Japanese art hosting site Pixiv has announced a slew of new content restrictions for the company’s services which allow artists to receive pay for requests and commissions. These new rules go into effect on December 15.

Many transactions take place on BOOTH, pixivFANBOX, and the pixiv Requests feature.
Some were found to violate the pixiv Terms of Use, Article 14 “Prohibited Conduct”, Item 26 “Using the Services to display, sell, purchase, register, or engage in other transactions involving the products set forth below”.

Furthermore, the rules or policies of Brand Protection for Card Networks transactions for content that is patently offensive, unethical, or promote criminal activity; such as, by way of example and not limitation:
・Sexual exploitation of a minor
・Incest
・Bestiality
・Rape (or any other non-consensual sexual behavior)
・Non-consensual mutilation of a person or body part

Under the Service Master Terms of Use, we ask that all users check for items that include the above content on BOOTH, pixivFANBOX, and the pixiv Requests feature, and if such content is found, delete the items or set them to private.

For those who don’t know, Pixiv is an art hosting site similar to Deviantart in the west. The site has grown internationally popular in recent years due to its ease of use, community, and permissive (until now) approach to content. Artists are typically paid through Pixiv Fanbox, Booth, and Request. Here’s a brief explanation of each service.

• Pixiv Fanbox allows users to create a subscription based service where users pay a monthly fee to see exclusive materials. Sound familiar? It’s a lot like Patreon and Subscribestar and it might be easier to understand with that comparison in mind.
• Booth is a service that allows users to create and sell products with their own designs. Even hololive has a booth store where they sell goods like t-shirts and pillow cases.
• Requests are built-in to Pixiv and are a straightforward service where artists can enable requests which opens an inbox where they can receive requests for pay. Pay money, get art, what could be easier?

These new changes will forbid users from creating certain content and receiving money for it, it’s unclear if the image-hosting portion of the site will be beholden to these changes. Some users are blaming these changes on western payment processors like Mastercard and Visa who might object to this content, this theory has some merit as it’s way sites like Patreon and OnlyFans were forced to prohibit similar content; with one user saying “it’s really annoying to bring Western values and awareness of issues into Japan” (Translation: Google).

For the time being, it appears to be safe to host images that would run afoul of these new rules on Pixiv; but those looking to take requests or monetize such content should start looking elsewhere.