Current happenings!
Ok, now that the page is back I can take my time to answer your questions and explain the current situation.
Gats, our former portrait artist, sent a DMCA on us at the end of September.
He apparently wasn't aware about some aspects of the game, like the (optional) sex scenes during fights, despite such content being in the game 5-6 months before he joined.
That's why he dropped out and, not satisfied, decided to (try to) take the ball and go home, like it's usual around these parts between professional artists.
This time though there's other people involved, that would very much like to see TKC go under, but that's a story for another day.
We answered his DMCA, thanks to the contract Gats and I signed back when he joined the team we had nothing to fear.
That's why around a week ago he decided to file a lawsuit against me and Patreon could do nothing but suspend the page until I removed the content cited in the lawsuit.
We're already dealing with it and v0.13 won't be slowed down but we won't be able to post links here until this is dealt with. Same thing goes for the main page and all there's around, that will go back to normal when the lawsuit is dealt with.
I'd also like ask, if possible, to keep everything regarding this boring stuff in this post.
Thank you!
UPDATE
Comments (29)
They say you don't know your doing good until a lawsuit comes. Just means ya got a great game. Good luck with the legal matters.
That got a giggle out of me, thank you man.
I'm a bit....conflicted with this. Ultimately, the TKC team should be in the right if the contract waived moral rights, but if that's not the case, I'd rather go with the moral rights argument. DMCAs have a bad reputation, that much is true, but without knowing anything further I can't say that it was or was not justified. I don't personally have objections to certain "rape" fantasies, similar to my stance on BDSM, but I respect the decision of the artist to not want to associate their work with it if they so choose, it is their moral right as an artist. The questions come down to this: Were his moral rights waived in the contract he signed, and was the artist aware of this creative decision (non-consent fantasy content) at any time before he joined the team?
Thanks for the update, I haven't had any details about the other side's argument before this (I don't use tumblr). I'm not sure what the exact situation of the current copyright is, such as who owns it or what agreements were made between these parties, so I'm absolutely stumped as to how this will get sorted.
your case looks a copy of "imagos softwork vs alex mauer" leonard french is the attorney on the case for imagos <a href="https://leonardjfrench.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://leonardjfrench.com/</a> alex mauer did dmca on gameplay videos because of "his" music, "he" had "issues" with the company but by his contract he didn't own the music, the company did.
Gats already said he doesn't own the assets, the problem is that Towerfag claimed the IP wasn't copyrighted, and that triggered the lawsuit. That case is nothing like this one, since Gats is not trying to take away anything except, maybe, the name.
Gats never said that the assets commissioned were his nor he intended to pull them off the game. Don't be fooled.
While I understand the reasoning behind it I'm still kind of bummed that you decided to go the legal route. Now a fairly significant sum of valuable patreon dollars will be going into lawyers' pockets rather than towards the development of the game itself. I don't expect that you'll disclose how much money is now going to be directed towards legal costs, but the one thing that just about everybody knows about lawyers is that they do not come cheap. Obviously I can't comment on what actually happened or speculate on alternative possible solutions, but I do worry that it will be more time-consuming and much less straight-forward than you anticipate. Only two weeks ago you seemed quite confident that no content would be removed, and that Patreon wouldn't remove anything, however the entire page was then taken down for around three days until you opted to remove content related to the lawsuit. Our collective hope is that this is temporary. I don't think that you were wrong to choose to do that rather than leave the page down until the lawsuit was sorted out, but it still leaves me feeling pretty worried nonetheless. I hope that you can sort things out with Gats quickly (and cheaply).
Your worries make sense and I want to answer them honestly. The point-to-point answer isn't meant to sound cold or rude, it's just to make sure I don't leave unanswered questions. -Obviously it wasn't I that decided to take the legal route, we recieved the lawsuit Gats adressed to me 3-4 days ago. We're only answering it right now. -The patreon bucks that aren't spent on the game's development, believe it or not, reach my wallet! I didn't cut any commission to the other team member's because I don't want to stop the development, so the legal expenses are taken directly from my cut. -Patreon didn't remove anything from these pages, I did it, since lawsuits are serious stuff. The "infringing" material has to be removed from the Patreon's main page to not risk it getting suspended again. -IF the lawsuit gets resolved in our favor, of course everything will go back to normal, and I strongly believe that's what is going to happen. -Luckily Patreon only charge you guys at the beginning of the month, you can watch the situation before deciding to renew your pledge or not, is your right to do so and I exhort (is that the right word?) you all to do as you feel!
Such a shame, i like his artstyle but... well glad you can keep positive about it.
Glad too see you handling it so well just keep on trucking no point in letting it bog you down right? as shitty as it is like you said nothing can be done til the dust settles the more i see how you operate the more i like this team you guys will def be on top of my list to back when i have more budget
This is why things have gone to such shit in this world with this kind of blatant copyright trolling as it is called. Copyright was intended to protect people from taking credit for their work, it wasn't intended to screw people over when they have a legitimate arrangement like you did.
So Gats tried to pull an S-purp. Well, screw Gats.
We still stand behind you. I’m glad you’re doing well.
That really sucks for you guys, glad that it's getting handled quickly though, good on you for making clear contracts! Not enough do.
if you want more information about this current event please join discord
Isn't that only for 20$ patrons?
At least it's an opportunity to get a possibly even better artist.
well i am glad to see that you are coming out on top of this debacle. strange behaviour sigh some people huh... well :D lets just hope and try for the best good luck :D
Just remember that there's nothing as a "bad PR". Let's transform all the pent up anxieties into excitement for the future! Hurray, positive emotions!
So.....when 0.13 releases, how different of a change will we see?
This thing will surely be dealt with at least a week before release.
So, would the content in question be all the artwork that Gats had contributed? I'm just a little curious about the content that its slated to be removed to appease the terms of the suit.
He's actually going for all that's "Towergirls" (the names, the Princesses and the monsters in the charts). What isn't included in the charts is the Knight, the NPCS, the progenies and, of course, the game itself.
As much as I like Gats(well his artstyle at least) this is really scummy, especially with how he just came out all vague on tumblr and twitter knowing ppl would side with him more(possibly, I read too much into stuff) I like the game too much and if he's tilted over a feature(s) that can technically be avoided then that's his problem, he shouldn't be trying to down a game where the 'ntr' isn't even as bad as the other two games he's well known for working on.
i feel the same i was excited to see more of gats art and the game looks really fun then this happen its a shame but i guess it happens sometimes when egos get too high or expectations about how things will work are broken
Wow, this guy has a bad history it seems, ditching TiTS snd now doing this? Glad you are okay though.
Did he really ditch it? Fen never really hinted towards anything ill-will towards Gats and according to Gats all his sprites were just one big commission which even still I'm kinda eh on because...it's weird to do some characters and not really try to help with more.
At least it's getting handled