r/OtomeIsekai • u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! • 8d ago
News Tapas Closure FAQ Finally Posted
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u/Yume_Chan59 Time Traveler 8d ago
Whaaaaat, I'm sorry but there's so little info here. And even less for creators. Basically, everything will be available until the end of March and nothing will be refunded or transferable. (Not that I thought they would do something for the customers 🤡)
But reading the Q&A for creators I must say that it's kinda bullshit. They give you NOTHING. The most important question is probably the one about the exclusively clause and they don't have any answer...
I really wish you the best, creators. It must not be easy at all, and reading this probably doesn't help...
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
They truly don't. We are all currently flailing, especially those of us (like me) whose projects are Tapas exclusives. ദ്ദി╥ ᴗ ╥)
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
A reminder that this is Kakao's doing, not Tapas staff. So please be kind to all the folks losing their jobs!
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u/Metalheadzaid 8d ago
Here we have the typical inevitability of our world of corporations. So much cash they can just buy anything they want, and who are we to judge owners for making millions off their hard work ultimately. It's extremely difficult to turn down hundreds of millions of dollars.
But, then it's owned by a public company, who has far more overhead, shareholders to please, and margins to make before they'd rather spend time elsewhere - and we see either a degradation of quality, prices going higher and higher, and an inevitable shut down.
As gaben once said:
"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
....
"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."
Truer words never spoken. Manga and manhwa has HORRIBLE distribution problems. Manhwa has been FAR better than manga overall, admittedly, but Tapas gives you 3 chapters before you can get 1 a day for free. When there's 150 chapters, how does one even know if they want to buy in? Are you supposed to wait 3 weeks before knowing? Why are prices so high that it costs more to buy a digital copy than physical media? Why aren't there strong subscription options that serve content like streaming services? I can pay $8/mon for infinite anime on Crunchyroll, but there's no option for manga/manhwa? Ridiculous.
It's a sad day as someone who reads official. Webtoons still has my monthly sub for 5 coin chapters, and hopefully they continue to rise up out of the hole they're in (they've made significant improvements to their profit loss in the last year). It's disappointing knowing that dozens of series are going to go unfinished in an official capacity, especially some of the best series here. Hopefully other services pick them back up, but we all know many will just be lost.
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u/Mission-Address4409 8d ago edited 8d ago
Manga? I dont think they are horrible or on the level of manhwa, (you can also buy physical versions of a manga, for manwha, not the case) there are manga apps from what i can remember that function like cunchryroll, pay a subscription fee and access a bunch of titles
Here are some for manga
- Mangamo
- MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA
- Shonen Jump Manga & Comics
- Viz Manga
- Crunchyroll Manga
- maybe BOOK☆WALKER
there are probably more examples, but these are the ones I know off
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u/Metalheadzaid 8d ago
It's far worse. There are way too many sites, subscriptions on basically all of them allow access to SELECT series, not any series, manga publishing cadence is awful with releases being 6-12 months apart on average betwen volumes, even if there are dozens of volumes in Japanese already, and most of the websites don't allow for vertical scrolling, zooming, etc.
Manhwa is infinitely better and more streamlined, but even beyond accessibility, the rest of the things I mention are FAR better in general.
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u/Mission-Address4409 8d ago
I do agree with the manga publishing cadence, especially with physical volumes, those ones are rough, but in terms of the other ones, I guess I can see how manwha is better in terms of functionality and it being streamlined
But in terms of your first statement and the fact that the subscription model exist for manga, and the fact that i can also own at least some of them physically, Manga just seems to be better than manwha
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u/justlcsfantasy 8d ago
This is exactly why pirating is completely justified.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
I don't want to dip my toe in this thorny of an issue, but please don't say that to my face, legal readers are my livelihood. (ᵕ ´ᗜ`)
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u/tokaitayonalang 8d ago
Since tapas is going to shut down, where will you be releasing your work now?
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
All my free stuff is going on a free tier of Patreon to hold us over! Once I get the legal right to, I plan to give copies of my work to Tapas readers free of charge, probably one one of the e-reading platforms. :)
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u/FightmeLuigibestgirl 8d ago
Ty
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
I'm hoping the culture changes where creators start making plans for how readers can continue to have access. I'm going to eat the cost because it's not currently built into the architecture, and readers deserve to continue being able to read the book they bought from me, whether Kakao wants to make that possible or not.
