Kickstarter refuses to email backers of a zombie to tell them it's a zombie, but will email to lie about it going right on ahead
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I'd be ok with that.
Blakey and I are on the same page again. Pardon me while I go contemplate the mistakes I have made in my life that have led me to this point.
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The only reason it's "relevant" is that Kickstarter previously said it wasn't able to email all backers and it turns out
Actually, I think they said they "couldn't" email all the backers on Tarol's say-so, since he wasn't running the KS. They do kinda-sorta have a point, although he tried to give them a bunch of documentation, and they just blew him off.
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Nope, it's from Tarol Hunt the comic's artist based on "is this the only fucking way I can get you shits to take this the hell down?"
Oh, man, now that is funny.
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But by this page, it seems to be the game company started this project that Tarol discovered and said, "No, he doesn't have the rights to do this."
Which is true?
He parterned with the game company, which vanished. It looks like he filed a DMCA takedown to keep Kickstarter from continuing to tell the backers "hey, everything's fine" since nothing else was working.
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He parterned with the game company
He appeared in the intro video
Ok, so it looks like the game company ran, which means it will not pay it's royalties to the owner of the IP.
Which is an IP disagreement.
So, he's saying they are operating without his permission and continue to make money from the IP without his consent.
Hmm....
Ah. Ok.
I get it now.
KS is saying that the IP owner can technically find another game creator and make the product and that the IP dispute does not prevent this event from occurring.
It's up to Tarol to sue the game company to recover the money, and then hire another game company.
But he has every right to tell KS to take down the project and not allow the game creator to operate or earn money without his permission.
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But he has every right to tell KS to take down the project and not allow the game creator to operate or earn money without his permission.
Yup. It's worse than that, though, because for some time the game company was still taking money for pre-orders, even after the owner disappeared.
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He did partner with the game company, but the partnership agreement included a provision that the license would terminate and all IP would revert if a game wasn't produced by X date. X date happened, no game existed, thus the game company lost the rights.
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The better question is, what sort of bullshit can I pop up on Kickstarter that would duplicate those results? That is what I want to know.
Hey...try something. And let us know.
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OH WAIT they lied about that.
We knew they lied about that; presumably, if they're not entirely retarded, they have the ability to go in and make someone else a project admin, and project admins can publish "updates" that get emailed to all backers.
So clearly they have the technical capability to send out updates if they wanted to. Don't tell me their IT doesn't have a back door. They could get it done. They just won't.
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Is it just me, or does bad luck just seem to follow him? I remember reading his blog at the beginning of the comic and he had just bad thing after bad thing happen to him. Also, isn't he part of Blind Ferret, if so, why aren't they running this stuff?
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What if they're scamming PLEX, AUR, or time codes? Those have real life value and real life money was directly used to get them
PLEX circulate in the market, just like any other item. (Time codes are no longer in use)
He parterned with the game company, which vanished. It looks like he filed a DMCA takedown to keep Kickstarter from continuing to tell the backers "hey, everything's fine" since nothing else was working.
Wow...that's an impressive level of legal abuse to have to go through just to get a not-even-large company to listen to you.
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Wow...that's an impressive level of legal abuse to have to go through just to get a not-even-large company to listen to you.
Apparently it got worse:
Kickstarter: Making the Mafia Look Like Chucky Cheese Since 2009.
April 17th, 2015
I just sent this email to Kickstarter.Dear Kickstarter. Let’s recap…
I told you that the project was a scam that ripped off thousands of people in my name by taking their money, disappearing forever and forcing me to face everyone. I explained that no backers would ever receive any rewards or product. I asked for the backer list so I could send all of them ‘something’ to try and make this as right as I can.
…You refused to help in any way at all and told me to talk to the person whom you know disappeared forever with the money.I further explained that none of the backers would ever receive any rewards or product and asked for your help in the form of advice, discussion or somehow removing or altering the scam project page.
…You refused to help in any way at all and told me to talk to the person whom you know disappeared forever with the money.I sent you a DMCA take down notice, explaining once more and with great care, that no backers would ever be receiving any rewards or product.
…You took the page down and sent a blanket email to every backer, explaining to all of them that they will indeed be receiving their rewards and product. Then you gave all of them a link to a page with my home address on it.I understand that I’m talking to a business and not a single person, but whoever is reading this right now, please think about this for a moment. You promised over 2000 people that they can expect the non-existent products that they paid for… that have my name on them… and then you gave all of them my home address.
