Quote:

quote: Regarding the recent attacks on eBaum's World. Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 3:15 A.M. ----------------------------- 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). The attack has come in several forms including: -a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack; -Malicious attempts at gaining access to restricted parts of the site; -Spamming our forum and chat rooms; -Hacking into admin restricted accounts; 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. We have been working diligently day and night to reduce any ill effect these attacks may have on our users, but you may experience some technical problems or annoyances while you view the site until we finish the ongoing criminal investigation. Please bare with us during this time and rest assured we will be back at 100% very soon. We want to thank all the people who have helped us through these last few days, especially the other websites and forums that contributed what they could, you know who you are. FAQ Q. What is cyber-terrorism? A. Cyber-terrorism is defined as: the premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, against computers and/or networks, with the intention to cause harm or further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives. 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. 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. Q. So now what? A. Good question. We're hoping these individuals come to their senses and stop the attacks immediately. There's a professional way to handle this situation. There are no grounds for these types of malicious, unethical, ILLEGAL attacks. We honor ALL requests to remove unauthorized material. If any original content creator wants their material removed or wants to be given credit, they can contact us. Contrary to all of the attacks and threats, WE HAVE YET TO RECEIVE ANY COMMUNICATION FROM ANYONE CLAIMING TO BE THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THE ANIMATION IN QUESTION, OTHER THAN THE USER WHO SUBMITTED IT TO US. IF YOU ARE THE ORIGINAL CREATOR AND WANT IT REMOVED, BY ALL MEANS, PLEASE LET US KNOW.

<a href=http://ebaumsworld.com/response-01-10-05.html>link to post at ebaum's world</a>

The attacking website was/is ytmnd.com

<a href=http://ytmnd.com/news/?news_id=17>Link to story on YTMND.com</a> including an email Eric's father (Neil Bauman Executive Vice President of Ebaum's World Inc.) wrote to YTMND.com

<a href=http://lohanfacial.ytmnd.com/>and the YTMND that was stolen</a>.

Let the good war rage and the intellectual property theft stop.

So how does a site tell weather anyone is the real author of a piece??
And why has not the real owner stepped forward?
Anyone can snag a piece off any-ones web site and submit it as their own. Maybe just maybe this is an honest mistake??
If it does belong to someone else let them step forward claim it and have the piece pulled if they do not want it there.
Sounds to me like a bunch of internet bullies. If there was a real honest problem then they should have handled it in a up front and honest manner not like street thugs with computers.

If that is the case then it's the most recent mistake in a long line of mistakes.

These people need to chill.

Yup. EBaum's done this stuff in the past, and will likely continue to do so in the future. I hope that site gets shut down.

Why?

Sir D this may be a less than ''savoury'' site but what necessitates it being shut down? Freedom of speech and all that..

Because he's a thief and a common criminal. Why should he be allowed to profit from the work of others?


http://ebaumsworldsucks.com/ for an amusing and offensive flash animation. Follow the links to 'Proof 1' and 'Proof 2' to see evidence of his misdeeds.

The same can be said of the materials he fenced, and hosted on his site.

I haven't made anything worth stealing. But if I did and someone stole it I would be angry. I too hope the site gets shut down.

Why?

Sir D this may be a less than ''savoury'' site but what necessitates it being shut down? Freedom of speech and all that.. </font>[/QUOTE]Freedom of Speech does not include plagirism. Try copying word for word from history text for a history paper, for example. Stealing is stealing, and sites that are proliferated by stealing should be taken down, period. A lot of people gave Lars Ulrich a hard time about Napster too, even though what they were doing was fundamentally illegal. Witness the fact that that incarnation no longer exists. Granted, it's probably not on that scale, but it's still wrong to do.

Ebaumsworld policy of "tell us if you want your stuff removed and we'll do so", would equate to in real life copying a famous painting without the artists knowledge and then showing it as your own, with a very small next to it saying that if you are the artist contact us and we'll remove it. Most of the time the original artist won't even know that his stuff has been copied though...

And what makes it worse in this case is that even when these artists contact him, their work still isn't removed!

I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later a lawsuit grows out of this whole thing...both against ebaumsworld for stealing and against those who visited its headquarters and hacked it for not choosing the right response.

[ 01-12-2006, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

Yeah, two wrongs do not make a right. There are much better ways of handling that kind of thing. If I went there and found my music playing on something, he'd be getting some calls from people he can't intimidate into silence. The pay if we win attorneys can be pretty intimidating when they want to be, and would for sure be the best route to handling it, unless you can either afford an attorney, or found yourself with a record label's attorneys going after him.

A short timeline of things:
-eBaum's site features works from FARK, Something Awful, YTMND, SEGA, Newgrounds and others.
-the aforementioned complain
-eBaum's site censores all links that connect to other sites of similar type(Newgrounds, Something Awful, etc.)
-eBaum's site browses through it's members' names, and bans anyone who has an account on the aforementioned
-Something Awful contacts eBaum to remove works that belong to Something Awful members
-eBaum gives Something Awful the finger
-Something Awful sends a Cease and Desist request, which is granted
-eBaum ignores it, is modified to attack Something Awful with DDoS attacks firstly, PoDs later on
-Something Awful calls authorities, the authorities are clueless
-World Wide Web War One breaks out