Joining Keenspot

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avwolf
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#91 Post by avwolf »

2plus2makes5 wrote:For the sake of productivity, I'm going to ignore the argument taking place. Below is the address of a pop-up that appeared when I clicked the "Forums" button on the Keenspot page.
http://freeproducttesters.com/EligibleMember/
What were the advertisements up on the page when you experienced this? One of them has some "on leaving the page" Javascript that causes this pop up, I've seen happen on another Keenspot comic, so it's definitely something malign in their ad network. Hopefully we can help Keenspot find it and remove it.
Conal wrote:Just out of interest, what can Keenspots do about it? They still get them & as Avwolf said; it's affected dA too.
They remove the ad, Conal. Then they harden the ad network to keep people from breaking into it and doing code injection. Like I said, these advertisements violate Keenspot's ad policies, so they will remove them them should they find them. Therefore, our goal should be to help them find these violators. At least we're only getting popups. Usually, when an ad network is compromised, the attackers embed drive-by downloads (that's what happened to dA). As near as I've been able to tell, there is only one compromised advertisement, maybe two. At least, I haven't experienced the problem often enough to be indicative of more than that.

And to answer your question, if 80% of Tom's fans were upset by the move, yes, he'd leave. He consulted various groups of his fans before the move to get their opinions, and he then only signed a one year contract to see if Keenspot and Twokinds could work together. I'm sure if Tom had known you'd be in the firm opposition, he'd have solicited your opinion. If he's unsatisfied after that year is up, he's under no obligation to stay with Keenspot any longer. This wasn't an easy decision for him to make either; he didn't jump directly into Keenspot's arms, he engaged in this partnership after a lot of deliberation.
Conal wrote:
avwolf wrote:"You should be successful from your own work," you said. What do you call this?!
Keenspots being successful from him, after he gave away rights to the comic. I bet Book Two will have Keenspots on it.
That wouldn't be surprising, Keenspot is very interested in doing print publishing. I don't know that that's in his current contract. But if the book ends up being better quality for the same or a similar price, then haven't we won? You know personally how mediocre Indyplanet's print quality could be. Granting license isn't "giving away rights." If that were true, Tom wouldn't have any rights to his work, because he's already released them under a Creative Commons license. My big question for you is "what did Tom give up?" It's not like he didn't have ads on the website before the move. He still has full creative control of the comic. He gave up the ability to host Twokinds elsewhere on the Internet, but retained his right to post Twokinds-related work on DA, retained his right to permit mirrors of Twokinds' content, and retained his general rights to the characters and setting. Yes, he's currently hosted off a subdomain, but he still owns his own domain names. He no longer has to pay for the bandwidth usage of the main site (the forums are still fully hosted on server space he rents directly). He's contractually obligated to keep a regular update schedule now, so he's given up a little bit of his freedom.
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#92 Post by Conal »

