Update and stuff that I need to adress (Patreon)

First of all thank you for taking your time and giving me some feedback in the last update post I made. It already helped out a lot here and there.

Now onto the next topic that I need to adress and look into:

Content Theft

Every Patreon Content Creator gets robbed of their stuff, maybe some more than others but I seen it happen here and there with my stuff. The reason why I am bringing it up again is because I will soon release the first page of the current comic with links to a viewable and downloadable versions of the current available pages for Patrons.

Two days after I posted the links for the drive folders for the last comic they got leaked. There are bots out there scanning Patreon Pages, pledging, refunding and downloading the content to upload it elsewhere. After I saw the leak I quickly made a new folder with a new link and all was well. You don't know how many mails I received with requests to access the deleted folder, it must've been over 40.. I want to protect ALL my content, I owe it to you who pledge to see my stuff earlier, luckily I got some tiers that revolve around interaction and polls so these aren't steal-able. I owe it to me as well, working my ass off to get those comics done for you guys only to get it stolen a few days later is a real punch in the gut.

That is why I need your help

Patreon is dealing with piracy as long as I can remember, still they are not able to stop the theft. Searching for solutions also didn't turn up anything worth of trying besides watermarking my art lol (as if that would help)

Some of you support other creators on this site, did they encounter similar problems, how did they tackle them? Do you have any ideas how I can protect my art better?

The only thing I found is a site called PrimeLeap, asking people who want to see the uploaded content about their pledge... (I think asking for permission to look at your account and verify that you are supporting me) After that you are allowed to see said uploaded content. It sounds promising, I already send a request to create a "club" there. Still not answer from them but I will keep you posted.

I don't want to turn viewing my Patreon Content into a hassle, that is my number one priority! When you are against something just talk to me, I am on this Platform since 2017 but I still got a lot to learn here and there.

This is another one of my full-on transparancy posts that you hopefully apreciate in some ways.

I also heard that some artists work with Discord, dunno if that is worth looking into. Most likely stops the bots from stealing pics but there are still real people that don't value the work of the creator, steal it and upload it elsewhere...but there's nothing I can do about that. First of all I want to stop the "automated" stealing of my work.

Thank you for your time, also on that note:

Was busy today, bought groceries for the whole week, went on a long walk with our dog and worked on the poll visuals. The research for content-protection also took away a lot of my time.

I will sketch something later on, not sure what but I hope you will like it :)

Have a nice day everyone and stay safe,

Aron

PS: I will welcome the new Patrons in the next post :)