Please stop this. I honestly can’t take anymore.
-Tarol Hunt
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Sounds like this is getting very close to blowing up into a court case.
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He has to find the guy to be able to sue him.
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I think he means taking Kickstarter to court for… not sure what in this case. But if Tarol can show reasonable cause to suspect he's now in danger, that should be enough.
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He has to find the guy to be able to sue him.
If he's under the cut-off for Small Claims, and the defendant is a no-show, he wins by default.
Collecting is a different story.
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If he's under the cut-off for Small Claims
The KS raised nearly $200K.
I mean, you're right, but in this case, that's not relevant.
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But if Tarol can show reasonable cause to suspect he's now in danger,
2k people who paid for products and now know his home address?
2k people who may not be entirely rational about the fact that Mr. Hunt has nothing to do with the fact that they paid money for a thing they're not going to get?
I'm not a lawyer but that would make me suspect i am in danger. I hope Tarol has been talking to a lawyer about this because in this case i think he has a reasonable case against kickstarter for willful negligence or some other legal BS.
I mean he's attempted to resolve the issue multiple times and KS has refused to admit the issue? yeah i'd be talking to a lawyer
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The KS raised nearly $200K.
But what are damages to him?
H can't claim he's entitled to 100% of that Kickstarter cash because he's not.
AFAICT, damages to him would only be the amount he plans to reimburse the backers, assuming he can even get in touch with them.
The rest of the Kickstarter cash, only the Kickstarter backers can do anything about that. And they should. But he can't inform them they should because Kickstarter is being a giant penis.
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AFAICT, damages to him would only be the amount he plans to reimburse the backers
No, there's also what he has spent trying to get this all sorted out, things like fees for getting the DMCA stuff done right. That sort of thing would count as actual damages (i.e., can show exactly how much costs were incurred by virtue of having receipts). There might also be a claim for damages in relation to all the stress this has caused, which could be quite a lot of money, but that's trickier to show in court.
He needs legal representation.
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He needs legal representation.
Well duh, we all agree there.
And he did before he signed a "contract" with some dude, "but it's ok I know him really well and he runs a business and all that".
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And he did before he signed a "contract" with some dude, "but it's ok I know him really well and he runs a business and all that".
So long as he gets it before he goes to court, it's not too late. Oh, he might get told that he should just let it slide and to be more careful in the future, but self-representing in court (especially if it's not the small claims court) is a good way to get into deep trouble without realising it.
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There's also the damage to his/his business' reputation
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H can't claim he's entitled to 100% of that Kickstarter cash because he's not.
True. Of course it's long gone at this point.
It turns out the Kickstarter actually happened in June of 2013.
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But what are damages to him?
Apparently, Kickstarter emailed his home address to all the backers. That's potentially dangerous.
(From the forums it seems that he sent KS the DMCA takedown without getting a lawyer, and you have to provide a contact address when you do that, and since he didn't have a lawyer, he couldn't give them the lawyer's address.)
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(From the forums it seems that he sent KS the DMCA takedown without getting a lawyer, and you have to provide a contact address when you do that, and since he didn't have a lawyer, he couldn't give them the lawyer's address.)
Yeah, why hasn't he lawyered up already?
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(From the forums it seems that he sent KS the DMCA takedown without getting a lawyer, and you have to provide a contact address when you do that, and since he didn't have a lawyer, he couldn't give them the lawyer's address.)
Oooof. Spectacular backfire.
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Only because some dumb shit at KS went and sent that address to all the backers, saying 'you'll get your shit and this is the guy who'll give you it'
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Sure, I'm not blaming the guy, he seems naive not nasty. But still, ouch.
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saying 'you'll get your shit and this is the guy who'll give you it'
Not exactly.
Besides - isn't it normal for the DMCA notices to have the address on them, even when posted online?
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Not exactly.
Close enough
@loopback0 said:Besides - isn't it normal for the DMCA notices to have the address on them, even when posted online?
I think it might be a legal requirement
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I think it might be a legal requirement
So, whether we agree that everything else Kickstarter is doing is moronic or not, this is actually the one bit they did right.