avwolf wrote: They remove the ad, Conal.
But how they stop them from re-occurring is what I meant.
Then they harden the ad network to keep people from breaking into it and doing code injection. Like I said, these advertisements violate Keenspot's ad policies, so they will remove them them should they find them. Therefore, our goal should be to help them find these violators.
Right.
At least we're only getting popups. Usually, when an ad network is compromised, the attackers embed drive-by downloads (that's what happened to dA). As near as I've been able to tell, there is only one compromised advertisement, maybe two. At least, I haven't experienced the problem often enough to be indicative of more than that.
I see. It sucks that was able to happen to them, how could they be so bad at security? I suppose dA has a lot of window lickers so it was probably a target for that reason, people falling for it would be assured.
And to answer your question, if 80% of Tom's fans were upset by the move, yes, he'd leave.
Well, that's good to hear. I guess.
He consulted various groups of his fans before the move to get their opinions, and he then only signed a one year contract to see if Keenspot and Twokinds could work together. I'm sure if Tom had known you'd be in the firm opposition, he'd have solicited your opinion.
Yeah, I don't remember that. I went on the site & it said something about Keenspots in the blog, next time I visit the whole site is different. I thought it was a joke at first.
If he's unsatisfied after that year is up, he's under no obligation to stay with Keenspot any longer. This wasn't an easy decision for him to make either; he didn't jump directly into Keenspot's arms, he engaged in this partnership after a lot of deliberation.
I'm sure he did, I'd think long & hard if I had the time when it comes to negotiating ways of making me more money.
That wouldn't be surprising, Keenspot is very interested in doing print publishing.
... and it gets worse.
I don't know that that's in his current contract. But if the book ends up being better quality for the same or a similar price, then haven't we won? You know personally how mediocre Indyplanet's print quality could be.
Yeah... http://youtu.be/R8rjD1yqWoI?hd=1 - I also forgot to mention that the entire website wasn't working properly because they were "under construction", their communication was atrocious, I got 1 email & it wasn't even clear if I'd paid for it yet because of how bad it was. But eventually I got the book, in that state. I'm all for getting a better print.
Granting license isn't "giving away rights."
He's obliged to update once a week, his website is a sub-domain with other people's ads on there.
If that were true, Tom wouldn't have any rights to his work, because he's already released them under a Creative Commons license.
I didn't think Tom would have lost all his rights to the comic, just some of them. Which is true.
My big question for you is "what did Tom give up?"
The website, publishing rights, updating when he wants.
It's not like he didn't have ads on the website before the move.
Was the money was going directly to him? Now someone else owns the revenue from them. But furthermore, he's got a "Keenspots" bar & sub-domain. I probably wouldn't [censored] too hard about it if it didn't even look like Keenspots existed.
He still has full creative control of the comic.
Something has just occurred to me. Tom wanted this a long time ago, he also kept his comic "PG-13" all the way through. Could he have tweaked the comic to be PG-13 in hopes of being in partnership with Keenspots? Because that's commercial influence.
He gave up the ability to host Twokinds elsewhere on the Internet, but retained his right to post Twokinds-related work on DA, retained his right to permit mirrors of Twokinds' content, and retained his general rights to the characters and setting.
General rights!? Did he lose some of the ability to write the comic too?
Yes, he's currently hosted off a subdomain, but he still owns his own domain names. He no longer has to pay for the bandwidth usage of the main site (the forums are still fully hosted on server space he rents directly). He's contractually obligated to keep a regular update schedule now, so he's given up a little bit of his freedom.
Which I suppose is a positive sacrifice to how he makes the comic.

Part of me accepts the move, but not the fact that Keenspots are even visible. Why can't they just at the very back of Book Two with text saying "Additional funding from Keenspots."?
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#93 Post by Kindamoody »

Fun as Conal can be, I'm not getting into his discussion right now.
avwolf wrote:The only rights Keenspot has in relation to Twokinds are exclusive online publishing rights, licensed to them by Tom.
I know you said Tom made sure that the fan translations would be allowed, but those words still make me feel a bit uneasy. Do you perchance know what's written in the contract about online publishing rights for fan translations?
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#94 Post by Conal »

More pop-ups: http://www.50connect.co.uk/categories/f ... s/featured , http://www.groupon.co.uk/?CID=UK_AFF_10 ... =aff_1&nlp & http://www.onthebox.com/
Kindamoody wrote:Fun as Conal can be, I'm not getting into his discussion right now.
<3
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#95 Post by UltraFennec »

Wow. After reading all of that, all I can really say is that I really, really don't understand why this is such a bad thing to you.

And um, yeah, there's no way either entity in a partnership is going to be listed just by one line in the back of a book in small type.

