General questions from the producer's side

[davidr]

Hey mates,
I just reactivated my old account - I'm Marco from cc-feet and fussphantasie, some of you may know me.
In the recent times I stumbled upon serious major problems and I like to share some thoughts about it and especially get some feedback from you.
@moderators: If this is the wrong forum, please move the topic to the right place, thanks

1. Stealing/Cheating
I had so much credit card fraud in the past that I was forced to close creating accounts at my sites. There were even two f*cking idiots who leaked over 20 clips to sites like P*rnhub and several hosting sites. Those clips are dead for me, as they don't generate any money anymore, which I do understand. But some of my productions and especially my technical gear cost so much money, that I wouldn't be able to do such videos like the "Under Feet" series, if there wouldn't be any income to refincance my costs.
In the past months I stopped publishing new stuff because of that and I'm short before closing fussphantasie because of this dilemma. I never could make a living out of it, no complaining - this is ok, but you get me: If morons steal and provide content as fast as it is published, there's no chance to do new things.

What are your thoughts about this?

2. Youtube
In the recent months mostly all of my clips were flagged and removed, plus two of my accounts were permanently closed due to p*rn.
Where shall I provide free clips? And I mean, not only giving away to some users, but do advertising for my sites and reach new visitors?
See, I don't do ads on my sites, no partner programs, etc... I relied on the mass of people at Youtube, who stumbled upon the free shoeplay clips and visited my sites.
But this doesn't work anymore. No new visitors, no income, no new clips in the future - the math is simple.

Where do you (publishers) host your clips?

Discussion is highly appreciated, thank you

[nyllover]

Hey,
glad to share experiences on this
We started Feet4Cash 10 years ago, and managed to constantly improve and increase sales in all this time. The road for that to become my only source of income is WAY long...but at least it's going strong.

I saw that, basically, your sites are all VOD. People pay for what they want to see. Why did you go for an inhouse solution, instead of uploading your videos to all the different clipstores like Clips4Sale? Clips4Sale recently started a chargeback protection (for free), iWantClips does the same...so you'd be totally covered on that. Plus, your costs would be way less...and you would end up having more money to invest in advertisement and production.

We have a different approach then yours: we have paysites updated three times a week, and also sell our videos on clipstores. Both these things protected us (a lot) from fraud. On our paysites, CCBill and Epoch handle the transactions and have already in place quite strong antifraud solutions (that you can't implement "in house"), and the clipstores...well I told you already about it.

I really think you should reconsider your business model here, and move to Clipstores

As per stealing content...that's a never ending war. You cannot fight it (or at least not easily) and it will always be there. What we can do, as producers, is keep making content that people love. They will gladly pay for it if they know that helps us in keep bringing them what they want. Pirates will always be there, it's a never ending battle. You need to do what you can for it (DMCA works, send me a PM if you don't know how to do that), but building a solid customers base is what helps you the most. They will come back and buy from you, if you keep producing.

Youtube is... oh well...you know already. It's pointless to use it and hope it will last. It won't. Sooner or later you'll be shut down.

We have channels on all the major tubes (Youporn, PornHub and so on), and that works. Of course, we have an affiliate program so we can be part of their content program...but you could anyway upload your stuff overthere. It's good advertisement, believe me. Xhamster is the one that works best for fetish clips, actually.

If you want to keep talking about this, feel free to contact me on skype (nyllover). It's always good to share experiences

[notalwaysright10000]

I actually *recommend* stealing from most clips sites, as most of them are blatant frauds that not only stage fake candids but for some reason have started using mostly transgender models, which is frankly unethical if you're trying to present them as biological women. (No, it is NOT transphobic to say this.)
Bullshitters can have no reasonable expectation of fair play.


Your site however (ccfeet.com, right?) is actually one of the very few that appears to post genuine candids with no fakes that I've spotted yet. The only other real site I know of that has any significant number of videos is "Shoeplay Station" and its spinoffs, but they film in Southeast Asia so of course they won't have much trouble finding real shoeply to film. (And even they sometimes mix and match face shots with different shoeplayers even if all the source material appears candid.)

[notalwaysright10000]

Oh, by the way you're being flagged mostly by rival clipstores. I'd bet my life on it.

[nyllover]

I actually *recommend* stealing from most clips sites, as most of them are blatant frauds that not only stage fake candids but for some reason have started using mostly transgender models, which is frankly unethical if you're trying to present them as biological women. (No, it is NOT transphobic to say this.)
Bullshitters can have no reasonable expectation of fair play.