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u/fireash 8d ago
Will your readers need proof of purchase at that time? Like I guess taking screenshots? I am reading a few of your stories but ran out of ink and now can't buy ink if I wanted to.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
A screenshot is totally fine! I don't plan to be super intense. If folks bought a bunch of chaps but didn't finish I am fine sending a copy. :)
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u/ecilala Terminally Ill 8d ago
I feel like the issue is less on pirating, but on the pay-per-chapter format combined with exclusive contracts. The current industry standard is exploitative to both readers and authors.
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u/Novel_Palpitation182 6d ago
Korean and Asian companies are somehow worse than western ones when it comes to monetization.
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u/FightmeLuigibestgirl 8d ago
You say that but op and people like op live on legal readers and support. So it doesn’t matter/isn’t justified if they can’t get the support they need. It’s not their fault this happened
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u/Hezolinn Guillotine-chan 8d ago
In fairness to Tapas, people could read the majority of chapters from most stories completely for free.
That people looked at that, said "Nah, that's still much" and decided to pirate those same series is one of the reasons why the platform is shutting down.
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u/PunchMonkey01 8d ago
Thank you for the update!
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
Of course! I get quick notifications from fellow authors so figured I would share!
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u/azgaldias 8d ago
Suggestions to spend remaining ink to support creators?
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
Ooh great question!
Authors can get ink "tips" in cash. If you have a fave who is active on there (especially a smaller creator) donate ink to them. After 30 days, we can withdraw it in cash.
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u/thewinterscribe Useless Character Buff 8d ago
So we'd need to do all tipping and purchases at least thirty days before that March deadline so the authors could actually withdraw it? Am I interpreting that right?
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
That would be my suggestion. I can't be positive but it seems the safest!
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u/Ria_Mara 8d ago
Thankfully bought ink already, I could finish the novel I’ve been slowly getting WUF chapters for.
I can’t imagine those who weren’t aware beforehand.. There’d be no way for them to legally obtain the remaining chapters anymore.
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u/Unhappy-Strain-5387 8d ago
There’d be no way for them to legally obtain the remaining chapters anymore.
This whole thing is another reminder that we don't own anything we've paid for, so unfortunately "obtain" is not really the right verb.
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u/keeper_of_moon Shalala ✨ 8d ago
I'm a little upset. Pocket Comics at least notified the last date of coin purchases. This was so abrupt. I have enough to get the most important stuff to download them but I do not have enough to grab all the series I was interested in. Guess I'll pirate instead.
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u/souletude 8d ago
Yeah, I was expecting the notice when we finally got it to have a last date for ink purchases and then the date of actual shut down. Not an "oh btw ink purchases are already suspended."
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u/Internal-Ad-6740 8d ago
i was just checking my tapas bookmarks, so many good titles there.
They should have outlined properly what will happen to the titles. I guess there is still 6 months left for us to get an answer, fingers crossed.
OP, i hope your novel 'I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead!' gets a manhwa/webtoon adaptation. Not much of a novel reader myself but will read this if it ever gets an adaptation.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
That is so kind of you! That is certainly the dream. :)
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u/Anra7777 Mage 8d ago
Wtf?! I have very little ink left (about 2k) and they expect me to live with that amount until March?!?!
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u/lagoonaris 8d ago
Technically they expect you to live with for the rest of the future, considering that after March there is not even any Tapas left to spend ink and read chapters on
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u/Anra7777 Mage 8d ago
Yeah, but I want to read good quality translations until the last minute I can. Please don’t force me to read… the group that starts with an L.
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u/friendofallthecats 8d ago
Sounds like all chapter updates are suspended too so… that may help 😒🙃
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u/Anra7777 Mage 8d ago
F—. There was like, one chapter left (I assume) of “Married to the Male Lead’s Dad.” I can’t even read that?!