I really do want to ask though, why is this such a big hang up to you? I think we've covered specifically Twokinds here, but why is complete and utter independence so important to you over what appears to be (as far as we or anyone else that wasn't directly involved knows) an equitable commercial partnership? I understand that it's great to do something awesome on your own, but as much fun as indie work can be, it'll never reach as many people as it would with help from outside sources.
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#96 Post by RobbieThe1st »

Conal wrote:I see. It sucks that was able to happen to them, how could they be so bad at security? I suppose dA has a lot of window lickers so it was probably a target for that reason, people falling for it would be assured.
I'd assume that such ads are generally brought in through third-party ad agreements; so Keenspot doesn't have direct control of the code. They may have the ability to report and or remove specific ads, but it's not like they have a DB with all the content in it... probably.
Conal wrote: Yeah... http://youtu.be/R8rjD1yqWoI?hd=1 - I also forgot to mention that the entire website wasn't working properly because they were "under construction", their communication was atrocious, I got 1 email & it wasn't even clear if I'd paid for it yet because of how bad it was. But eventually I got the book, in that state. I'm all for getting a better print.
Having watched the review, well... yea, the book cover's poor, but you really should have given us a review that included pictures/video of several pages -- I'm pretty darn sure that that would fall under fair use, despite what any scare-tactic warnings they might have in it.
Conal wrote:
Granting license isn't "giving away rights."
He's obliged to update once a week, his website is a sub-domain with other people's ads on there.
If that were true, Tom wouldn't have any rights to his work, because he's already released them under a Creative Commons license.
I didn't think Tom would have lost all his rights to the comic, just some of them. Which is true.
My big question for you is "what did Tom give up?"
The website, publishing rights, updating when he wants.
It's not like he didn't have ads on the website before the move.
Was the money was going directly to him? Now someone else owns the revenue from them. But furthermore, he's got a "Keenspots" bar & sub-domain. I probably wouldn't [censored] too hard about it if it didn't even look like Keenspots existed.
He still has full creative control of the comic.
Something has just occurred to me. Tom wanted this a long time ago, he also kept his comic "PG-13" all the way through. Could he have tweaked the comic to be PG-13 in hopes of being in partnership with Keenspots? Because that's commercial influence.
Lets see. He's getting paid actual money for posting his content on their site; it seems like a job to me, and would probably be better than trying to run ads yourself - Keenspot can bargain for better ad rates than Tom could alone. Sure, they take a cut, but if he's getting a steady revenue stream vs. relying on varying ad revenue... so much the better.
As far as PG-13 goes; I think that's just Tom - Otherwise, you'd probably see sketches and other drawn bits by him that are "mature", but as far as I've seen, Tom /refuses/ to do /any/ work(related to 2k or not) above his own PG-13 rating/style.
Now, as far as rights go, Keenspot's leasing the online distribution rights from him: 1, it's for a set period of time, and 2, they're paying for it. He can probably do anything else with his work than distribution(Including print distribution)... seems like a great deal to me.
Conal wrote: Part of me accepts the move, but not the fact that Keenspots are even visible. Why can't they just at the very back of Book Two with text saying "Additional funding from Keenspots."?
If they paid him to say it, maby. :P

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#97 Post by TheJ »

[quote="RobbieThe1st"]
[quote="Conal"]
Something has just occurred to me. Tom wanted this a long time ago, he also kept his comic "PG-13" all the way through. Could he have tweaked the comic to be PG-13 in hopes of being in partnership with Keenspots? Because that's commercial influence.
[/quote]
Lets see. He's getting paid actual money for posting his content on their site; it seems like a job to me, and would probably be better than trying to run ads yourself - Keenspot can bargain for better ad rates than Tom could alone. Sure, they take a cut, but if he's getting a steady revenue stream vs. relying on varying ad revenue... so much the better.
As far as PG-13 goes; I think that's just Tom - Otherwise, you'd probably see sketches and other drawn bits by him that are "mature", but as far as I've seen, Tom /refuses/ to do /any/ work(related to 2k or not) above his own PG-13 rating/style.
Now, as far as rights go, Keenspot's leasing the online distribution rights from him: 1, it's for a set period of time, and 2, they're paying for it. He can probably do anything else with his work than distribution(Including print distribution)... seems like a great deal to me.
[/quote]
Well.... the PG-13 thing..... I've noticed that although Twokinds itself doesn't have porn(at least in my standards), the ads sometimes are. Like I've seen a few on naked women or SM stuff (drawn, of course......but still [b]way[/b] above PG-13). As much as I love Twokinds, it's really distracting to see all those ads which I'll probrably never click, and when it's a dramatic part like Alaric dying, the flashing ads, regardless of genre, are really annoying and take away the touching feeling.
And I hate unexpected porn.

