C4S and Piracy : my early experience (mostly producer talk)

[kingmaker]

Hi people,

Full disclosure: I own my own tickling platform so you can see this rant as a cheap attempt to talk about my website if you want.

So I started the 30th of July a C4S store to see how it's like on C4S.

At first, I honestly found the platform pretty ... good?

-> GIF maker for preview is very convenient
-> You get a lot of traffic to your store that is only on C4S. (traffic doesn't equal buyers tho)
-> There is a thing to schedule uploads, handy !

So anyway it started well (and I don't want to do some free bashing)

I knew about the eventual quirks like the 40% Fee and stuffs, I was more interested into getting my studio (LLT) some publicity.

Then something hit me : I got an email that one of the order got "refunded".



I was like "well ok, not a big deal, maybe he didn't like it". (So naïve ...)

Then 2 days later, I see my 2 best seller clips in the wild. ... Yay ?

And today it hit me again : A "huge" C4S order (which isn't as huge when you chop up nearly 50% out of it) and everything got "refunded".

Now if I may : I opened Genuinetickling at the end of January, I've been using stripe and Paypal that have a much better protection than what C4S uses (USAPAY or something).

I never got one fucking clip pirated, neither for me or the producers on my platform (roughly a 1000 orders).

So yeah, that's not a big deal probably ?

My clip catalog is about 20 clips, and I've got a 1/4 of it out in the wild thanks to C4S in 2 weeks.

For a Fee of 40 %, you could expect a better chargeback* protection, If I can do it on genuinetcikling.com, they could do it with their million dollars.

A chargeback is when the credit card user or the bank cancels an order (mostly because it's stolen)

The cherry on the cake :
-> Sales volume is the same on C4S and on GT, so I got more troubles than money from C4S.
-> Getting pirated sucks, but in any other industry, at least the pirate gets to pay for what he shares.

So here it is about my rant, that's really a big problem for smaller studios, if I were only on C4S I wouldn't be able to make any profit at all and would have disappeared already.

Producers got used to this situation, but there are solutions and you should ask C4S to implement a better payment gateway.

 

[kingmaker]

Now, as a complement :

I really try to spoil the customers on GT :
-> Good prices
-> 10 % Cashback
-> A membership system where you actually get the clips at release day (who does that ?)
-> Customer service
-> "Pay what you want" clips that actually cost money in bandwidth when you download them.

I think people are happy to buy there because I trust them, and that's why I don't have any issue on my home platform.

Piracy is the symptom of an unhealthy market, and this is why I think that gigantic platforms that don't take care of vendors and customers have issues with it.

 

[The Internet]

Sir, that indeed sounds like a real scoundrel move, that breaks my heart to hear. They BUY the clips.........UPLOAD THEM TO PORNHUB.....then get REFUNDS on the clips?

So what? They can be King of Pornhub?

It's one thing to buy the clip and pirate it; but to then get a refund on the clip? Rip the producer off TWICE? So sorry to hear that. That's a new one to me, I have to admit.

I'll check out your spot once I got a little cash to spend. Which unfortunately is not now, but.....hang in there! I can't be broke forever! lol.

 

[kingmaker]

I didn't see my clips on pornhub yet, the guy that does that make money via affiliation making people buy hosting membership. I'm just one of the dozen of studios targeted...

The issue is that it shouldn't happen as often. Piracy is a problem when it's systematic and c4s won't invest in fraud detection

 

[happydarwin]

An interesting behind-the-scenes look at the problem of piracy. It never occurred to me that the clips originated as part of a legit transaction just to be refunded like that. I wonder if C4S having anti-fraud measures would imply some measure of liability on their part for the studios and so they stick to just hosting the content?

HappyD

 

[kingmaker]

The solution is quite simpler than that :

Online payment is divided between
1) A Gateway processor (where you put your card numbers)
2) A merchand account (The money goes there).

Lots of providers do both, and that's the case there (as for Paypal, stripe, and many other companies that do online payment).

Now listen :
Adult content is labelled as High risk (like gambling and many other businesses)
Financial Fees goes very high ! 5 % to 15 %. They are not even fixed, each company needs to negotiate

Cashbacks and refunds also give you penalties (around 30 $) -> That's the definition of high risk (high risk of having chargebacks).

So in summary: Online payment world for adult companies is a jungle.

Now there are a lot of recent companies that use machine learning to block suspicious payments, but they are mostly not working with High risk.

How does it work ?
-> Double crossing stolen credit card databases
-> Looking for other susbicious transaction from the card
-> Failed entry of CVC code or card number
-> 3D secure or not, etc ...

Each of those criteria give a malus, and if the score goes below a certain treshold the transaction isn't allowed.

So to sum up : C4S could go to another payment processor or force the use of 3D secure to buy on their platform.
This would help greatly (not solve the problem but mitigate it)

 

[turtleboy]

They BUY the clips.........UPLOAD THEM TO PORNHUB.....then get REFUNDS on the clips?

So what? They can be King of Pornhub?

It's one thing to buy the clip and pirate it; but to then get a refund on the clip? Rip the producer off TWICE? So sorry to hear that. That's a new one to me, I have to admit.

They are typically just fake/fraudulent sales - the credit card details are often stolen from unsuspecting people, which is why the same person can keep returning and buying clips over and over...different card details every time. The bank will then get the sales refunded from the producer (C4S also pays $30 for every chargeback). The clips are pirated en masse, usually by the guys who run the various wordpress-based piracy blogs where the clips are then posted (they are later re-posted on pornhub etc by leechers from those sites).

