The Great Monetization Discussion

[Helequin]

A lot of good discussion already. My 2 cents on some of this.

Copyright and such is an obvious consideration. Now, this falls on the creator and any websites hosting their content (potentially Milovana in this case) to really know the applicable laws and jurisdictions, what might be free use and what might not be.

Next part, I want to in no way be reductive of the effort and skill these videos and teases take to create. Artists should be compensated for the work they create - but artists are also supposed to create something original. This is where CH type videos start to fall into a strange place - they are artistic, original creations most often composed entirely of the unlicensed work of other artists (models, videographers, the studio). As an art not for profit (or sale) the free use, be on board with art argument has a shot.

The moment the videos are being sold for profit there's an expectation of proper business conduct. Generally, if you want to make a business out of editing together cuts of other people's works the usual route is to create a business which can actually license all that material and then bring the cut together. This sort of I created it myself, no licenses of any kind needed in a way undercuts actual business trying to do anything similar because they don't get to ignore the costs of starting such a business.

On the other hand - would the studios and such actually license their content in such a way that a legitimate business could be set up to do this? I'd be a little surprised if it could. Not least of the factors is the audience is used to free PMVs, CHs and compilations all over the internet, so why go to this newly minted CH Studio X and pay for something similar?

Working as an independent artist of any sort can suck pretty badly, but even more so if you are reliant on licensed content. Is it possible some of the talented creators might some day land some deals where they can produce for a studio? Maybe. I'd love to see some of the best video creators try taking pitches to the actual modelling and porn studios. Well all know some of them need help with editing , and maybe just maybe you find a business exec with an open mind who sees and opportunity.

Next bit - sites like Patreon drive me crazy. I love how it opens up an avenue to actually support independent creators and let them develop projects which would otherwise never have a chance. I hate how suddenly all of the projects these creators work on are now Subscribe to Access instead of single purchase. IMHO, subscription payments should be for an ongoing, COMPLETE, service. Like getting a full issue of a magazine every month, the landscaper to tend the yard biweekly, or a new video issued every X days and so on. A subscription should not be paid for a widget, and doubly so for an incomplete one. Yes Patreon includes the option for one time donations which is great, but that usually doesn't actually unlock access to anything. I get why sellers like subscriptions, they are pure profit magnifiers (Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop comes to mind lol).

Last bit, in general the world of porn has a very, very high opinion of what it's content should sell for. I'm not sure if it's because they need more profit per unit from lower sales volume or it's part of the illusion that porn is a premium product, but it never made a lot of sense to me how crazy expensive porn is to actually buy in comparison to movies/TV series and so on. And that goes from what I have seen of amateur stuff, Clips for Sale and the like as well. $15-20 for a 10 min video of a woman talking to a camera with zero editing...yeah no.

In the end, I do want to see a good way to support artists for their time and effort through purchase of their work. Ideally in a way which is fair to artist and customer both. The world of adult stuff often feels a little bit like people either make stuff for free at great effort or do everything they can to fleece the last dollar out of their customer.

I'm not sure how we actually do that. Sure, a legitimate studio for these creators is a wonderful dream but I have no idea if there's any chance of it being viable. Another lofty ideal would be to see creators working with aspiring photographers, videographers and models to actually shoot content for their projects. This would actually be incredible to see, though maybe I'm biased as an amateur photographer. But this is more time, more effort and I imagine a lot of people want to see the big name recognizable stars too. But the guy behind MHBAHJ shows it's possible to become a recognizable producer from an amateur with some capital and drive, but I won't say it's easy. I can say I for one would be way more interested in projects where the creator is also working with local talent to shoot the content than cutting together big porn studio stuff.

Without changes to how the content is created, I don't know what to suggest. Donations work but are not exactly guaranteed for the creators. Some sort of pay for time invested on a project? In the end a simple one time purchase at a sane price works, though the copyright legality issues remain.

[smutreader]

Personally I would never pay for a Cock Hero.

[CumScream]

- What positive/negative effect could monetization have on the community and the “art” itself?

There are some pros, some con's.
One big (huge) con that seems to be missed from discussion so far, is greed.