Even if it is a great deal I still say Tom was ripped off, not in money, but in quality.

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#98 Post by RobbieThe1st »

TheJ wrote: Well.... the PG-13 thing..... I've noticed that although Twokinds itself doesn't have porn(at least in my standards), the ads sometimes are. Like I've seen a few on naked women or SM stuff (drawn, of course......but still way above PG-13). As much as I love Twokinds, it's really distracting to see all those ads which I'll probrably never click, and when it's a dramatic part like Alaric dying, the flashing ads, regardless of genre, are really annoying and take away the touching feeling.
And I hate unexpected porn.

Even if it is a great deal I still say Tom was ripped off, not in money, but in quality.
See, that's what ad-blockers are for. And you can feel safe in the fact that Tom doesn't get any money(directly anyway), so it probably won't cause any harm to him. To Keenspot, perhaps, but they've got big pockets; $.01 per month or w/e won't hurt them.

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#99 Post by primalcaller ergos »

woah , this disscussion has been going on for this long? well here's another addition from me then.

hmmm.... ** goes to his bookshelf and grabs a harry potter novel**... aha! i see, so this was published by a company named bloomsbury publishing plc appearently. (the fifth one at least)

well it seems a world reknowned author also finds other companies to handle her work's distribution.

what is the difference? well other than the medium used of course, none at all really. since hosting and publishing are pretty much the same thing afterall.

and well... tom has quite literally managed to pull this off perfectly really. i mean, forums are still separate? links, favorites and urls still the same and working excellently? sure seems to be working well
to me. well.... i do have pop-ups blocked and the ability to easily ignore other ads totally and completely, so maybe it's just me.

so really the annoyances, if any, are really negligible in the shadow of the benefits.

now, as for the whole pg-13 thing, i find that it's just a personal preference really. since he could have just found another host otherwise... uhh... :oops: ...never mind that...
but it's really just because i can easily see that he prefers to make things that are lovely, artistically expressive, intelegently humorous, and classy (as in sosphisticated).
so really he just makes things he likes and hopes others will like for the right reasons.

and that's about it. -ergos, still actually liking this change- what's everyone else think?
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Re: Joining Keenspot

#100 Post by Truth and Honor »

After reading this whole mess (and absorbing only about half of it, legal rights and all that jazz goes right over my head) the only thing I can say that I'm upset over is that Tom has to update on a strict schedule, instead of updating maybe 2 or 3 comics in a week whenever he wanted. But I suppose that's just me wanting it to update more often. :/

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#101 Post by Schrodinger »

Truth and Honor wrote:After reading this whole mess (and absorbing only about half of it, legal rights and all that jazz goes right over my head) the only thing I can say that I'm upset over is that Tom has to update on a strict schedule, instead of updating maybe 2 or 3 comics in a week whenever he wanted. But I suppose that's just me wanting it to update more often. :/
He does have a life outside of the comic you know.
What was it the spider said to the fly...

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#102 Post by Truth and Honor »

Well aware. I'm just saying that on the off chance he gets spare time one week and writes two comics, instead of being able to post them when he draws them, he has to wait till Wednesday. Small and negligible quirk though, this is mainly the rant of a fresh fan who read the entirety of the series in one night and never had to wait for updates.

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Re: Joining Keenspot

#103 Post by seanmcchapman »

[quote="bluespart"][quote="Tom"][quote="bluespart"]You said you will focus solely on the comic and no more part-time job, does this mean you now get payed for doing this? [...] what will happen to the comic? Will there be any downside?[/quote]

Yes, moving to Keenspot means I will be getting paid for my work. The downside is, I will have to host Keenspot's advertising. Other then that, it doesn't effect the comic at all. I'll still be doing the same as I was before.
[/quote]
Then I can only welcome the change. It's always great to see an artist live from his work. Keep up the good work Tom![/quote]
I wish I could relate with the dream that's so far out there, but Tom started some where right? Not famous? i guess I can only hope to figure out how to start sprinting with my art!

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