Unfortunately that one thing doesn't combine very well with all of the stuff that they got wrong.
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They are legally required to give the contact information to the person whose post (in this case, the campaign) is at issue. They are not legally required to give the contact information to anyone else, and probably violated several laws as well as their own privacy policy by doing so without consent. See, for example, https://github.com/github/dmca, where they publish lawyers' contact information, but not the contact information of pro se parties.
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I was talking about the requirement to file an address with the DMCA. But that's good info to have regardless ;)
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Yes, you do have to include an address in DMCA notices or counter-notices you file, which will be passed on to the other party; this is so that the parties can determine the appropriate court and serve process (i.e. formally notify you of a lawsuit) should it come to that. But the publisher only needs to pass that contact info between the parties involved in the dispute; it's not required to make any of it public, and it receives no immunity from laws or torts for doing so.
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Besides - isn't it normal for the DMCA notices to have the address on them, even when posted online?
Yes. I thought I mentioned that.
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My bad. Missed that if you did.
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The short version: kickstarter done by people with established communities get funded the majority of the time, or if they make news.
All others don't get funded
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I would bet 100:1 odds his home address is registered as his business address, and ks emailed out a registered business address to address customer service complaints
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All others don't get funded
Really? A guy got nearly $60K to make a batch of potato salad, and that is what we were talking about.
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I've given money to about five kickstarter campaigns. The first one was run by a guy I and several others knew on IRC; he was the guy who was doing Warsow's soundtrack at the time. He started it, saying we'd get nice copies of a soundtrack CD with artwork and such. We thought that might be cool, so we funded it. Didn't cost much anyway. We didn't care too much when he didn't deliver, and besides, he died randomly like a year later.
One campaign didn't reach it's goal, so I got a refund. One got canceled because Zun himself complained (And not Nintendo, amazingly enough!). The other two succeeded, but aren't done yet.
EDIT: Come to think of it, there was a 6th, MN9, and I actually got in the alpha, and never visited the forums to be Nazi'd by the community manager (gone, as of this week), so that one has gone fairly well.
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or if they make news.
Potato salad was in the news before 60k
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I would bet 100:1 odds his home address is registered as his business address, and ks emailed out a registered business address to address customer service complaints
Why would KS give the address of someone they refuse to acknowledge as responsible for the campaign? That's the problem in the first place, everything was under his "partner's" name so they refused to give him access to the user list. When he DMCA'd them to take the page down (since it used his IP without his consent), they apparently posted his address.
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If the game company registered his address as the business address when they originally set everything up, that's exactly how it would fall out.
If the DMCA included his address as a business address, that would ALSO cause it to look like a customer service address.
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If the DMCA included his address as a business address, that would ALSO cause it to look like a customer service address.
How do you figure? Imagine you make a comic, and some guy takes your comic and promises to make stuff from it without consulting with you. He gets two thousand people to sign up and give him money, before you step in and send a DMCA request to take his site down. How is it ok to expose your business address to the people the other guy screwed?
It's fine to give the address to the other party, so they can talk to you and resolve the issue, but that's a private matter between you and him. It doesn't involve the other two thousand people, and they should have no reason to talk to you.
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some guy takes your comic and promises to make stuff from it without consulting with you.
AIUI, this is incorrect. (However, it doesn't change the validity of your point, which I agree with.) He did have a contract with the guy making stuff, but that guy didn't fulfill his part of the agreement, so the comic artist used the breach as a reason to terminate the contract and withdraw his permission to use his intellectual property, or something fairly close to that.
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AIUI, this is incorrect.
It is in "reality". But from KS's responses to the whole issue, this was effectively the scenario they were operating under. KS does not recognize any agreements or contracts the owner of the campaign and any collaborators may have. The owner is the only person they interact with, and they will not help anyone else gain access or get information about the account (like the donor list). As far as they are concerned, no such agreements exist.
Which is why I slightly altered the scenario.
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...you step in and send a DMCA request to take his site down. How is it ok to expose your business address to the people the other guy screwed?
It seems reasonable to let the people know who sent the DMCA takedown, though I'm not familiar with these things to know what SOP really is.
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SOP is to show both parties' names but hide both parties' contact information, except from each other. The only times besides this when I have seen information made visible is when the information isn't of a party but instead the party's attorney. Even business addresses are usually hidden.
