Important legal news re Patreon

[Teleros]

TL;DR Patreon is in deep legal trouble, so I hope @SFDebris has a SubscribeStar, LiberaPay or w/e ready in case it all goes tits up.

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So, I've been closely following this legal situation for a while now, and here's the background for those interested. A while back, Patreon kicked comedian/homesteader Owen Benjamin off their platform, like they did to alt media people like Sargon of Akkad, Lauren Southern, etc. However, unlike those people, Owen Benjamin had smart friends who knew the law. In short, Patreon committed several blunders:

1) Tortious interference: meaning they interfered with the contract Owen had with all his patrons. Per Patreon's ToS (and this much IS legal), they're not a party to the contract, they're just a middle man who moves the money from A to B, minus the % they & their payment processors take. Every single patron of Owen's can claim tortious interference due to this, as can Owen.

2) Breaking its own ToS by filing a class action lawsuit against Owen's patrons, when their ToS bars class actions altogether.

3) Not knowing what their own ToS says, because they claim the right to police you on their platform & in related stuff, but kicked Owen off for other stuff.

4) Deceptive practices, up to and including flat-out illegal provisions in the ToS. Eg, if SFDebris is kicked off under the current ToS, then it's the current the ToS that applies in any legal disputes about that act, not the most recent ToS... but Patreon tried to change the rules ex post facto. Also, for example this bit of their current Dispute Resolution rules is 100% illegal under California law:

"No class arbitrations or other other grouping of parties is allowed. By agreeing to these terms you are waiving your right to trial by jury or to participate in a class action or representative proceeding; we are also waiving these rights."

You cannot waive your right to trial by jury until you're in court and all that fun stuff, for example. In contracts of adhesion (eg like Patreon's contract with you when you sign up) you also have various consumer rights under California law that Patreon's ToS cannot remove.

Anyway, enough about that stuff. Owen got a few score of his patrons to all take Patreon to arbitration: they each paid $250 (well technically, anyone can pay on their behalf too, funding other people's legal actions is 100% fair & legal etc - see how Hulk Hogan's lawsuit vs Gawker was funded by Peter Thiel), and that's the absolute limit of their costs. All other arbitration fees etc are paid for by Patreon - and we're talking four-figure sums per arbitration at a bare minimum. Even if Patreon go to arbitration and concede everything in the first 30 seconds, they STILL have to pay circa $3k per individual filing.

Patreon decided not to settle with Owen for a couple of million, legal stuff happened, and their attempts to use the California courts to stop the arbitrations from proceeding failed miserably. Others are now looking to pile on, including fans of people like Sargon of Akkad & Lauren Southern, so this could very easily bankrupt them. ATM Patreon claims to have 4 million users... every single one of which now has an arbitration claim against them due to their latest ToS (see above) for example. I kind of doubt any of the tech giants are going to swoop in & bail them out. You pay $250, Patreon pays $2,750 or w/e it is, and even if you fail in your claim on day 1, you don't pay anything else... so Patreon bleeds money and goes bust.

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Why am I telling you all the legal stuff? Hey, maybe you want to see Patreon burn, or just want to know about it. But most importantly, I don't want to see Chuck caught off-guard by this and scrambling to cover his expenses if Patreon goes down, so I figure it's best to get the word out now. Even if Patreon survives all this, diversifying income streams is a sensible thing to do anyway, but frankly given the utterly retarded behaviour of Patreon's lawyers to date, I'm expecting them to crash & burn.

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Nick Rekieta, a fairly sharp lawyer on YouTube, has done a couple of videos about this so far, and I imagine there will be more in the weeks to come:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLFsicmhMM[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvWng0jQBcM[/youtube]

Edit: Court docs can be found here:
https://webapps.sftc.org/ci/CaseInfo.dll?CaseNum=CGC20584586&SessionID=119BE06ED56CCC56F661831B7757274A515294E4

[GreyICE]

A quick check of Wikipedia told me a lot about this charming person, Owen Benjamin.

In a YouTube livestream on March 9, 2019, Benjamin said of Adolf Hitler: "Really what he was trying to do was clean Germany, clean it of the parasites, of the fleas. He did not hate Jews. He hated filth and he was trying to clean up." In the same YouTube livestream Benjamin yelled "Jews run our entire media, all of Hollywood, all of pornography", and "Nobody wants any of it and it's all Jews!" Benjamin also denied that gas chambers were used in the Holocaust. Benjamin said of Jews: "if they get power, they will destroy your entire civilization! Has anyone not seen that happening?"[27]

Benjamin also has appeared on livestreams with prominent white supremacists such as Peter Brimelow, the founder of anti-immigration website VDARE.[22]

According to Bethany Mandel, Benjamin has also posted fabricated verses from the Talmud, and frequently spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories including blaming Jewish people for every societal ill. Mandel also notes that Benjamin is a holocaust denier and anti-vaccination.[28]

These idiots win lawsuits about as often as hell freezes over. I'm sure the clowns think they have a great case, I'm sure the great persecution of the "Jewish court system" will destroy them as per usual.

[Teleros]

A quick check of Wikipedia told me a lot about this charming person, Owen Benjamin.

Irrelevant.

These idiots win lawsuits about as often as hell freezes over. I'm sure the clowns think they have a great case, I'm sure the great persecution of the "Jewish court system" will destroy them as per usual.

You'd be wrong in this case, for good or ill. Maximum cost per Owen Benjamin fan: $250*. Starting costs for Patreon: $2,750 per arbitration, + lawyers' fees + other arbitration costs etc etc etc. Could cost them millions - potentially enough to bankrupt them - even if Patreon wins all the arbitrations (because they can't bill Owen's fans for costs). And even if Owen et al don't bring down Patreon, all it takes is a few score of fans from other banned creators to finish the job.

*It'd be higher if they were hiring lawyers of course, but I think Owen's doing all that, so his fans just had to stump up the $250 filing fee to start the ball rolling.

Point is, there's a solid chance that Patreon won't be around this time next year, and as I don't want to see Chuck's income drop off a cliff I thought it best to raise awareness.

[GreyICE]

If Patreon wins their lawsuit, they’ll recover court costs. Now we might note Neo-Nazis are not the best at having high incomes, but this is why you don’t pay $250 to play clown games with the legal system.

I’m gonna laugh when the Neo-Nazi discovers companies really don’t have to work with him, and “gas the Jews” is not a protected class.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

That's fucked up b

[King Green]

Not surprising due to KickStarter and FundmyLife also started abusing their ToS terms and dangerously resetting donations to $2 to $8 service pays when instead it was supposed to be $12 to $80 mid-max payment transfer.

We need an anti-abuse law in this country, no better yet the cosmos so we don't have to deal with asshole gods/aliens manipulating the definition we all call "LIFE".

[Teleros]

If Patreon wins their lawsuit, they’ll recover court costs.

They've already lost the lawsuit*, and per California law the consumers cannot be made to pay for Patreon's legal fees arising from the arbitrations.

*If you look at the end of the OP there's all the court docs, and basically the judge ordered Patreon to go back to arbitration.

[TGLS]

So, uh, given that literally months have passed and Patreon is still doing OK, I guess it amounted to nothing.