what happened to clips4sale????

[U.N.Owen]

I'm sorry, but that is beyond stupid.

I've been shooting since 2013 and even with the barest amount of research I did on the topic I knew that keeping a copy of the ID on file was 100% required. As much as I defend producers on random shit I will never sympathize with anyone who simply doesn't have the records. Before 2021? Zero. Excuse. ZE-RO. Only the laziest possible interpretation of the 2257 code would even hint that you didn't need a copy of the ID. Anyone with half a brain would do it as a matter of routine CYA.

I'm surprise to hear TickleTown had so much trouble on Patreon. I ran an adult-material page there for Sole Males for a li'l less than two years (closed in down in September of '24) and it was completely painless. Nobody so much as asked for paperwork. Now OnlyFans, on the other hand, they flat-out said "we can't be bothered to verify your entire roster. Denied."

Trust me, if I could score similar sales and traffic - such as it is - from sites other than C4S I'd expand, but I've had to shut down accounts on a handful of other sites over the years due to a total lack of income. For me, it's C4S or nothing.

That said, only problem I've ever had with compliance that was unjustified was how they started cracking down on the fact that I included a phone number in the legally-required contact information at the end of the video. It's clearly labeled as 2257 compliance information, was never a problem for twelve-some-odd years, but all of a sudden I started having videos denied for it. I was usually able to get them to re-approve, but eventually I just said fuck it and removed the number. The address is still there, and they don't seem to care about that.

Generally speaking I'm all for improved enforcement of compliance as long as it's consistent. Problem is, it's not (re: phone numbers).

Oh well. Less competition after the purge I guess.

I can't dispute that it was careless not to keep copies of IDs. But C4S should have made it an explicit requirement from the start, not only in 2021. They, too, should have been paying more attention to the legal requirements. Some producers certainly did pay attention from the beginning - and there wouldn't a problem now if C4S had done its own job of following the law all along.

It's completely unclear why Patreon singled out Tickle Town for trouble - especially when their videos are so obviously girl-next-door, innocent and in good fun. But Oblesklk was clearly only half-joking when he said the whole process left him with PTSD.

 

[kingmaker]

The keeping ID thing is not a rule in every country. You cant blame producers to follow the law in their country.

Plus a lot of things can happen to records in years.
The producers that did not take IDs always took the contracts for all I know, it's not like they didn't have any process or ethics.

If a producer was involving minors in their work we would know by now

 

[SoleMates]

I can't dispute that it was careless not to keep copies of IDs. But C4S should have made it an explicit requirement from the start, not only in 2021.

They did, and even if they didn't, it's a fundamental aspect of 18USC2257, which all (US-based, at least) producers need to comply with, and always have.

Kingmaker's the only one with a (vaguely) valid point in that laws vary by country, but again; I've been selling with Clips4Sale since 2013 and although they didn't require the documents to be on file with them directly, it has always been a violation of their terms of service to not keep 2257-compliant records. Their TOS has always said "we reserve the right to ask you for these documents and terminate your studio if you can't provide them."

I'd wager that goes for non-US-based studios using C4S as well, given that they have to agree to the terms of service to sign up.

Plus a lot of things can happen to records in years.

Here in the US, you are responsible for keeping those records on file and available for inspection at any time for the entire duration of the operation of your business as well as five years afterward. "Oops I lost it" probably isn't going to fly in any country that actually has laws.

If a producer was involving minors in their work we would know by now

Would we? How long after the fact did it come out that Traci Lords was underage? That chick from the "Guy Game" video game? The Girls Gone Wild scandal(s)?

Part of the problem with not having records is that if a producer seems sus nobody can track the girl down to find out for sure.

 

[U.N.Owen]

They did, and even if they didn't, it's a fundamental aspect of 18USC2257, which all (US-based, at least) producers need to comply with, and always have.

Kingmaker's the only one with a (vaguely) valid point in that laws vary by country, but again; I've been selling with Clips4Sale since 2013 and although they didn't require the documents to be on file, it has always been a violation of their terms of service to not keep 2257-compliant records. Their TOS has always said "we reserve the right to ask you for these documents and terminate your studio if you can't provide them."

I'd wager that goes for non-US-based studios using C4S as well, given that they have to agree to the terms of service to sign up.

Indisputable points, particularly on the clear requirement in the law, which producers should have followed if only through enlightened self interest. But I would argue that C4S failing to ever actually ask for the documents over so many years was a mistake that encouraged damaging complacency. They should have required that the documents be on file, or at least made a point of doing periodic random audits so producers would remember it was a requirement; not requiring that for 20 years was an invitation to producers to cut corners or get careless or to lose documents they had in fact collected at the time.

And yes, I would think the C4S terms of service, if the same for all producers in different countries, override variations in local laws, for the purposes of C4S.

