what happened to tickle central?

[7perfect]

They havent updated since the 10th of May. Their foot worship store hasnt updated since then as well.

I AM WONDERING THE SAME THING

 

[SadCuzNotTcklsh]

The producer guy of TC never interacts with the tickling community, I sometimes doubt whether or not he cares. So I wouldn't be surprised if they don't update for another couple of years again...

 

[GQguy]

If you buy his clips you'd be on his e-mail list. Due to pirating and competition from his former models starting their own sites he's decided to stop producing. Sucks....but he literally has thousands of clips on his sites. As long as the store is still open I'm happy.

 

[Aboundtime]

Sometimes you need to take a short hiatus. I'm doing the same until I build up more content.

 

[GQguy]

Sometimes you need to take a short hiatus. I'm doing the same until I build up more content.

True!


Or sit back even while your older stuff sells.

 

[Darth Sidious]

This is a point I was trying to stress but that nobody really seemed to see the importance of. I hope this serves as an example to all. If the piracy gets too out of hand, why would we want to keep producing? The math just doesn't work. Thankfully we have now been able to curve it substantially for our brand, but there are many others who continue to get ripped off. This just isn't sustainable long-term.

I'm sure the guy did what he needed to do given the circumstances - it's his choice, after all 🙂.

 

[The Last Laugh]

The producer guy of TC never interacts with the tickling community

I've always been amazed by the fact that he still manages to remain among the top tickling producers on Clips4Sale.com. I've no idea how he does it. I'm assuming his material is quite good (and plentiful) and he has managed to attract a lot of loyal customers. But even then, I still don't understand how he does it without interacting with the community.

If the piracy gets too out of hand, why would we want to keep producing? The math just doesn't work.

Indeed. The competition is tough enough as it is these day without having to worry about people sharing our hard work for free. Piracy is one of the reasons why I often consider dropping everything and moving on. I've amost done it a few times but reconsidered. I still don't know how long I'm going to be doing this. So I totally understand the Tickle Central guy.

 

[Luvs2tckl]

I have been a longtime customer of TC, and I really like their work. It is a shame if he has stopped producing, but there have been many times where he has taken a hiatus during the summer for vacation, etc. GQ, did you actually correspond with him about leaving producing?

I do agree that the pirating is awful nowadays. It is sad that there are many out there gaining from the work of others with no regard to the fact that it is basically stealing. It used to be back in the day people would always hit you up in chat to share clips.

 

[Darth Sidious]

It really is! What we did is we took the fight back and started exposing people and suing them. Just about everyone chose to settle rather than go to court over it. It sends a message and I would hope more producers start taking a more pro-active approach to that issue.

Bottom line, if people are unwilling to pay, why do it at all? The community at large will just end up screwing themselves at that rate and perhaps thats exactly what needs to happen.

I have been a longtime customer of TC, and I really like their work. It is a shame if he has stopped producing, but there have been many times where he has taken a hiatus during the summer for vacation, etc. GQ, did you actually correspond with him about leaving producing?

I do agree that the pirating is awful nowadays. It is sad that there are many out there gaining from the work of others with no regard to the fact that it is basically stealing. It used to be back in the day people would always hit you up in chat to share clips.

 

[tku]

My 2 cents


I have no idea what's happened to Tickle Central - but if this is more than just gossip, it's probably nothing to do with piracy. Who knows 😛

It really is! What we did is we took the fight back and started exposing people and suing them. Just about everyone chose to settle rather than go to court over it. It sends a message and I would hope more producers start taking a more pro-active approach to that issue.

Bottom line, if people are unwilling to pay, why do it at all? The community at large will just end up screwing themselves at that rate and perhaps thats exactly what needs to happen.

Sorry Darth, but the reason more businesses don't use that tactic is that it has virtually zero effect on piracy and in niche markets alienates your already small customer base (many of your legal customers are very possibly the same people who download files too *shock horror*). I've been in similar situations myself and have no desire to make your problem worse ...so I'm not going to go into methods, but its trivial to find tens of sources of hundreds of recent clips, with minimal effort and often accidentally. If you can change that you might get somewhere, but you won't and cannot do it by suing people - it's quite simply a technical, not a legal, issue and a consequence of dealing with digital goods in a global marketplace. That's not defeatism - it's the reality for anyone who trades in bits and bytes online.

On the subject of settlement shakedown letters, that practise requires huge wilful or actual ignorance to be considered "taking the fight back". Frankly, it's an irresponsible intimidation tactic offered by shady law firms who know they'd get very possibly get nowhere in actual court, but they know they can bypass due process and milk people who don't know better. Let's put aside the guys who aren't from the US or subject to your legal system, or the guys who know how to obfuscate and spoof their connection who are entirely out of your reach (ie. the blackhats who raid clips4sale stores and membership sites and are the root of the actual problem) - because if you are throwing legal threats around these aren't the guys you are targetting.

Whether you do the work yourself or employ the services of a company to do it for you - there is no reliable way of identifying an individual from an ip address. You are reliant upon chasing down internet account holders, which if tickle clip piracy is like video game, movie, music or any other variety that I am familiar with (I suspect it is) it means you are going to end up issuing bully boy legalese letters to a load of kids and teenagers exploring their sexuality, confused parents/partners who have no idea what their kids/other half are up to, people who have had their wireless tapped and people who wouldn't have paid for your stuff anyway - not the blackhats and internet savvy people described in the previous paragraph.

Over the years I have seen you post and in what little correspondence we have had you have seemed like a person motivated by minimising potential personal losses caused by the apparent moral shortcomings of others, but no amount of rationalising is going to make crudely "exposing people and suing them" in a scattershot fashion a good or ethical business practise. You can't maintain the "anti-piracy" moral high ground, whilst ignoring that an ip address is not a person and acting such that if innocent people are collateral damage - so be it.

Anyway, it's late but I thought I'd play devil's advocate on this subject a little 🙂

 

[tcklft]

If piracy is such a problem, why are there more producers making clips today than ever?

 

[SoleMates]

My understanding of the piracy issue is that it was/is primarily coming from a couple of high-profile individuals who weren't being particularly diligent about covering their tracks. Granted, you're not going to get everyone, but there's no real reason not to go after someone who's deliberately waving it in your face.

If piracy is such a problem, why are there more producers making clips today than ever?

I do it for fun, mostly. Lord knows I'm not making any money...

Seriously tho, I think a lot of people get into it because they think it's more profitable a business than it actually is. The reality gets to them eventually.

 

[Darth Sidious]

Hey I'm not saying it's the ONLY thing to do...we've used other technical methods to further hedge against piracy. I just wish more producers would do that as it would begin to change things up a little. I know it has for us and I'm very happy about where we are now versus a year ago 🙂.

I can see where Central might have gotten frustrated and frankly, who could blame him?