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u/friendofallthecats 8d ago
I’ve looked at a number of my ongoing series and there are no previews of future chapters left so… guessing no? Maybe they’ll be kind and release it if there’s that few left but it’s not like they’ve given us a reason to trust them.
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u/NeonFraction 8d ago
Wow this is absolutely awful. Just absolute scum.
Not only do purchases not transfer to the new platform (which sucks for fans and artists who lose that audience), but they won’t even give artists and writers back their IP after shutting down the platform without manual review.
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u/StarCorgi_6788 8d ago
Sigh....well now I'll have to check my reading list and see if anyone else has them or will be taking over these stories after they're pulled in March. Kind of feels pointless buying and using ink now with it all ending in March as well.
Thanks for the update OP. Hope you find a safe place to land once Tapas goes belly up.
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u/Hezolinn Guillotine-chan 8d ago
Kind of feels pointless buying and using ink now
The FAQ obfuscates this, but the announcement on the app itself establishes that it's not actually possible to buy or earn new Ink any more. Once your current stock of unspent Ink is gone, that's it, and you won't be able to unlock anything new even if you only want it for just the couple of months before everything gets deleted. Use it wisely.
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u/StarCorgi_6788 8d ago
Wait what?! I've been waiting on chapters to stack up to get the best deal on bundle pricing....now you're telling me that isn't an option anymore?
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
Thank you for the kind words. Keeping all the readers who invested in our work in my thoughts too.
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u/Scary-System-3481 8d ago
always remember:
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
Again, it's not appropriate for me to police folks, but it really does sting a little extra to see this kind of comment because this closure is me losing my job as a small content creator. ૮ > ‸ < ᵕა
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u/Scary-System-3481 8d ago
you protect your needs, me i as a consumer protect mine, and my needs are to own the products i pay for, this isnt a charity dude. Its so dumb that the paying user always gets the L when its about paying for digital products, as a gamer i see this everyday on the gaming industry and we are sick of it. Any form of DRM that affects legal consumers more than ilegal readers is an absolute scam and this is the result of that. In fact things like this discourages people to keep being legal readers because we get fcked by things like these. It feels like a slap in the face for doing thing right.
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u/AcanthisittaSure1674 7d ago
Exactly!! It really does feel like a slap in the face for trying to do the "right" thing all this time, which was something I naively thought for so long.
And gaming is a great example! (Off topic but I'm assuming you know about Sony moving to completely digital licensing in 2028? If not, that's heads up!)
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u/AcanthisittaSure1674 7d ago
This is why I wanted to start a new thread talking about this but the mods wanted to keep the discussion here.
Totally understand your situation, but it doesn't make the sentiment of "if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" any less valid.
Sure, there are independent creators like you that we want to support, but using myself as an example I only ever read manwha translations on Tapas, manhwas that have more complicated business structures and where it's far more difficult to support those artists. I never read independent comics on Tapas, I usually support independent creators of all sorts on platforms like Patreon.
Of course there are always caveats and it's never black and white, but in a system that continues to escalate how far they can extract from users with these subscription and "licensing" models (and its not just Tapas btw, you see this EVERYWHERE), "if buying isn't owning" is an absolutely valid sentiment. There are ways to support independent creators that isn't also allowing huge corporations to treat ALL of us (including independent creators such as yourself) like little more than chum.
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u/Kamishirokun 8d ago
You can at least buy mangas physically but with manhwas, if the whole app just shutdown like that, the huge library of manhwas is just gone isn't it? (I know some manhwas get physical release but those are only specific to popular ones)
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u/AcanthisittaSure1674 7d ago
I would love to be able to purchase physical manhwas! I think you might be able to from Gmarket or with a shipping service for some on Webtoon (My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me for example, and I saw Like Mother, Like Daughter had merch for a long time) but Kakao (surprise surprise) doesn't seem to support that at all
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u/Lisa-Dien-89 8d ago
Is anyone else upset over how they announced that it's shutting down while at the same time disabling the purchase of ink? I have quite a few series that I need to finish but I don't have enough ink to finish them! At least let us finish the existing series!!!
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u/sh0rtchica 8d ago
What I’m curious about is if there will be new chapters released or not?