This community has always been open ended, allowing each new generation to gently step into it, as lightly or deeply as desired. Learn what 'works', and develop their own style & skill.

It was created as a separate open-style site, to avoid being linked to the limits & tropes of the community where it originated...
(As far as my understanding. For a deeper history, post are findable throughout older forum topics.)


Back to greed; every time we see a 'free' art work start to be heavily monetized, some money-men will step in, offer a payment system for hire, take a small cut (which steadily gets higher), then lock down & restrict access to 'protect' their assets and investors.

This will reduce quality and variation, in the long run.

Quantity is trickier. Either it is stifled, into a trickle of die-hard fans who have spare cash.
Or it explodes, as more and more people use a copy-paste approach to create more clicks, more cash, less effort.


The 'fund the creator' argument is fine initially, via donations. But eventually this will lead to the focus on revenue, rather than the art itself.

Money always become the bottom line.
For evidence, just look at any internet success story...


Dark topic aside. If you enjoy making it, and want to share, let it be so!
Stay sexy!

[Khagate]

Whether monetization can be done is doubtful on a purely legal level (and may we never conflate what is lawful and what is good), and the question of whether, in general, it should be done is a purely academic one without any practical purpose. The issue at hand then, it seems to me, is whether it should be allowed or given space here, and to that my answer is a resounding no.

I have my own ethical and analytic positions for disliking money and its effects on people, and I'm none too thrilled with the economic order of the last 300-odd years especially, but more than anything my objection stems from firsthand experiences of how making communities into markets, even partly, turns them sour, and bleak, and altogether not very community-like any longer, and I'd like very much to avoid that in the future as much as possible.

[samfishercarl]

This analogy doesn't hold much, if any water at all. Have you ever been to a cinema? Did you pay for your ticket with an understanding that you could request a refund if you found the movie unenjoyable? What about at a restaurant? Do you demand to taste each of the dishes before agreeing to pay for one of them?

While I agree there are parallels between these two type of services you are paying for here, there is a huge difference between expectations and intrinsic trust.
from a intrinsic trust in quality of service perspective:
going into a theater and paying $20 to view a film with a budget with tens or hundreds millions of dollars produced by a list of people that takes 15 minutes to scroll after the film and produced by a multi billion dollar company that has been reviewed by many critics, or a restaurant owned by a person you can likely see in said restaurant or could meet in person and is regulated by a government organization (at least in many countries including my own).

VS.

paying for a file from a username assigned to a random person somewhere online on an anonymous message board for porn and web teases peddling porn compilations that are nearly guaranteed to be using copyright media at some point that they are "legally" (illegally but not prosecuted for due to not being monetized) that is a reflection of the creators preference which may match or completely miss-match your preferences.

No offense to any creator on this site but I only download stuff from this site on a throw away porn laptop running a VM. if that doesn't summarize or indicate the "inherent level of trust" I have (an would expect your average user to have...maybe not vm level extreme) on anonymous message boards for porn and web teases I am not sure what does.

[samfishercarl]

Whether monetization can be done is doubtful on a purely legal level (and may we never conflate what is lawful and what is good), and the question of whether, in general, it should be done is a purely academic one without any practical purpose. The issue at hand then, it seems to me, is whether it should be allowed or given space here, and to that my answer is a resounding no.

my objection stems from firsthand experiences of how making communities into markets, even partly, turns them sour, and bleak, and altogether not very community-like any longer, and I'd like very much to avoid that in the future as much as possible.

This^^^^^
the community is great right now everyone works together, veterans help newcomers, great ideas get shared. it's good porn with good vibes. introduce money into the equation and the whole community concept of this site will disappear very quickly once the greed side of monetization kicks in, because as soon as anyone starts complaining about paying for __ that other people enjoyed/disliked it will start fighting and the creator that spent lots of time video will not receive any tips or helpful criticism just outrage once a paywall is involved.

[PewCat]

tl;dr: content creators should feel free to charge for their time and effort. They are not martyrs for their art and should be free to expect fair exchange.