No, stealing is NEVER right. NEVER. All those stores spend a lot of TIME and EFFORT in producing their videos. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Stealing is WRONG and, moreover, they will never learn their lesson. They will keep blaming piracy for their lack of success, instead of their videos quality.

Stealing is WRONG.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

[nyllover]

Oh, by the way you're being flagged mostly by rival clipstores. I'd bet my life on it.

I agree.

[notalwaysright10000]

"Stealing is WRONG.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."

That's a rather Kantian view to take, and there several problems with it:

First, it relies on the unstated assumption that all claims to ownership are ipso facto legitimate, which is completely indefensible. The proprietors of these fake clip stores have neither a legal nor a moral claim to ownership that can be persuasively argued.

I would not steal from davidr for the simple reason that, in offering what as best I can tell is an honest product, he has what I would consider a legitimate moral claim to ownership. But even he has no legal claim outside his home country, if even there.

However the fake clip store proprietors, through their dishonesty, completely nullify any moral claim they might have had to legitimate ownership, and when you say that they spend a lot of time and money on their clips, frankly that only makes the the thought of that effort going to waste all the more pleasing to me.

I have NO mercy and NO empathy for con men, and I take great schadenfreude in seeing them come to ruin whenever fortune should so frown upon them.

[nyllover]

So basically...if you don't like how someone is working, you are legitimate to steal from them?

How can this be even remotely correct? So you are saying that, in example, if you wouldn't like what we are doing at Feet4Cash, and for whatever reason you would consider us "unethical"...stealing for us would be ok?
And isn't stealing "unethical" as well?

Seriously, I'm not following your way of thinking. I don't know if you are a producer or not, but if You are You surely know how hard it is to produce videos and make decent money with them. That reason alone is enough to say stealing is wrong. Those people are WORKING there. And even if you don't like what they are doing, it's still their work you are stealing.

Some says Nike is producing their shoes using kids. So that means we can all steal their shoes?

[notalwaysright10000]

Again, the word "stealing" presupposes that someone owns something to begin with. So what claim to ownership can a fraudster make that anyone has any obligation to respect?

[davidr]

Oh wow, there's a lot to answer. I'm in a hurry right now, will come back to it soon.
At first, thanks to all answers! This will be going into a deep discussion I suppose

[nyllover]

Again, the word "stealing" presupposes that someone owns something to begin with. So what claim to ownership can a fraudster make that anyone has any obligation to respect?

You're right on this, but that's not what you were referring about. You spoke about fake candids or videos shot with men or transgender. Both of them are original work they produce. You may not like it, you may not consider that ethical. But there is work behind them, and if you want to "punish" them, the only LEGAL way you have is to avoid buying their videos or express your opinion about their work.

[notalwaysright10000]

"the only LEGAL way you have is to avoid buying their videos or express your opinion about their work."

The depends heavily on copyright law, which in most cases has very little if any application outside the country where the videos were shot.

And just to be clear, I certainly don't think it's even _remotely_ unethical simply to use transgender models. It's unethical not be honest about it, just as it's unethical to sell mislabeled food. (For example, say, selling horse meat in a restaurant and claiming it's beef.)

[davidr]

Sooo, thanks again for your anwers mates.

@nyllover:
At first thank you for the insights! I have much respect for the work and the efforts you put into your projects. The fact that you can make a living out of it, proves you right that you've chosen some right decisions at the right time. I appreciate that!

But there is a *but* for me. I wouldn't be your customer because you don't cover my own fetish. TBH I just took a short overview around your sites and didn't dig deeper in it, but for me it seems like one of those "feet companies" like Staria or BHE. In fact they must have much customers, but I never wanted to be like that. I always missed something there because of my own desires.
My fetish is kind of... don't know... I'm the "real" guy, you get what I mean?
Not that all your models are not real, didn't mean that, but my approach is - as you said - another thing.
I do much in public, for example the "Under Feet" projects at fussphantasie. With this kind of videos I can't do updates 3 times a week. Every project takes a long time, it has to be planned, booked, whatever. I'm the protagonist who goes outside with a camera and talks to the people. Or I take one of my models and we go shopping at IKEA and make a video out of it.

This is what I love, this is what triggers me. I'm not into photos of nyloned feet of "perfect" models you know.
So it hurts me much much more if a video is stolen and dead at pornhub, because every single project is a giant thing. I don't have that much videos to provide... If I would publish 3x a week, ok, if some clips are stolen and uploaded - who cares.

