A few years ago Feminist Frequency really kicked off in popularity after an associate of Jonathan McIntosh publicly revealed death and rape threats she regularly received. It helped the organization – especially on places like Reddit where rescuing a damsel in distress seemed like top priority – garner nearly $160,000 in crowd-funding revenue. The money was used to produce videos dedicated to demonizing games aimed at males, and completely forgo informing people about games aimed at females from reputable companies like Her Interactive, Focus Home Interactive, Silicon Sisters Interactive or Lexis Numerique.

The organization, Feminist Frequency, is labeled as a charity business but many people have questioned how true this is. Well, new e-mails have leaked that give insight into the controversial organization.

Things kicked off originally when freelance artist Tammy Smith was notified by a female gamer designer who runs a blog that one of Tammy’s images was used without permission in a Tropes vs Women In Games video – the same videos that are written and produced by Jonathan McIntosh, who is a transmedia journalist and is a known advisor for the Silverstring Media firm.

Tammy made a blog post about the issue and attempted to reach out to the Feminist Frequency organization to question them about their usage of her artwork in their video back in March of 2014.

In the original e-mail to Feminist Frequency, Smith states…

“Since you state in interviews that the video series infringing on my copyrighted work is non-profit: do you also have valid proof of 501(c)3 status, or a transparent breakdown showing that the Kickstarter campaign’s net earnings are not being used to benefit any private shareholder or individual”

Feminist Frequency responded to Tammy, sending an e-mail on March 6th, 2014, just two days after Tammy had sent them an e-mail back on March 4th. Their reply to Tammy stated…

“Our remixed collage is transformative in nature and as such constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for under section 107 of the US Copyright law. The fair use doctrine allows for re-use and transformation for purposes of commentary, criticism and education without the permission of the copyright holder. “Furthermore all Feminist Frequency projects are non-profit and made available for free to everyone online. No advertising ever appears on the Feminist Frequency website or videos.“

Tammy was not satisfied with this result and further requested for Feminist Frequency to prove that they were a charity organization.

However, interestingly enough instead of proving that Feminist Frequency is a charity organization, the topic of lawyers entered the discussion. On March 7th, 2014 a message was sent to Tammy that you can read in full below.

Tammy had some direct questions for Feminist Frequency in response. That very same day she noted that the entire exchange was about transparency and being honest with the community, and asked the following…

“Does this mean you are refusing to comply with my requested cease and desist of work featuring my image? “More importantly, why are you unable (or unwilling?) to verify that you are a non-profit organization as you have previously claimed?”

Jonathan McIntosh’s associate responded to Tammy on March 8th, 2014 stating that an attorney would address the situation.

Tammy was not pleased with the turnout of these events, and responded to the e-mail stating…

“As someone who states they are dedicated to equality… with all genders having equal voice & representation– I genuinely do not understand why you insist on refusing to acknowledge my own voice. It shouldn’t matter if I’m male or female, a gamer or hobbyist, a housewife or an industry vet– I am a content creator. I have tried to communicate with you in good faith. You are using my content without my permission.”

On March 12th, 2014 Tammy was contacted by a staff attorney from the New Media Rights organization. The attorney strongly suggested to have a conversation by phone so there wouldn’t be a paper trail.

Additionally, the attorney was worried about the e-mails being leaked online in an article like this. The attorney stated…

“I have not sent over an email response yet. One of the reason I haven’t and I strongly preferred to talk by phone first, is that I’ve noticed some of the email exchanges between you and Anita have been posted online. I am concerned that any attempts to come to an amicable solution by email will similarly be posted online and ultimately undermine any hope of an amicable solution.”

On that same day Tammy responded to the attorney, stating…

“I’m not sure as to why this situation is being prolonged unnecessarily. I have been clear and direct from my first communication, and would appreciate that respect in return.”

Later on in the day, the attorney responded to Tammy acknowledging that Feminist Frequency was not given permission to use the image and the attorney ventured to explain the situation involving Feminist Frequency’s charity status.

“[Feminist Frequency] is currently a California Non Profit Public Benefit Corporation, which is a new form of business entity in California. At this time [Feminist Frequency] would strongly prefer not to hand over that paper work since it isn’t legally relevant. The first prong of fair use does address commercial vs non-commercial use. However, this does not depend on what type of company is using the work, but rather if the work is being used for commercial purposes and Anita’s project is not commercial in nature.”

Tammy had a reasonable response on hand for the attorney, bringing up a very common-sense point: why can’t they just prove that they’re a non-profit organization? Tammy stated…

“All I have ever asked for is an honest, direct answer for the sake ethical use. An artist asking for proof of non-profit status is standard procedure when used without permission– a non-profit avoiding to prove they are a non-profit is not standard behavior, and in fact is what started to give me doubt in the first place.”