Im in a category of content consumers that will pay for porn (multiple subs to various content incl. patreons, OF, and commercial pr0n), but at the same time also falls into the category that believes amateur work should ideally remain free (ideal is not always reality of course). Especially amateur work that is capitalizing on the work of others. There is a difference between open source vs. professional release. For professional release I personally expect a certain standard, support, as well as customer engagement. OSS is best effort (no Im not trying to trigger the true OSS folks), and there should be no expectation of quality. Where the production starts to hinge on becoming professional (e.g. supermassive) we enter a grey zone, and it turns into personal preference.

I, for one, am surprised digitalparkinglot, supermassive, numberonefan, noodledude, or Pseudonym have not charged up to this point. Please excuse any other amazing artists I have not mentioned, though these are the folks I specifically registered on this forum for. There are obviously copyright challenges, but those challenges are their problems to think about. The production quality is top class. On the other hand, whether I as a consumer choose to pay, ultimately comes down to the price. In much the same way I do in fact pay homage to our goddess Shibby or Fiona Clearwater, I may choose to pay for more content from the above artists (yes, I do think its art) if the price is right.

The time and effort that goes into creating this content is real, and if they want to charge and find customers who are willing to pay, I fully support them

[bblock]

Personally I would never pay for a Cock Hero.

Personally I would NEVER pay for any kind of porn EVER... but I think a sort of donation system would be great.
Where users can Pay/Pool for a theme or type of CH they want.

But ultimately the creator can do what ever they want

[doremi]

Personally, and sorry about that , I do not financially support Cock Hero creators since money is scarse and the content is from third parties. I hold that as a principle. However, I don't mind giving my time for the cause since I love these productions. I don't mind if creators ask money for their time. Live and let live! Their choice! Their risk!

What I prefer to do is hire models for photo or video shoots. And will that end-up in a Cock Hero production some day? Who knows!

PS: Anyone wants to support my video shoots?

Right now, CH videos have a shot at a fair use defense

No! That's an urban legend!

[A Ghoul Editor]

I've already shared my thoughts on this. If you have an audience of true fans, you should at least try to experiment with NFTs.

Andrew Price has an excellent video about how small artists have benefited by NFTs in a way that has not been possible before.


And speaking of NFTs and PMVs, take a look at the World PMV Games 2022 winner trophy (sound on).

[figroll]

If you want to charge for CH or PMV make a business to do that. This will require you to properly license material (porn and music). The chances of you making money out of this is basically zero.

Ok, not quite zero. You might become famous, you might be a truly brilliant content creator, you might spend years earning a reputation and then gradually build a living from producing regular content and having some form of micro monetisation. If all this goes in your favour you might eventually generate some kind of income.

Note that sharing someone else's niche porn interests and learning to edit video does not make you an "artist". It makes you a content creator which is *very* different. I have much more sympathy for Tease authors who are actually using talent (writing) to create a thing where the value of the content they produce is 99% derived from their efforts (100% if they use public domain pictures). Although even in that case you are looking at some form of micro-charging and only making money that reflects your time.

I think one should also take note of the role and culture of Milovana here. Traditionally, Milovana has been a small community based around some niche interests and the culture has always been one of hobbyists and shared interests. Most obviously this can be seen in how we handle critique -- basically we understand people make content that has zero commercial value for us in their spare time and for *free*.

So we give up the right to critique beyond saying what we like and offering the mildest and most constructive criticism of the person's creation. This is, IMHO, fundamentally incompatible with any form of monestisation. I also find it hard to believe anyone can be a member of this community for any length of time and not appreciate this and inherently understand that the idea of monetising this stuff is going to go down like a lead balloon. (Which doesn't mean you cannot try but it does mean you should expect a) lots of push back and b) an order of magnitude lower chance of success).

PMVs might be different as they have a much wider, general audience. In which case off to Reddit you go and good luck with your new even harder set of monetisation challenges.

Now, one exception I would give here is someone like Psuedonym. He has a track record. He is much loved both for his content and his gracious forum presence. With that level of goodwill, I think he might do well in the context of Milovana. So some form of tip jar / buy me a coffee or even a gofundme *might* work. Would you pay $1, 5$, 10$ for "Audition 5"? I think quite a few might but only because a) we know what to expect from all his great work over the years and b) he has earnt a certain amount of trust.

