melissa 💫

forgot i wanted to show them off over here too

🩷💜💙 bi-land cows 💙💜🩷

so proud of my son

Little man is 4 today 🎉💜

gotta go back for the last two on friday but all my little cat-acters really have me buzzing

without question the most painful i’ve got in a while but the king is where he belongs: running his mother’s scam #AgathaAllAlong

Speechify®’s Terms & Conditions state that, by submitting material to their platform, you assert you own the rights to it. A screenshot of Speechify’s website, with the following text highlighted: [quote]‘7.6 Each time you submit User Material to us, you represent and warrant to us as follows: (a) You own your User Material or have the right to submit it, and in submitting it you will not be infringing any rights of any third party, including intellectual property rights (such as copyright (…)’[end quote] An arrow points to a second screenshotted paragraph, with the remark ‘<-this one's also interesting. especially for our kinkier nerds’ in a handwritten font: [quote](b) Your User Material is not illegal, obscene, defamatory, threatening, pornographic, (…) or is otherwise deemed inappropriate.’ [end quote] it also states that, by using their platform, you grant Speechify® the right to publish and exploit this material—or any ideas contained within—in essentially any way the company wants. [quote]“7.8 (…) by submitting User Material you hereby grant Speechify an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty free, worldwide license to use, telecast, copy, perform, display, edit, distribute and otherwise exploit the User Material you post on the Services, or any portion thereof, and any ideas, concepts, or know-how contained therein, with or without attribution, and without the requirement of any permission from or payment to you or to any other person or entity, in any manner (including, without limitation, for commercial, publicity, trade, promotional, or advertising purposes) and in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Material, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing without any payment of money or any other form of consideration to you or to any third party. (…)”[end quote]

which, of course, in this day & age-what else is new, right? many services require you to sign off on conditions that seem predatory at a passing glance! Speechify®'s CEO has ALREADY TAKEN independently published works without the authors' permission. and he's sold them, word for word, on a different platform—as AI-narrated ‘audiobooks'. (A badly drawn emoji with dead eyes and its tongue lolling from its mouth.)

in December 2024 Speechify® CEO Cliff Weitzman launched a website & app called word-stream. he used this platform to host thousands of fanworks and independently published books without informing the authors, monetizing them for the benefit of his company.

A screenshot of a tumblr message posted by someone with the username @cliffweitzman: [quote]cliffweitzman replied to your text post “Hey everybody, the person behind word stream here: (…) Word Stream is free for anyone to use. There is a paid plan for ppl who want to use high quality text to speech which is priced at the minimum amount we can to cover server/gpu costs to power the text to speech. The next iteration will also include free text to speech but with a lower quality bar. (…) Please email me if we have a peace of work that is yours you don't want up there and I will take it down immediately (…) A future release will also add the ability to tip authors so writers can make money not from selling the works but via tips from grateful readers (…) I apologize for a beta product that got more attention that it had any right to before it was complete (…) Warmly, Cliff”[end quote] Weitzman maintains to this day that he sees nothing wrong with monetizing work authored by others without their permission, as long as we don't personally & explicitly tell him that we don't want him to. (A bad drawing of a small stick figure looking up at a tall stick figure. The small figure says “please don't steal our work, Cliff!” The tall figure, depicted with a yellow halo, responds “alright, I won’t steal YOURS. because YOU ASKED so nicely.”)

WARN YOUR FRIENDS. 2/3 #indieauthors

Aww thank you!!! 😊 🥰😍

😍🥰

can only assume the dc traffic alert signs have been hacked because i just saw one that just said “hello worliworld”

his name is hamish and he is perfectly potato shaped

holding on by a thread tbh… also this guy is getting a lot of snuggle time

i was really hoping my complaints would trigger a new picture to come in but alas i am still waiting

​been thinking about other characters agatha could’ve met over the years…

cats have been at my mom’s for 42 days and i’ve only received 13 pictures total. this ratio is unacceptable

awesome con really coming through for guests this year thank god i’ll be home for it

👀

uk friends have they actually announced when taskmaster is back or is it a mystery for everybody ??

jason mantzoukas on tm s19 is for me specifically actually

hello all, I’m getting reports that works that were accessed on word-stream before they were hidden by #CliffWeitzman can STILL be accessed in full, both as text and as AI-generated audio. make sure to check the latest additions to the tumblr post via this link: www.tumblr.com/ekingston/77...

i had a kid get mad that people were laughing during barbie but it was definitely because she didn’t understand the joke all the adults were laughing about

i can’t sit with them

would love to get some ice cream but i guess that’s a no-go

hasn’t really come up bcuz just being on the other site feels like a chore but i am in fact OBSESSED with agatha all along. it’s consumed me body and soul

shrimp roll