Moderator Moderator Blog - Member banned for Piracy

[VaMStaff]

Sometimes a creator has been around so long some of their behavior slips under the radar.

In this case, a creator had been here since 2021, had a reaction score over 1000, and had dozens of resources.

What prompted an investigation was a report that was apparently submitted accidentally -- however we do take a look at every report just in case.

This individual was:

- Boosting their own reactions and reviews using a fake account.

- Uploading fake vars to the Var Health Report scan for their paid content, then hosting a completely different var on their Patreon page.

- Using NC and PC licensed content as dependencies

- Reselling the PC content from other creators on their Patreon in a separate "dependencies" mega folder for each resource

We must stress that if you run into evidence of piracy after having subscribed to someone's Patreon, please report it! Even if you don't feel strongly about piracy one way or the other, or have pirated some content yourself , consider this:

A very large percentage of creators who use pirated content in their own resources are actually selling you content that already exists on the Hub, either free or from a different creator. They're ripping you off, and ripping off the actual creators (the ones who actually create the content). Hurting the people who actually create the original content means no more original content. Then all you'll have is a bunch of pirates endlessly selling you content you've already purchased, or could get elsewhere on the Hub for free.

If you subscribe to a creator and find that their off-site links include folders full of vars from other creators, please report it. All reports are completely confidential.

If you are a creator and you offer downloads of other creators' dependencies on your Patreon or off-site hosting, please don't. You're robbing those creators of downloads and reactions and potentially setting yourself up for a ban.

 

[Okachu]

I found a lot creator only because their dependencies on other patreons.

 

[AshAuryn]

After discussing the situation with the creator, we have allowed them back on the Hub. There were a few reasons for this:

1. The creator was respectful and forthcoming when dealing with our staff

2. They admitted their mistakes where applicable, and it was clear that they had put time and effort into proper packaging and credits in other areas of their work

3. The mistakes were not egregious (For example, the creator produced written permission for some of the items which they had forgotten to include)

4. There was a lot of support for this creator's ethical character from the community

As for dependencies being hosted on Patreon ---

This is not a rule, it is a recommendation and a request from our staff that you try not to host dependencies on Patreon or other platforms. With that said, the creator had what we feel was a legitimate reason because many of their backers live in a country where access to the Hub servers is not possible. In this case, we ask that you be very careful that you are not accidentally sharing dependencies that are actually Paid Content, which is what happened in this case.