The other obvious candidate is Numberonfan as the apparently the number of people willing to spend several weeks with 60 mins of high quality not coming to minimalist techno every other day is surprisingly large

Although in all cases, anyone doing this has a much higher chance of catching some content creator's attention and inviting problems. It almost certainly isn't worth it.

Note, btw, this is no shade on Supermassive. His videos are clearly better than most and he has put in the hard yards for his niche. I just think anyone doing this faces many, many problems as outlined in this post. He also writes well by Milovana standards although perhaps too well as his videos always sound like they might be dangerous or even illegal (although note I am a massive wus and paranoid!).

Finally, remember the old adage about how when a hobby becomes a business it stops being a hobby. By adding any form of direct monetisation you fundamentally change your relationship with both your hobby and your audience.

[OrgasmPhantasm]

This analogy doesn't hold much, if any water at all. Have you ever been to a cinema? Did you pay for your ticket with an understanding that you could request a refund if you found the movie unenjoyable? What about at a restaurant? Do you demand to taste each of the dishes before agreeing to pay for one of them?

While I agree there are parallels between these two type of services you are paying for here, there is a huge difference between expectations and intrinsic trust.
from a intrinsic trust in quality of service perspective:
going into a theater and paying $20 to view a film with a budget with tens or hundreds millions of dollars produced by a list of people that takes 15 minutes to scroll after the film and produced by a multi billion dollar company that has been reviewed by many critics, or a restaurant owned by a person you can likely see in said restaurant or could meet in person and is regulated by a government organization (at least in many countries including my own).

VS.

paying for a file from a username assigned to a random person somewhere online on an anonymous message board for porn and web teases peddling porn compilations that are nearly guaranteed to be using copyright media at some point that they are "legally" (illegally but not prosecuted for due to not being monetized) that is a reflection of the creators preference which may match or completely miss-match your preferences.

No offense to any creator on this site but I only download stuff from this site on a throw away porn laptop running a VM. if that doesn't summarize or indicate the "inherent level of trust" I have (an would expect your average user to have...maybe not vm level extreme) on anonymous message boards for porn and web teases I am not sure what does.

And yet, ironically we live in an age where mainstream films and television programs have so heavily devolved into shameless cash-grabs (Game of Thrones S8, all of the Disney Star Wars attempts, most new Marvel movies/shows, Netflix's growing graveyard of "Orginals", etc etc.) that it could be well-argued that supporting individual artists and small studios is a better use of your money than paying to see a movie in theaters. I know for a fact that I'll enjoy Supermassive's new film more than any I've seen in cinema over the past year. To Disney/Marvel/Amazon/HBO I'm just a statistic to help appease shareholders and pad their pockets with cash. They've all lost the art and passion in film making and it shows - severely. Meanwhile people like Supermassive, DPL, Pseudonym, etc do it simply for the love of it. To be asked to help cover expenses is hardly unfair.

[OhDeerItsAutumn]

My personal stance is this. I would pay for a production from a creator I know and like, where I'm confident the production would be to my tastes. And I'd pay $5, maybe $10 maximum.

With regards to a permanent paywall, I feel a similar way that I do about drawn art. I would much prefer the creator have exclusive paid content for a period of time before publicly releasing it for free. You pay for it if you want it a few weeks or months before everyone else.

[Rinascere]

To me it is all about legal issues.

The moral/ethics debate goes away the moment we start creating or consuming this kind of material, since all of us use content that is generally not allowed to redistribute. I bet even most of the software that creators use is pirated. You don't wanna pay? Don't pay, nobody is forcing you. It should be clearly stated in the description of the post to avoid confusions, though, as a general rule. This is not a marketplace.

[OhDeerItsAutumn]

To me it is all about legal issues.

The moral/ethics debate goes away the moment we start creating or consuming this kind of material, since all of us use content that is generally not allowed to redistribute. I bet even most of the software that creators use is pirated. You don't wanna pay? Don't pay, nobody is forcing you. It should be clearly stated in the description of the post to avoid confusions, though, as a general rule. This is not a marketplace.

Pretty much how I feel about it. Feel free to charge for your work if you want to, but don't bait and switch. Indicate in your post title or at the very top of the description that the production costs money, so I don't get several paragraphs in and get excited only to realize I don't have access to it