 

[kingmaker]

Would we? How long after the fact did it come out that Traci Lords was underage? That chick from the "Guy Game" video game? The Girls Gone Wild scandal(s)?

Part of the problem with not having records is that if a producer seems sus nobody can track the girl down to find out for sure.

Any girl can find herself online easily, if she sees a video of her she can go to police, and they will look into it. That's how it's done

 

[BBGuy5240]

I too am very glad Oblesklk brought Tickle Town back online. He even upscaled the quality of the old videos via the streaming website - they look amazing. Oblesklk said specifically that he wanted to avoid C4S. He was on Patreon before he opened the new site last fall, and they made it a complete nightmare - even though he does have all the documentation C4S is now demanding, and more. (Discussing this whole situation last night, he said that he not only took photos of models' IDs, he took photos of the models holding the same ID, just to be safe, and got a signed contract and a signed release. But Patreon was determined to deny him hosting service and claimed his contracts had to include the Patreon web address in their text - even though his videos were made long before Patreon existed. So he wouldn't need to contact his old models to satisfy C4S... though if that were demanded, it couldn't be done. He's had no contact with any of them for more than 10 years.)

I was wondering why he was having trouble on Patreon. Because I knew that it couldn't be any kind of nudity issue. He doesn't do nudity. And also because TickleBabes (who I freaking love) is on Patreon, and they've done plenty of clips involving some nudity.

And yeah, there's no way he'd be able to contact any of the girls. And even if he could get in contact with Mendez or Marvel, it wouldn't matter because both were tickling/getting tickled by girls who wouldn't be able to be contacted. But it sounds like he made sure that he had ALL possible information regarding the girls he worked with

 

[U.N.Owen]

I was wondering why he was having trouble on Patreon. Because I knew that it couldn't be any kind of nudity issue. He doesn't do nudity. And also because TickleBabes (who I freaking love) is on Patreon, and they've done plenty of clips involving some nudity.

And yeah, there's no way he'd be able to contact any of the girls. And even if he could get in contact with Mendez or Marvel, it wouldn't matter because both were tickling/getting tickled by girls who wouldn't be able to be contacted. But it sounds like he made sure that he had ALL possible information regarding the girls he worked with

Patreon's war on him is a mystery. His material is as clean as anything adult-oriented could be. Maybe he just got caught in some random audit by a particularly officious schnook at Patreon.

And yes, fortunately he won't need to contact any of his old models, which would be impossible. He was extremely careful about keeping records. And he just mentioned this evening that the payment platform he's using for the new site vetted all his proof of age documents when the site was set up... so that's all done and dusted.

 

[eddyderf]

So we can't view or buy anything without providing ID first? Sorry but I'd rather not give my passport or drivers license, defeats the whole anonymity thing...
is everyone seeing this or is it like a by state or country thing?

So many great and valid points made, but the elephant in the room is still not mentioned. The real reason all these platforms insist on getting people's IDs is so that they can store our data, and later use A.I. to track, profile, monetize, and depending on the context/individual, criminalize. Just like with "Real ID" for travel. At the end of the day we customers are given a choice about what our priority should be: preserving your freedom/anonymity, or giving it away for cheap instant gratification online. Similarly, producers are asked to choose between their freedom (whether it is anonymity or artistic freedom to make the kind of content they really want) and making money. If you value your freedom first, then you must as a producer at least try hard, to any extent possible, to upload your content on at least two different platforms and hope for the best.
All the banking and other individual protections regulations seem reasonable enough on the surface, but they are just cover for the real agenda. Why give producers such a hard time when there are plenty of reasonable workarounds and compromises that could be easily arranged?

 

[eddyderf]

Patreon's war on him is a mystery. His material is as clean as anything adult-oriented could be. Maybe he just got caught in some random audit by a particularly officious schnook at Patreon.

And yes, fortunately he won't need to contact any of his old models, which would be impossible. He was extremely careful about keeping records. And he just mentioned this evening that the payment platform he's using for the new site vetted all his proof of age documents when the site was set up... so that's all done and dusted.

A few years ago I remember listening to a panel on NPR discussing OnlyFans plan to outlaw adult content on the platform. The female content creators protested quite loudly and threatened to just leave the platform in mass, so OF had to back off, even though they cited all reasons/regulations/excuses mentioned in all the previous threads. The TickleTown case tells me that some of the main platforms are not acting in good faith because they are monopolies. I strongly suspect the owner of TickleTown is an independent free thinker/creator who makes clean, BEAUTIFUL content. They don't like that kind of producers/citizens, and that's in large part why he was given such a hard time (possibly even censored?). Maybe if the producers could find a way to mimic what the female OF creators did to protest, just maybe the platform would back off as well?
Using a VPN is now the very bare minimum to attempt to preserve your privacy, if that's still possible.