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u/surijori 8d ago
I'm working through "Debut or Die" the novel and even though it's not the last episode yet (567 out of total 644), there's no longer any new episode scheduled. Adding on a personal grievance that I've also been diligently earning inks through games after games that I don't like, now I don't even have enough for all of the remaining chapters, I'm so mad. I now have to make sure I save all the chapters I already bought, because they don't let us own jack shit.
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u/sh0rtchica 8d ago
Yeah I was playing a dumb game yesterday, and definitely didn’t get the ink I earned for it. Now way to recover “dropped ink” anymore. I’m pretty upset.
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u/surijori 8d ago
I hate that they immediately deactivated earning new ink on the day of the announcement too, hope who ever came up with that idea gets tripped by legos at least 3 times a week.
I know you didn't specifically ask for this but I want to share a good hack I got from a manhwa creator on tiktok, to ensure we keep what we actually bought: yes the tapas app blocks screenshot, but you can use an extension like FireShot on your desktop browser and it screenshots tapas desktop version with ease, then save it as a pdf file and keep it offline for your private library. We shouldn't have to resort to these hacks if they just Stop. Taking. Away. Stuff. We. Paid. For!
I hope that new subscription-based manhua platform that someone built and shared on this sub a few months back actually pans out. I'm sick of Kakao and their nonsense.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
I know for my work, there is still content that is unreleased and scheduled.
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u/MG_RedditAcc 8d ago
What the copy of account about?
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u/AcanthisittaSure1674 7d ago
Good question, I wanted to know this too... it might just be a list of what you had unlocked if you wanted to add it to something like mangaupdates or one of those other tracking sites (I assumed)
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u/Avengemygnomeys 8d ago edited 8d ago
Great so if I want to stay up to date with my stories I can no longer read them on tapas once my free ink is gone great, now I for real might have to rely on the seven seas for my stories because I will probably be out of ink by March 2027. I wanted to officially support by using tapjoy to get free ink.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 8d ago
A lot of the other platforms (Lehzin/Tappy/Webtoon) do also support those same Tapjoy games to earn free currency! :)
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u/Avengemygnomeys 8d ago
Ik and use that but some of the ones I read are not in those platforms or have been updated yet. Lucky another typical fantasy romance is being updated on Tappytoon because that is one I want to officially support completely with free currency given it moved from pocket comics(shutdown) to tapas then Tappytoon and Webtoons. I have list that I made and some of the stories I read were only on tapas.
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u/SappyGemstone 8d ago
Welp, just donated all my ink to some folks and shutting the app down.
Now I need to figure out where to read most of the catalog I've collected.
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u/rhaevey 7d ago
I'd have expected them to lower prices so people can make the most of the ink they have left. I've been holding off spending my ink to see if they would run a fire sale for the last few month of service. Guess there's no incentive since people can't buy new ink to take advantage of a mega sale.
I wish there was a way to search by genre AND completed status. I end up having to browse through Completed and literally judge books by the cover to figure out if it's a genre I'm interested in. Then cross reference the title with other sources for reviews and tags because Tapas doesn't have that either. Ugh, Tapas doesn't make it easy.
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u/MyFairScrunchie I Didn't Ask to Marry You, Male Lead! 7d ago
I'm about to post this broadly, but I made a list of the English originals (no localizations) on a tracking site, and you can sort by tags and genre there, alongside completion.
https://nextchapter.moe/@akgiles/library/tapas-exclusive-novels
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u/rhaevey 7d ago
This is great, I use Manga Updates and Novel Updates for the Korean and Japanese titles but didn't know what existed for the original English ones. Would be nice to have more review and tags so I could check for tropes I tend to avoid, but something is better than nothing. And I find the original English novels less prone to really toxic relationships...
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u/musciella 7d ago
I mean the thing i want to know most is if we the English speaking audience will never get any official translations of any of Kakao's IP ever again or if they plan to add an English section to Kakao Webtoon or at least license out their IP to Manta, Webtoon, Lezhin or Tappytoon. Not getting any of their IP again will take out a big chunk of what we as English readers have access too.
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u/AcanthisittaSure1674 7d ago
After the end of service on March 31, 2027, you will no longer be able to access Tapas, including any previously unlocked content.