Tammy’s insistence on them providing proof that they were a non-profit organization had the attorney staving off a response and claiming that an answer couldn’t be provided until that following Monday.

Sure enough, on March 17th, 2014 the attorney issued the following explanation as to why Feminist Frequency as an organization was reluctant to prove their non-profit status, with the attorney stating…

“In regards to your request for documentation of non profit status, the primary reason we don’t feel comfortable sharing that information with you is because you have been in repeated public contact (via social media) with at least one individual who has admitted to participating in the doxxing of [Feminist Frequency], [the] team and even [their] family. I’m sure it is in no way your intent to participate in such awful attacks but even the potential risk of that information getting to the wrong parties is just too great. However, Feminist Frequency’s nonprofit status in the state of California is public information so you are welcome to look it up on a website like [redacted]”

It was verified that the information verifying Feminist Frequency’s status as a non-profit benefit corporation does reveal the location of Feminist Frequency staff.

Journalist Oliver Campbell also verified that Feminist Frequency had a full 990-N IRS form since 2013. Campbell also provided documents proving that Feminist Frequency filed a 1023 application with the IRS back in 2012, which is an exemption of taxes under the 501(c)(3) charitable contributions clause, as noted on the official IRS 1023-EZ website.

Again, linking to the tax information, tax ID and the charity details reveals the full location of the Feminist Frequency staff. However, a snapshot of the documents can be viewed below with the important information blanked out.





The attorney’s worries over doxxing wasn’t completely unfounded. Their information is easily accessible and susceptible for doxxing purposes through proving that Feminist Frequency is, in fact, a 501(c)(3) public-benefit corporation.

However, what’s shocking is that the attorney nor McIntosh or his associate decided to take a snapshot of the charity information and blank out the personal details.

I did reach out to Feminist Frequency about their policies on commissioning work from content creators, but at the time of publishing this article they have not responded. I also tried reaching out on Twitter but Jonathan McIntosh and his associate have me blocked.





The significance of this information is only pertinent to those who questioned whether or not Feminist Frequency was actually a legitimate charity organization. Also it’s a brief reminder of the dangers of fair use when applied to transformative media by content creators and the artists for whom their work is borrowed.

Some individuals also felt that Jonathan McIntosh was attempting to defraud users through the Kickstarter and use the money for personal gain. However, as far as the tax information is concerned, Feminist Frequency is actually a legitimate, non-profit public benefit corporation.

As for Tammy Smith…. it’s interesting that very few websites actually reported on the alleged copyright infringement by Feminist Frequency. A woman was wronged but there was no white-knighting from Polygon in this case. Detailed rundowns of the situation were mostly recounted by smaller websites like Continue Play, Game Skinny and activist outlets like Honey Badger Brigade; but this time around Kotaku wasn’t in action.

It’s also funny because opposite of #GamerGate, the excuse of not being able to contact someone because “it’s an amorphous movement” couldn’t be applied here since it’s pretty easy to find Tammy. In result, she attempted to get proactive on her own and take her story directly to Reddit for an AMA, but the moderators banned her from the site, according to a report from the Daily Dot.

Apparently having your artwork misused without your permission isn’t worthy of being made public in the eyes of some Reddit moderators. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise given that they actively abetted in covering up corruption happening within the gaming industry.

Nevertheless, despite the Reddit ban, things were resolved amicably when Feminist Frequency opted to kindly remove her artwork from their Tropes Vs Women In Video Games series. Tammy did do an update about resolving the kerfuffle over on her blog on March 17th of last year.

I was put in contact with Tammy to ask if she had any further communication(s) with Feminist Frequency, especially after Jonathan McIntosh defended the organization using Tammy’s artwork as fair use.

According to Tammy…

“Nope, I made no further effort to reach out since then specifically because of the manner in which they “resolved” the issue with me: They abruptly decided to just remove my artwork instead of showing proof of being a non-profit, while simultaneously making a somewhat misleading blog post about the situation to (in my honest opinion) save face instead of resolving [the situation] clearly. [I] would have granted [them] permission if [they were a] nonprofit.”

Well, they are non-profit they just haven’t gone about proving it in a very transparent matter.

As for the blog post by Feminist Frequency addressing the resolution of the matter — it’s mostly just a hodgepodge of text similar to the responses that they sent to Tammy. You can read the full blog post on the Feminist Frequency Tumblr page here.

Additionally, if you want, you can check out more of Tammy Smith’s artwork and projects over on her official website.

[Note: For purposes of context not all of the e-mails were used in this article. An e-mail dump with the necessary information redacted can be viewed here.]