Who the hell are we? The Rotten Studios question.
by Razor on Oct.27, 2008, under Rotten Studios
So I have been doing alot of thinking as of late. And I thought I would let you in on a little bit of what those thoughts were. As many of our members know, when you join one site like RottenStar.com, you get access to SexyAlhana.com as well. In the future it will include Alhanas Smoking site which is a store front on the free side that dedicates content to that fetish. On the inside though, it is all access pass and thus nothing will change for our members. I would like to say that when you join one of our sites, you are part of the Rotten Studios Networks. But as an independant artist, that has a little bit of definition problem as the word Network has a different meaning to what we are use to.
The site we left to become exclusive on our own was a “network” site as are many of the sites we interact with. FreakDaddys, WildRose, DreamNet, and there are slews of others. Those examples are what I define as “network” in that they rely heavily on models contributing images in exchange for a percentage of sales. In a nutshell, pretty straight forward and the models usually keep ownership of their content should they leave. I tip my hat to those Networks as its a job that would drive me insane. I try my hardest to run things hardcore down the road business with no feelings involved when it comes to what needs to get done. And I know shit happens and some models have to exit their present network for whatever reason, but human nature would kick my ass, knowing that hard work or even the fate of the network always would rely heavily on the models to provide the content to keep things running smoothly. Again, my hats off to you folks and its definately a job I deeply respect and I wonder how you guys and gals dont go insane from time to time.
For us, we wanted to avoid the hassle and heartache. Not only for the reasons listed above, but because our skills had not matured to take on a venture like what those fine networks do. All our models are considered contractors as they are for standard Networks. The difference is that we pay the models to shoot content that in turn they release the ownership of those images to us. It can be costly at times depending on the content shot, but the content is ours free and clear with their written consent via releases and the paychecks they cash. As long as we do not use the images in an attempt to intentionally hurt the model and use the images for the commercial use, they can never be removed and we can concentrate on marketing such said images.
Now that has not completely made things easy. Even though it is all laid out in black and white, we still get an occasional model who feels she has the right or need to have her images removed from one of our sites. Had it happen three times out of 17 models that we have worked with thus far. Even though we have it in writing and we are in the right, still makes us sigh a breathe of sadness to think how people go through life. Some people have our checks cashed before the ink even dries. Anyways, things will never change and its just a similarity between what we do and how “Networks” operate. And when I say things wont change, I meant that we will not forfeit material that we paid for. Business is business and we did not get to where we are by handing out to charity cases.
But it still leaves the question……what the hell are we? Let me know and have a great Monday.
R