Okay, I know the Hero Forge story was
so eight hours ago at this point, but here's my takeaway from the stream by this Konotomo guy.
First off, Konotomo disclosed that he had been to a party hosted by HF at Twitchcon while "crossfaded," which the internet is telling me is what I knew back in my day as "crunk" - simultaneously stoned on marijuana and drunk. While his video and the advice in it seemed generally competent to me, if I was in need of a lawyer and was given the choice between one who a) attended Twitchcon b) attended a party at Twitchcon c) attended a party at Twitchcon while under the influence(s), and hiring one who had done none of those things and also sticking a rusty knitting needle up my urethra, well, go get me granny's old cookie tin and some maximum-strength Tylenol. That being said, he didn't say anything to make me think there's a non-zero chance he snorted coke off a Jamaican gigolo's erection while watching his best friend screw his wife while his eleven kids were back in Minnesota making boxed mac and cheese for each other, so he might not be that bad by vtuber-adjacent streaming lawyer standards.
He said he's seen many other agency contracts, and despite saying the 20% cut in the HF one is normal (fuck it is? Maybe by the standards of "Raid sponsorship finders" like Mythic, but not by traditional vtuber agencies), he said the contract quality was much better than the norm. He noted that the contract's mutual indemnity clause was unusual; this basically states that if either side violates the contract, they are liable to pay the attorney fees and other such fees incurred by the other party - usually this will be one-sided on the side of the company.
On the issue of whether the talents had cause to leave before the 30 days were up, he points out the quite clear fact that the phrase "with cause" is vague and, going through the list of complaints that the talents brought to River, it's not really cut and dry. The list of complaints was rather interesting, I thought; aside from things like not getting any return for the money and management being unfocused, they complained about management throwing parties at Twitchcon and Offkai. While such parties might be a great way to get one's name out to attendees, I'd argue that the number of attendees to these things is minuscule compared to the wider audience, so there were probably better ways for HF to advertise (this is my opinion, not Konotomo's).
As for River suing the talents for breach of contract and Podge specifically for defamation, Konotomo all but begged River to see that this made no financial sense. River by his own admission was losing money on this, so what damages could he claim that the talents cost him? Podge was wrong about HF not being a company just because it's registered as a sole proprietorship (though Konotomo believes that River may be unlawfully operating under a DBA while doing so) but there's not clear evidence Podge knew that to be incorrect while saying so in her stream, so trying to claim it was slander is dicey. The talents' claims that past contract breaches should have been actioned immediately rather than River trying to collate them
now to use in his case may have some merit - I forgot the term for it and didn't put it in my notes, but basically if one side to a contract knows there's a breach in contract but doesn't bring it up or act upon it at the time and instead just continues doing business, that party forfeits the ability to bring up the breach in lawfare later.
tldr, it's in both sides' best interest to try to learn what they can from this shitshow and move on.
Holy fuck, you're right. Fansly accounts linked right from the profiles on
their talent page. What the fuck.
