Furry art piracy website yiff.party closes
Since it began in 2015, yiff.party has been a source of ire for artists whose income has been affected by it. The website uses web scraping software to extract files from Patreon, including those meant to be restricted to paid subscribers only, and made them publicly available, for free.
Kotaku interviewed Kadath and other artists about it in 2018. Although DMCA notices were sent, legal action was threatened by publishers like InkedFur, and Patreon promised to go to bat for its users, the site remained unassailed. Now, it’s closed, but not due to pressure from these sources.
On November 14, the site’s admin warned that the servers would shut down at any moment, as they’d stopped paying for them. They said they no longer had an interest in maintaining the site and didn’t want to go to the effort of giving the site to someone else. Shortly after, the website became unavailable. It’s been claimed – without clear evidence – that donations were pocketed.
So, turns out Yiff. party finally shut down. Given what was going on with that place and who ran it, good riddance. Seems like folks are pissed because it went down just as it met a server cost donation goal, and owner got like 1000$ for server upgrade last month.
The site was not limited to furry content; some used it to follow vocal artists. Similar alternatives to the service still exist, although many fans of the service hope someone will create a replacement - while others celebrate its demise.
About the author
Equivamp (Kile Onasi) — read stories — contact (login required)a team lead (production/manufacturing) and Zebra Pegasus from Kansas, interested in paleoanthropology, spider man and star wars
Comments
I added a bit to this piece about donations, since discussion of them was prominent in the closure thread and subsequent posts. However, I should note that I'm not entirely convinced by the claims made against the administrator regarding them.
yiff.party claimed that October's target of $400 was raised, which matches up to this transaction (it'd be worth ~$860 now; Bitcoin spiked recently); the only payment to that address. That's not unreasonable for a popular art distribution website, especially if they paid (once) for some content, and really had 63TB storage. It's also possible to run sites for less, especially if speed isn't a concern.
Thanks, good info. Though scummy, it would be kinda funny if Dozes did take the donations and run. "I didn't think they would steal from ME!"
Well, in my experience 99% of people using a service don't end up paying for it anyway, so they'd have no standing to complain! Still, SoYouStart, OVH and LeaseWeb have various offers for Black Friday; so it'd be a great time for those inclined to indulge in copyright violation to start up a replacement. Or perhaps something more productive.
You know... like just paying their favorite artist instead of paying someone so they don't have to pay them.
Kind of reminds me of those that hate taxes but are glad to dump a percentage of their wealth toward a political campaign.
Your money still going to the government, man.
Having been a semi-regular yiff party user from the beginning, this is only the first or second time I'm aware of that the webmaster reached a monthly donation goal. Most months the server donation bar would either sit at zero the whole month or reach a low, sub-$100 figure, so even before the donation goals were increased to from $250 to $400 a couple months prior the site was leaking money fast. All in all I'm not surprised the webmaster started to feel disillusioned.
The site only accepted cryptocurrency donations, as explained in your web.archive link, and that was an obstacle to donating for a lot of users who couldn't set aside more than a few dollars for the site in the first place.
Man, there goes my Minecraft Shaders ;(
I can understand the butthurt.
No furry of sound mind would want to spend the little / no money they have on smut- ergo the site was the perfect way around Patreon exclusivity and other mechanisms.
Must have been a pretty sad day indeed- the free/easy supply of wanton imagery is reduced, have to go back to the good old deviantart or hope your ISP/government hasn't yet banned the pedo paradise inkbunny.
Hello can i show just this three fabulous alternative website ? :3
yiff-party.com
mlp-party.com
manga-porn.com
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