xxxx52
patreon
About the blog
🕑 Added 2016-12-02 15:35:59 +0000 UTCI apologize that I’m addressing this late; I’ve been receiving many messages over the past two days so here is my main post (visible to non-patrons and patrons) to address it
[ Tldr; Tumblr terminated my blog, and as much as that really… really fucking sucks, I’m forcing myself to accept that it will not come back. I plan to create a new blog soon but I’m not 100% sure on what to call it yet, or when to make it
Oh also just a heads-up, I’m starting my hiatus from December 9th this year, so I have to stop taking commissions around the 5th or 6th so I can finish in time. I currently have a lot of commissions to work on but I also have time now, so I hope to get a lot of work done in the days leading up to hiatus. My e-mail is [redacted] if you have any questions
Also! To (non-patron) people who want to see the end of that sequence that was cut short by the blog’s termination, I’ve put the whole sequence here in an imgur album- http://imgur.com/a/sr9PS / end of tldr ]
Okay so first I want to start by saying thank you to any one who has ever supported me. Thank you to everyone who has followed my blog, reblogged a post, liked a post, or even just looked at and enjoyed anything I’ve drawn. That blog meant a lot to me, and it started because I liked drawing porn and thought “Eh, why not post it somewhere?” and I’m very happy that I can still do what I love and have people enjoy what I do.
The other morning was a rough morning- well ok, November in general was kinda shitty for various reasons, but the semester is coming to a close and I have time to finally work on commissions (apologies to all of my clients who are patiently waiting on me). I already had to worry about not having anxiety issues while stressing over some exams, but I woke up to see the e-mail that said my blog was terminated and had to force myself to initially ignore it and any emotion associated with it, so I could focus on exams.
Now, to people who are wondering what happened: I’ve posted something about this before but yes it’s the Nintendo-taking-shit-down issue. Yes, I did go back and delete a bunch of ‘bad’ stuff off my blog after my second strike, but the third strike was against a comic where Aik was dressed as Peach- I didn’t think it counted if it was an OC dressed as the character, and the pic is also from two or so years ago, but nope! I initially was going to battle it this time but I ultimately decided not to because the chances of me winning are very low.
Tumblr’s help-policy is shit, but at the same time I can’t really blame them. Tumblr must deal with a ton of e-mails and problems every day, and this is also a matter of “big company vs random user”. There’s pressure on them to take the side of the big company. Still sucks when you’re on the ‘random user’ side though, and they don’t help you (for copyright violations, you can send a counter-claim, BUT you need to send personal info and there is a chance you can go to court. This freaked me out so I sent an e-mail asking for assistance- I explained that I believed I had good reason to file a counter-claim, but I lacked the resources to go to court, so I really wanted to know about more details of what I was getting into before I filed a claim. The response tumblr gave me was basically a cold, “Hey we can’t help you unless you send us personal information in a DMCA claim”, even though my question was asking about more details about exactly that. It was likely an automated message because I assume they simply have to deal with so many messages)
Anyway here’s the story
Someone using Nintendo’s information (official e-mail?) is running around (for quite a while- I was first hit in June and I think others have been hit way earlier) filing copyright violation claims against nsfw pics, mostly of Princess Peach. Just search “Nintendo copyright nsfw peach tumblr” and you’ll find stories.
People have suspected that the person is actually an ex-employee, or maybe even a hacker that got the e-mail of a specific employee, so not actually Nintendo
But honestly whether they’re really Nintendo or not doesn’t matter- as far as tumblr is concerned, they are to be taken seriously if they’re filing a copyright violation. Also it turns out “Free use” just isn’t on our (the artists) side. I’ve found information about things being allowed if they’re a parody, but even that was kinda debatable. The general consensus appears to be that free use isn’t set-in-stone protection over fan art, and that you generally need to have it actually debated in court before you know for sure if your specific case counts or not.