 

[SoleMates]

Any girl can find herself online easily, if she sees a video of her she can go to police, and they will look into it. That's how it's done

This is an over-simplified and ignorant take.

For one thing, the vast majority of people aren't as plugged into the creepy side of kink media as we are. They simply aren't going to think to go digging through PornHub or the any hundreds of fly-by-night fetish sites (...like the TMF) that exist on the off-chance some loser filmed them in public for other people to whack off to. Even big-name YouTubers are often ignorant of exactly where their content is ending up, or that things we take as granted in the fetish world, actually exist. I've had to explain the concept of Rule 34 to more normies than I'd like to count.

Furthermore, how exactly would someone search for themselves on PornHub if the uploader didn't use their name? "Tickling my GF", "Two lesbians in the stocks", or any number of a hundred other random labels with no mention of the person's identity or the ability to use facial recognition. And again, who would even think to be like, "Oh, I went to the renfair this weekend, better search the internet's porn sites for any videos of me in the stocks that might have cropped up".

Hell, there was this one pirate that had been using my content for quite some time that I only found because I specifically went to YouTube, typed a specific search phrase in the bar, scrolled through 3/4's of the search results, and then started browsing into his videos. And even then, he'd given the model in question a different name to further cover his tracks. I'm kink-web-savvy and I still had to go off like Indiana Jones to find it. There are parts of the web that I know probably have my stuff on it that I simply won't risk going to because I don't have enough faith in my virus scanner.

We as a community rely on the fact that these people don't know we're out here. We fly under the radar, hoping nobody'll notice the (to us) blatant fetish-mining going on. And if they do happen to brush up against it, they just think it's one random creep and not one of a community a few hundred thousand strong actively working to not let anyone know they're lurking out there.

In short, this is borderline impossible for anyone who's not already a fetish model. And anyone who is, will most likely know what's required of them in terms of paperwork.

But I would argue that C4S failing to ever actually ask for the documents over so many years was a mistake that encouraged damaging complacency.

I agree. A lot of people simply didn't/don't care and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass.

 

[kingmaker]

So many great and valid points made, but the elephant in the room is still not mentioned. The real reason all these platforms insist on getting people's IDs is so that they can store our data, and later use A.I. to track, profile, monetize, and depending on the context/individual, criminalize.

No, the platforms don't ever see your documents. It's 3rd party

But when you pay (with your real name) on the internet, the merchants has that data to make an invoice

 

[BBGuy5240]

So has the purge of older content officially begun? I've noticed that some older clips that may not have shown up in the search results but still could be found/purchased, now they just say "Oops! This clip is currently unavailable"

 

[kingmaker]

I don't know if it started but I've had a bunch of clips reviewed today.

My clip https://genuinetickling.com/produit/the-uber-eats-girls-predicament-part-1/ has been removed for "Drug use" because one model put a rag under the nose of the other to "capture her"

I will probably edit that part for c4s, but that's wild

 

[BBGuy5240]

I don't know if it started but I've had a bunch of clips reviewed today.

My clip https://genuinetickling.com/produit/the-uber-eats-girls-predicament-part-1/ has been removed for "Drug use" because one model put a rag under the nose of the other to "capture her"

I will probably edit that part for c4s, but that's wild

I guess we'll see. But this is the first time I've noticed older clips now being outright gone from C4S. Which sucks because those are clips that unless they're floating around online somewhere, will never be seen again.

 

[South_Atmo]

Interesting how the topic of old clips disappearing keeps popping up. Kind of got off the beaten path of the original post, but yeah. ID's have always been required for all producers. Scans of IDs and release forms. Big difference I'm seeing now is that certain sites want you to use their release forms and/or have the models take photos with their IDs, which, I'm still ok with. It does inconvenience me a lot because all of my content is early 2013 and prior and, while release forms and scans of models' IDs are still on hand from that time period, I don't have photos of them posing with their IDs because that wasn't the requirement and I never thought to do something like that. In those types of situations or when some of the newer sites require you to use their specific release form, if you're not still somehow in contact with the models or they aren't still active, you're kinda SOL with legacy stuff.

Back to the original post, I still don't have an issue with ID being required to access these sites. It should have been that way for a while. That's the way it used to be when you wanted to try to buy or rent an adult film from a video store. If they even sniffed you were underage, they'd boot you out. My biggest issue is with the security of it all. It's all happening so fast and a lot of these methods of ID verification are not secure. Internet scams are at an all time high and there isn't a big enough push to secure these types of programs. We aren't talking creating social media profiles, these people are creating OnlyFans accounts under someone else's identity. So, I'm for ID verification, but I'm also for maximizing security when doing it, so that people like the original poster aren't so apprehensive about submitting their ID for verification.