I don't know whether people actually think the dick-bags that run the piracy sites actually pay for the clips they upload daily, but they don't. They pay nothing and make their money via commission from referring downloaders to the premium filehosting sites they use. The file-hosts (xubster, keep2share etc) are usually based in territories that are hard to prosecute internationally and they make a ton of money from piracy. It is basically a criminal network but a really shitty, lame one.

An interesting behind-the-scenes look at the problem of piracy. It never occurred to me that the clips originated as part of a legit transaction just to be refunded like that. I wonder if C4S having anti-fraud measures would imply some measure of liability on their part for the studios and so they stick to just hosting the content?

HappyD

They do have anti-fraud measures, they just don't work against the sheer amount of fraudulent attempts they deal with all the time. Any card used fraudulently will be blocked but again, the people pirating the clips use different details every time. Once a fraudulent sale has passed, any chargebacks/refunds will go through automatically and C4S is powerless to stop it.

The solution is quite simpler than that :

Online payment is divided between
1) A Gateway processor (where you put your card numbers)
2) A merchand account (The money goes there).

Lots of providers do both, and that's the case there (as for Paypal, stripe, and many other companies that do online payment).

Now listen :
Adult content is labelled as High risk (like gambling and many other businesses)
Financial Fees goes very high ! 5 % to 15 %. They are not even fixed, each company needs to negotiate

Cashbacks and refunds also give you penalties (around 30 $) -> That's the definition of high risk (high risk of having chargebacks).

So in summary: Online payment world for adult companies is a jungle.

Now there are a lot of recent companies that use machine learning to block suspicious payments, but they are mostly not working with High risk.

How does it work ?
-> Double crossing stolen credit card databases
-> Looking for other susbicious transaction from the card
-> Failed entry of CVC code or card number
-> 3D secure or not, etc ...

Each of those criteria give a malus, and if the score goes below a certain treshold the transaction isn't allowed.

So to sum up : C4S could go to another payment processor or force the use of 3D secure to buy on their platform.
This would help greatly (not solve the problem but mitigate it)

I believe that C4S do use many (if not all) of the above measures but still many fraudulent sales get through. My membership site uses CCBill, which is one of the largest payment processors for adult sites but still I get refunds/chargebacks every month.

As for using Paypal, I agree that they're great for many things, but not adult content unfortunately. Be warned: they will shut you down and take the money from your account if you sell any form of adult content through them publicly, so I strongly suggest you don't advertise it as an option on your site!

 

[porcelaindoll2]

As for using Paypal, I agree that they're great for many things, but not adult content unfortunately. Be warned: they will shut you down and take the money from your account if you sell any form of adult content through them publicly, so I strongly suggest you don't advertise it as an option on your site!

This is very true. I know many people both in the adult entertainment industry and the sex work industry who's PayPal's were shutdown and their money was seized. All it would take is one disgruntled customer to report you to PayPal. I am assuming if that happened the producers on there would loose any money they didn't get before it got shutdown? It's partly why I am hesitant to join.

 

[kingmaker]

So about Paypal I made some researchs before :

1-) They did shut some accounts, but they were not business accounts and unverified via legal documents. I've done things in a transparrent manner and have had my accounts reviewed several times. Also their terms of use do not prohibit it

2-) The money I owe to producers on the platform is guaranteed. I have a cash reserve to back this up. I never leave more than 500 $ on Paypal.

3-) I have other solutions to revert on if needs be. I don't say this could never happen because Paypal is unpredictable for a lot of businesses, but the idea is to always have 1 or 2 back up solutions.

Also : CCBill is shit, another dinosaur that takes 15 % for basic tech. You can find better providers out there that will sell you the same service for around 4 %

In fact, I've been looking for a High risk credit card payment provider for months, and if it means bearing chargebacks, a Rolling reserve and very high fees, I'd rather go to bitcoin.
(Or I'd need the whole community to use GT to hold it together)

Today alone I've had the same clips refunded twice and the one and only sale of my foot massage video on C4S refunded too. It's becoming worrisome to see that it's rotten to the bone

 

[turtleboy]

So about Paypal I made some researchs before :

1-) They did shut some accounts, but they were not business accounts and unverified via legal documents. I've done things in a transparrent manner and have had my accounts reviewed several times. Also their terms of use do not prohibit it

From their website:

'Digital Goods – PayPal prohibits all account holders from buying or selling sexually oriented digital goods, including downloadable pictures or videos, subscriptions to websites, or other content delivered through a digital medium.'

It doesn't matter whether it's a business or a personal account. They frequently suspend or close accounts for the slightest of infractions - I know plenty of models that have had their accounts closed without warning after posting their Paypal addresses on Twitter. For your own sake I recommend that you don't advertise adult/fetish content with a Paypal option if you want to keep that account. You can always use it as an option but I would strongly suggest that you keep it private - i.e. between yourself and the customer directly.

 

[kingmaker]

You can always use it as an option but I would strongly suggest that you keep it private - i.e. between yourself and the customer directly.

There is no way you can run an E-commerce website without an automatic way of payment.
Otherwise, I'd get paid by bank transfers.

I'll use it for as long as I can, then I'll switch to plan B with crypto. Good thing is that there is no chargeback possible and the fees are only 1%, that'll be more money for the vendors.

So this is not the main subject (I was more ranting about C4S), but there is no need to worry about not getting paid on GT (doesn't mean the platform will suit everyone tho)