their way.

I'm not sure if what Rabid did is wrong perse. I personally wouldn't mind if I'd make a part in a collab like this and Rabid would make some money on Patreon of it. But I understand that some people are from a principle standpoint not with him on this. I would agree he doesn't have the "right" to make money off of other people's work just because he put the most effort into it.

I think this is easy to see if you scale things up. I wouldn't be simply okay with somebody else making millions off of something I created, however small my part. So the organizer (i.e. anyone who plans to make money off of the project) needs to ask all creators in the collaboration for consent and make some form of agreement at the start. Therefore you could argue that on a small scale, this principle still holds and it's not okay for Rabid to make money off of other people's work without their consent.

However, I also think that in this case the amount of money involved is negligible and I don't understand why we as a community aren't more supportive of Rabid having his patreon and trying to make a few bucks by doing the thing he loves. I'm quite confused that people aren't more supportive of it, as Rabid has only good intentions from what I can see.

So I think it would be best for future projects that Rabid organizes and wants to monetize, that he has a disclaimer saying he will monetize it. For clarity sake. The fact that he's willing to share money with the contributers after a certain threshold, only goes to show there is good intentions. So I'd love to see people calm down and be more supportive.

[3/cents]

Yeah, that's not how I interpreted it.Thanks for that post, I 110% agree with it and feel kind of bad for not saying this myself.

I'm not going to too far into this, but here's my only major thought; are the people supporting you really expecting some kind of privilege viewing? Seems like a whole lot of nothing to get worked up over.

Commandercoke wrote:are the people supporting you really expecting some kind of privilege viewing?

I highly doubt that people are signing up for that reason, and that's not why I want to do it anyway.

Putting the video up on my patreon a couple days early is a form of thanking my patrons, and for getting the first responses on a project from people who care the most about the things I create. It's a small way of saying thank you, and it also helps me decide how to present it to the community.

I'm not entirely sure I'm interpreting your post correctly so apologies if I made a mistake.