Let's just make it a blacklist Thursday

[Netpiddler]

No matter what light you try to put on it or how you package it - theft is theft. It doesn't matter whether its content, graphics, ideas, bandwidth... its all the same and will always have the same end result.

It is especially despicable when someone chooses to steal from another who not only spends a huge amount of time freely giving of himself to help others - but to steal from the same person who has spent considerable time helping him. |skull|

It all started in August of 2003 when ardentgent (mark) asked for my help with his site The Panty Hamper and I found he had copied my complete warning text and warning text scrollbox for use on his site without my permission.

Knowing ardentgent was a newbie I "tactfully" explained the problem with what he'd done, but allowed him to keep it to help him out. It was a site warning afterall and while I don't believe having such an item on a site has been proved or disproved in court as a means of protecting a webmaster in the event of a minor accessing a site - I am a firm believer in them and wanted to see one on this site...

Soon after he asked me to look at a gallery of his for some input. The problem was, the gallery used one sponsor's graphic to promote another. Again I explained the problem and he was warned to change it immediately.

Now I find he has again stolen my own custom graphics AND is using the same stolen sponsor graphic to promote over 6 other sponsor sites. |raygun|

I have not only given ardentgent a lot of my personal time, I helped him with coding errors on his main site. I even built some custom tables for the site to help show him how to structure sales text etc...

This was your 3rd strike ardentgent and you must now deal with your decision to steal from me. It now just makes me wonder what else has been stolen from me that I haven't yet found - or from other webmasters that they themselves are not yet aware of...

For the record this gallery has three stolen graphics on it. The animated CLICK FOR YOUR RISK FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP! is used on a number of my galleries - here is one of them.

The two graphics at the very bottom of the same gallery are also my own graphics and graphics I used when I designed a number of tours recently for a sponsor - not the same sponsor promoted on his gallery...

Here is the gallery he likely took those graphics from.

I have about 20 galleries of his with stolen graphics on them but I have already tarnished GG & Jim's great board enough with this issue...

All of the following sponsors need to be aware that they are being promoted with stolen graphics (I have already been in contact with many of them):

WegCash
Extreme Paychecks
Sunny Dollars
SIC Cash
Silver Cash
Tushy Cash
Lightspeed Cash
Nikki Dollars

TGP and Linklist owners beware - take action as you see fit.

Sorry for the public flaming here GG & Jim but in this case it was very necessary.

The good news is help is always just a post or email away - it wasn't always this easy to find people to help you become successful. So for all you newbies and not-so-newbies out there, learn from other's mistakes, educated yourself, and ask for help when you need it or just feel stuck...

Most importantly - always remember that taking "shortcuts" usually only results in a "shortcut" out of the business. Once you are labeled a cheater you will always be thought of as one. Your name is everything in this biz - NEVER put yourself at risk for being cut short for taking shortcuts...

[Cleo]

Paging Ardentgent, paging Ardentgent…

Ardentgent a thread needs your urgent attention.

Paging Ardentgent, paging Ardentgent…



Hello Ardentgent, come in Ardentgent, you are in deep shit.

[Jim]

Netpiddler
Everyone needs to be aware of people doing wrong. I am thinking of making a special forum just for reporting these people. You never know...some people still think of this as the wild west where anything goes.

I have to admit, I am surprised.

[Surfn]

Jim

That might be a good idea, unfortunately. There seems to be a huge upswing in unscrupulous activities being reported lately.

Netpiddler

It's really unfortunate when you spend the time trying to help someone and they do something as despicable as this. |raygun|

[DangerDave]

http://www.thepantyhamper.com/ banned here long ago.... but now "new improved super special extra action" banned

DD

[Netpiddler]

Hi Jim

I am thinking of making a special forum just for reporting these people.

That's a damn fine idea (as much as I hate to think our business has to resort to that.)

I see posts here about cheaters, but with the amount of traffic and number of posts this board sees, those same important "cheater alerts" tend to get buried in the shuffle...

Having a tightly moderated cheater forum or wall of shame would be a pretty handy reference for everyone as long as it didn't incite careless inaccurate accusations.

You hate to waste any more energy on the idiots out there or give them more notoriety than they deserve, but if it stops them or saves another webmaster some grief - I am all for it!

[Cleo]

It seems like a few months ago the fabric of this business changed again and not for the better.

All of the sudden I'm getting spammed really bad with submits and having my work stolen. I know other places are also getting hit with crap submits and now I'm seeing all these people coming to the board with their work stolen.

It has always been a problem, but it is getting much worse all of a sudden.

It's like all of a sudden a whole new group of assholes got internet access.

[Netpiddler]

Hi Surfn

Yeah it blows, but not as much for me as it does for them at this point...

They say that imitation is the "sincerest form of flattery" but theft is a real spit in the face - especially after spending so much time trying to get them moving in the right direction.

In the end though, it will be the honest webmasters and great boards like this one that exposes each and every one of them as the losers they are.

[amber438]

That just plain sucks wind ..

I think a forum Cheaters exposed would make a nice one!!

[Tipsy]

Problem is that so many see nothing wrong in it and that means it continues to grow. There was a great example on another board recently on the topic of Cleo's recent problems. If you get enough people saying something is OK then those new to the industry look at their peers, see that it's OK for them to do it and 'accepted' (in those circles) so do it themselves and the circle grows

As for the crap submits - yep. Shit loads of them are appearing now. Always has been a problem with TGP galleries but now it's growing huge with free sites too. Perhaps TGP is getting too tough for cheats and spammers to make a dime on so they see LL's as easier pickings?

[backoffbitch]

ah fuck... shitty.



...*goes off to remove panty hamper link*...

[Smoothie]

Yep, same here.....no play at Sex Circus.

I have always thought that the linklist owners should have somewhere to trade info on fraudulent type webmasters. I've seen it tried a couple times but it sort of fell apart pretty quickly.

No reason why it shouldn't be tried again though.

[xsiteu]

I received a submission today that I recognized to be stolen content and reported it to the sponsor concerned (the content owner).

What annoys me is that there is little recourse for smaller players affected by theft.

It is simply not viable to take any form of legal action.

Plenty of advice is given to report them to their host etc.

This can be very difficult to track and sometimes they are one in the same or simply unsympathetic (non-responsive).

The hosts are in Eastern block countries or otherwise remote places.

The register lists his address as in Myamia, Vietnam or some other remote place.

Example – the mob that run this pay sate:

http://www.bargirlasia.com/ (Asian Street Meat)

A few of years ago they took one of my own personal pics (one that I had taken myself) and used it as part of a tour for one of their sites.

Recently someone ripped off my entire site almost verbatim including graphics only changing pointers to his site.

Again this was a paysite owner:

http://www.homegrowncreampie.com/

He claimed it was a mistake and was not meant to be indexed by google despite him having all his sites linked to it. He said he just dumped a copy of my site on a new domain as a research project.

So far I have only been ripped off by pay site owners…

[Surfn]

Originally posted by xsiteu
So far I have only been ripped off by pay site owners…

If this were true we wouldn't have an adult business per se. You need to stop making generalizations and start being being specific.

[xsiteu]

I was specific naming names. I admit the last comment was a throw away line – just seemed ironic that both times I have been the victim of content theft it was by Pay site owners.

It is not meant to be a reflection on all paysite owners. You are correct. If it were then being in the business would be pointless. I trust most pay site owners to send me those weekly checks