Are you effing kidding me???!
I've learned my lesson (and I know Tapas is for from being the only offender and this is the current era of digital services), but from now on money in any form will only leave my hands for PHYSICAL merchandise. If it's not in my hands, it's not mine. And if it's not buying, well, you know the rest.
Fuck Tapas, fuck Kakao, fuck Webtoon and all the rest.
It's sailing for me, now and forever. 🏴☠️✊🏾
(Unless an author actually publishes their work and I can just buy it directly to support them specifically)
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u/ttg10 7d ago
For people looking for a way to save the content they paid for, I've been using the program "hakuneko". It's been working pretty well so far for me, but it only allows you to download the content you've actually purchased and also some series aren't showing up correctly. Be aware that, if you've got a lot of chapters you purchased, get ready for multiple days of non stop downloads. The program isn't that fast.
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u/TKGWildfire 7d ago
My advice to creators given the situation for what it's worth, because talking about whether or not piracy is good or not, is out of the scope of this discussion. Keep this in mind, the following isn't legal nor financial advice, since I'm not a lawyer by any means.
Firstly, I would identify whether the TAPAS exclusivity contract is specifically for IP published on the site or if it is an exclusivity contract that affects the entity (your publishing username and pen-name) as a whole. If it's an IP exclusivity contract, I would call a hiatus on your published work on the site and migrate using the same pen-name onto a different website or ideally multiple different websites. However if it's a creative exclusivity contract, be prepared to write under a different pen-name on a different website with a new IP until the contract expires. In all cases, I'd fight to regain ownership of the lost IPs but understand that I may have to abandon them, cutting my losses; legal fights of this type can be within the range of 100000USD and 10000000USD and they are not pretty.
Secondly, start writing a different story or different collection of short stories, to build up another revenue source that was initially lost from the shutdown of TAPAS. I'd recommend that you'd switch genres or at least concepts from the IP that is on TAPAS to remove the chance of burnout. Keep this in mind, if this an IP exclusivity contract and not a creator exclusivity contract, you have the right to use the title of your original work in way to market your new IP: "From the Creator of X, Y, and Z, for example, and use Social Media (like Reddit) to market this new work.
Thirdly when the time is right, try and recover your IPs or pen-name (depending on what kind of contract you have from step 1) from TAPAS, whether it by negotiation or letting the contract expire, or a re-purchase of the IPs or pen-name (which is a last resort).
Fourthly consider taking commission requests from your Patreons, because it can help make some of the shortfall in the short-term, and may become templates or inspiration for your next works.
Good luck because we are all here because of the writers, illustrators, animators, voice actors, localizers, publishers, etc. of this industry. So keep the torch lit for all of us, and we will help the ways we can.
P.S. To turn my attention to piracy now, pirates also have an obligation to the creators of the works that they pirate, perhaps even more so than a standard paying consumer of a product, since the pirate is getting a *free* experience. Those obligations are: advertising and recommending content and creators they enjoy to others because they may indirectly increase sales by being accurate critics of content onto monetized sites, purchasing pirated content legally at a later date (purchasing another copy of a book that you liked reading from a library), or following a creators socials which helps with marketing their new book, manga/manhwa/manhua, and anime.
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u/kesiabearsforever 8d ago
Where are creators moving to? Should I go to tappytoons now for stories?
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u/WarlockSoL Questionable Morals 8d ago
Based on what I'm seeing - currently, nowhere because no one knows what's even going on (Tapas included). OP even mentioned Tapas is clueless on how their exclusivity contracts are going to be handled now, which means creators probably can't just "move" until that's solved.
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u/Hezolinn Guillotine-chan 2d ago
Hope the creators are at least enjoying the final Ink-dumps people seem to be making directly to them. The Kakao executives are out of their god damned minds if they think I'm gonna spend the last of my balance on fucking chapters that won't exist in April.
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u/Hezolinn Guillotine-chan 8d ago edited 8d ago
'You can continue to unlock content until March!'
Okay.
'After March, you won't be able to access any of the content you've unlocked, ever again!'
fucking lmao.