An increasing number of my favorite online creatives are moving more of their content behind a paywall, and new tools like Patreon livestreaming are helping them do it. This applies to YouTube channels, and it also applies to writers and bloggers. Creators are increasingly discovering that the OG of internet art, the 1,000 true fans model, is still a viable way to avoid the twin perils of the algorithm and changing payment models that come with relying on ad revenue, general fee pools, and other forms of reliance on wider platforms.
Patreon Adds Native Livestreaming
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
Patreon has now made it even easier for more creators to make more of their content available and directly chargeable/deliverable to their most loyal fans. They have launched a platform-native video livestreaming tool.
This means that creators will be able to livestream for as long as they want from within their Patreon environment to their subscribers. Which feels like something those of us who perform will obviously be interested in doing, but also writers who want to livestream a reading of a new book, for example, without then having to make that content publicly available.
Subscription Services Move into Publishing
And talking of subscriptions, I report a lot on digital subscription services in this column. But of course, subscription is a far older thing than the internet age. Like almost everyone my age growing up in the UK (and doubtless many other parts of the world), I eagerly awaited the day each week when my favorite comics would drop through the letterbox.
Curated book subscriptions are increasing in popularity. Catering to genre lovers, they are like personalized book clubs.
This week has seen the latest move by one of these subscription services, OwlCrate, to announce that it is expanding its offering into publishing. It follows the likes of FairyLoot and Illumicrate.
It’s a model I find interesting because it makes sense the same way Wattpad’s publishing wing makes sense. These are services that live or die by knowing their readers. And not just readers as personas dreamed up by advertising teams or even deduced from social media, but the actual people who open their boxes each month.
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Hello, and thanks for another great article, but I have an unrelated question about the public domain and possible copyright issues. I am writing an adaptation based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, using character names from his novel, but changing their roles and personalities. In Stoker’s book, Dr. Seward’s asylum was an important part of the novel. I have included this place in my own work, however, instead of Dr. Seward, it is run by a character I have made up, who is Mina Murray’s father (he does not exist in the original novel). What I am concerned about is that in the Dracula films from 1931 and 1979 the asylum is run by a version of Dr. Seward who is the father of Mina ( in 1979, her name is switched to Lucy, but she is still essentially the same character). Nothing in my work mimics these movies, not dialogue, plot, or storyline, besides plot points and quotes taken directly from Bram Stoker’s original novel. My character is named Dr. Murray, but still, is just the fact that the asylum is run by Mina’s father enough to make Universal Studios sue me? In 2027 the Dracula film from 1931 will enter public domain, and supposedly I can reproduce, distribute, modify, and create derivative works based on this film. It is essential to my overall plot that Mina’s father runs the asylum; it’s not something that can be changed. But I certainly don’t want to infringe on copyright or make Universal mad. If you could give me your opinion on this I would deeply grateful.