So yeah, back in June or July I got my first copyright violation and that freaked me the fuck out- I should also add that tumblr’s way of telling you is really, really shit. They will give you the notice and include a link to the deleted post, but will not tell you exactly what the post was, AND clicking the link gets you nowhere because they deleted it. It’s basically “Yo you broke the rules by doing that one thing so we deleted all records of that thing. Do you want to defend yourself of this unnamed thing?” I was very lucky that I remembered what the pic possibly could’ve been, and checked to find it gone from my page (it was a sketch of Peach with her boobs painted like bob-ombs, with a bob-omb in her pussy. I assumed it was taken down because it’s violent ?).
Second time was more recent, and that was when I realized the problem was not that I was being violent to characters, but because I drew Nintendo’s copyrighted character. So I deleted all pictures of Princess Peach, the character. Also some pokemon pics and other Nintendo pics.
And then the third strike was against an original character cosplaying Nintendo’s character.
So yeah. That blog meant a lot to me- last time I checked (October 30th), it was 3+ years, 3,861 posts, and 24,265 followers. Also a shitton of messages, many of which I have been unable to get to or read. I know I would normally feel more devastated than I do now but I keep drifting between disbelief/depression and numbness to it, and that’s mostly because I have other life shit to deal with, and I can’t dwell on this issue.
On the bright side, it’s not uncommon for artists to start fresh, or to delete huge chunks of old art. I mean this certainly isn’t voluntary on my part but I guess it can be good to start new. That and I have other places I can post- so not everything is lost. Sure I lost that reach to 20k+, but I have made at least a small name for myself, and I do have followers on other sites.
Thank you to everyone for the concerned messages, and all the support you have ever given me.
I just can’t wait for this year to be over at this point though- hope everyone’s doing alright
Also to my patrons! I am so sorry that I’ve yet to post poll results when I was supposed to do that days ago. I’m a mess but I hope t get my shit together this weekend. I will post results soon.
Comments
I'm new to patreon but I've been following you for LITERALLY years. Like you were there when I first started yeeting my meat. I really have enjoyed your style and absolutely crazy art. I hope you're able to figure out your schooling cause you've had a rough year :)
JP
Sorry to hear about it, 52! Hope things pick up for you again soon!
xxxx52
Thank you so much for your kind words; I really appreciate it. And I understand your frustration. This bullshit situation has given me way more hours of stress than it's worth.
xxxx52
Woah, thank you for sharing that information. This whole situation is insanely frustrating. We all know it's bullshit and not right, but as random users we're kinda powerless in this situation. Most of this shit by tumblr is pretty automated anyway. Ugh. What's also weird is that for the second strike I did actually try to contest the claim, and from my understanding all you do is provide information and that's it- you are not required to include an explanation. However I did include an explanation to make my case, and I sent it in. What was supposed to happen (again, to my understanding) was that tumblr was to send it to 'Nintendo' and 'Nintendo' would have to respond within 10 days. Instead, I got an email from tumblr only asking me what the legal basis of my argument was. They didn't tell me what they did with my personal information, or anything else. I don't even know if this question came from 'Nintendo' or from tumblr, but I decided fuck it and stopped fighting. The whole situation is truly ridiculous and I hope it actually does get solved soon, but I'm not too optimistic about it at this point.
D
Gdamn though I am tired of seeing artist hit with this shit, Tumblr needs to get their act together on checking out if this shit is valid, they're like a shitty gmod server with some asshole sending faked messages to get somebody banned. Except in this case its with people's blogs and in some cases their income, somebody needs to get a lawyer team together to fight Tumblr on this cause this has happened far too many times, and they don't fix it, the most I have seen is "oops sorry about your blog with thousands upon thousands of followers". Rambled a bit, but just want you to know you have my full support, keep up the great work, and consider talking with others who have dealt with this to see if anybody has lawyer friends, could score some money on this considering the offender in this situation was posing as a fake official face and they didn't check or validate it.
Alexaction223
You might actually want to dispute it anyway since Nintendo claims they aren't even doing it. <a href="http://alexaction.tumblr.com/post/153892166690/quin-nsfw-so-i-had-a-little-conversation" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://alexaction.tumblr.com/post/153892166690/quin-nsfw-so-i-had-a-little-conversation</a>
