Juvenall Wilson

The media thief Eric Bauman has issued a response to the recent wave of web users angry of his site’s unethical use of other people’s content for profit. Now, normally, this is where I’ll make a link to the content I’m about to quote from. In this case, however, I’m holding back. I don’t want to drive any more traffic to his site and since the page in question serves ads and links to content he’s stolen, I have no problems here. Anyhow, on with the show:

For the last 36-48 hours, ebaumsworld.com has been the victim of a global cyber-terrorism attack allegedly conducted by an alliance of webmasters and their followers who disagree with our company’s editorial process (See FAQ below).

I know, it’s shocking that anyone would have a problem with “Hey! I’ll take someone elses hard work, slap my own watermark on it, strip out all references to the author and make thousands of it daily.” Clearly, these people are Communists and terrorists.

There have also been numerous personal threats made against individual eBaum’s World staff members. Most recently, our physical Corporate Headquarters building was vandalized so we’ve been forced to hire on-site security personnel. We have also opened the dialogue with our local police cyber-crime unit which works very closely with the FBI in matters like this.

Oh noes! Not the cyber-crime unit that works very closely with the FBI in matters like this! It’s like a nerd hybrid of Miami Vice and the X-Files. While you have the attention of this unholy beast, be sure to point out that your site used malicious JavaScript to directly attack the server for SomethingAwful.com. I’m sure Fox Mulder has a few questions for you.

Q. Why are you under attack?
A. The cyber-terrorists claim that ebaumsworld.com featured an animation created by an individual they represent without the permission of that individual. The animation in question can be viewed here.

Generally speaking, when the artist says “I never gave you permission to use my work on your for-profit site”, you screwed up.

Q. Did ebaumsworld.com steal this animation?
A. Absolutely not. We received this animation as a contest submission by someone claiming to be the original author. We have a digitally signed and dated consent and release form that was filled out by the author in question. In fact, it is our policy for ALL content we receive to be accompanied by this consent and release form before we feature it on the site. We also log contact information, the originating IP address and any information given to us about the original creator of any content, including any other proof of origin the author can provide. Beyond all of this, our editorial staff manually researches the origin of the content looking for references to or appearances of the same content on other websites. Any discrepancies are researched fully before a decision to post the material is made.

O RLY? Honest and for true? What about the “Badger Badger Badger” cartoon? Seems the artist there sees things a little differently.

What ever happened to the good old days of crooks owning up to being crooks. Hell, I’d almost even respect that.