So, yes, it's the approach. And I never wanted to do work at the production line.
As for now, I'm just a single guy who does everything by its own. I have no programmer, external photographers, booking agents...
That's the reason why I don't have subscription plans, just because I can't publish regularly.

For example, the gym clip at cc-feet (may I link? www.cc-feet.com/193-gym-locker-room ) took me 4 months(!) to produce. Granted, a highly illegal project, but it was my dream since I was a young guy. You simply can't do much besides, when you are into such a project.

Regarding clips4sale - They take 40% and that is very much money. Especially I have no control over my (very few compared to you) clips anymore. The fraud is high, a clerk told me they calculate 10-20% fraud rate. And if I would publish all of my stuff at C4S, all would be lost and found at pornhub in a few months. It's not the loss of 20% money, it's the loss of my high quality work where I put much much time in it.

But ok, I do have two C4S stores indeed, but there isn't much stuff in it. Maybe I should think about it and take your advice to put at least some of my stuff there.

Regarding Youtube: well ok. Then I will try pornhub and xhamster for my free clips, thanks for the hint! In fact I think my clips don't belong to pornhub, but whatever. If this generates advertising, then I'm fine with it.

@notalwaysright10000:
I do agree that cheating to customers is bad. Very bad. Since I started 13 years ago, my premise was "be honest, be trustworthy". I'd never film any trans people and would sell them as girls. Or place face shots of other clips to scenes where they don't belong.
All stuff at cc-feet.com is real candid. I'm running hours by hours, day by day with my cameras through the town and capture. Sometimes I have not a single clip in 3 weeks, sometimes I get 2 good ones on one day.
This is the stuff I'm dying for and probably I will do this until I'm sitting in a wheelchair or go to jail some day. (ok no, I would mount a cam under the wheelchair, so forget this point )

But, as nyllover said, stealing is never an option. Just simply don't buy the stuff and go to another site.
Either you like the work, then it's worth some money, or you don't like it, then you need not steal it.

Even if you film 3rd party people which don't know it, you have the copyright as you are the one who is filming. And this is worldwide. The persons have the right at their own picture, but you have the copyright as a producer. No one may share your clips without the consent of the film-maker. And there is no thing like *moral* right or such. You aren't simply allowed to share without the legitimation.

I do understand your frustration though.
But please punish the shops with ignorance.

Oh, by the way you're being flagged mostly by rival clipstores. I'd bet my life on it.

I thought of it too... And this thought makes me really really angry!
But yeah, we can't do much about it other than producing better stuff than them.

Maybe I'm too naive for this business, don't know. I would never flag a foot clip...

[ElToroLoco]

Hi Marco, I bought some clips from your stores in the past and never shared them. We also exchanged emails a couple of times. You are a smart person who really puts passion in their work. When I'll have the chance I will keep on buying some of your clips, wherever you'll decide to publish them. I wish you all the best

[ShoeplayJ]

First off, I too am a big fan of your work, and it irks me that you're going through such bullshit. And now that I've become a producer of content, I am experiencing the exact same things. Especially #2.

It always starts out running smoothly, with subscriber numbers rising as well as likes and views and then WHAM! I get hit with a strike, and then shortly after that, I get hit with another one. I've just received Strike #2, and that's after getting one two weeks ago. The complaint? Sexual Content? You would think so, but no! This time I've been accused of SPAMMING.

Did I mention that the videos being flagged are from months ago?

I fucking hatethis shit. There's channel's out there that get away with borderline porn, but gawd forbid my wife sits at her desk and plays with her flats — oh no, we can't have that! FLAG!

I already don't have a high opinion of Google as a company, and the way it runs YouTube only further proves my point. I wish they would either ease up on some of the "Community Guidelines" or make it not-so easy to flag people, but I know being such a huge corporation, they'll do neither.

See, I don't do ads on my sites, no partner programs, etc... I relied on the mass of people at Youtube, who stumbled upon the free shoeplay clips and visited my sites. But this doesn't work anymore. No new visitors, no income, no new clips in the future - the math is simple.

I truly feel your pain. Our stuff is of the more scripted variety, so it's already difficult to even make sales sometimes, and YT's bullshit just makes it worse. If I could completely take YT out of the equation, I would. But then where do you turn for views, if not the biggest goddamn video medium of the world?