Look What This Guy Did To Fight Illegal Tube-type Copyright Infringement!
 

The link leads to the actions he took. Interesting, and perhaps instructive?

http://www.wp-board.com

Now that's awesome - maybe I'll have to drive the 40 minutes north to Littleton and shake this man's hand!

Thats what is going to put a damper on the tubes. Or a few of them at least.

He is actually a member here and commented in another thread on this very topic. I can't seem to find the thread or remember his username though. Good work for sure. :thumbsup

Thanks for the info Dave, how are you?

Very Impressive. I saw this a while ago, and read every word he wrote.

???? He paid cash for the domains.. Why?

Congrats to Mr. Grady - great job; showing diligence, perseverance, and confidence in pursuit of justice. As we used to say in the Navy: "Bravo Zulu"

He should get a honorary Xbiz award

We need more people like this guy for sure.

Mr.Grady = :pimp

very well done :)

Awesome :thumbsup

:pimp:pimp

The very least we can do is sign up for his affiliate program and send him some clicks :)

http://truebabes.com/affiliates.html

Was the wp-boards just file sharing or a tube site as well?

thats awesome stuff!!!!

i would also like to know that. was it a tube site or a message board where people posted all the content?

Yeah, I might do the same thing :thumbsup

soon someone will connect the dots and understand that in order for the economy to work, you have to buy stuff. When you buy stuff business owner then hires people. People hired then buy stuff.

So to me it doesnt matter. If you rip peoples shit in any format your a thief and if you get caught you are getting what you deserve.

That's awesome!

Why not all web sites doing this??
 

Amazed that all web sites don't threaten copyright infringment.
Its a serious easy to prosecute law.....

Nicely done. AVN should bring him to Internext, I'm sure there are lots of folks who would love to meet him and shake his hand.

wow kudos to him, he kicked some serious butt

Jim is a smart guy with the law he makes sure to cover every little detail. This is really good work I would much rather go to a seminar on how to do this and get our industry back then listen to how to increase my members area profits again

Old news posted like a month ago or more but yah that guy had some serious balls to do what he did.

Now thats how it's done for sure:)

He posted the story on here. It was a really interesting read

http://www.gfy.com/fucking-around-and-business-discussion/910596-taking-file-sharing-website-101-a.html

Thanks for the comments...

The first guy (Dennis Beard) settled for $20,000 and you can see the cashier's checks here:

http://wp-board.com/beard/

Full settlement agreement here:

http://wp-board.com/beard/BeardSettlement.pdf

For those that don't know -- "Victory Junction" is a summer camp run by Kyle Petty / Richard Petty (NASCAR fame) for terminally ill children. All the settlements include (or will include) a donation being made to them.


The next guy, who went by "Idigit", also settled for $20,000 but after seeing me use Beard's name and check copies, he and I agreed on a settlement that would rename confidential. His settlement is done and signed, but being paid over a couple of years.

The 3rd guy, "Denshaman", is also settling. His parents hired a lawyer for him and some paperwork is flying back and forth. His will also be $20,000 but should have been more as he was the largest poster of my stuff.

No word on the others yet. Late June and around the 4th of July I was away from the office so didn't do much on this stuff. Back at it a couple of days this week.

More new as I have it.

Jimmy

Pretty girl fans should consider visiting these fun sites. @ bottom,lol

wrong thread :)

Some people are just stupid... They should have just put everything offshore not under any US Laws and never settled......I would have never settled and tied it up in court for years..just like the old saying..."You can't get blood out of a turnip".. I am glad they got caught..

I'm joining Dave's program Cherrypimps.com right now, the way he manages his content I know I won't have to compete with tube sites when promoting his sites.

I don't understand the t-shirt part and how it relates to your content? The story wasn't very clear, and just trying to understand more what they did.

And, did they ever respond to your C&D Notices?

And finally, are all of these mainly American ran piracy sites?

Why some of the bigger sites have not banded together and put this together is beyond me. I'm to small but would back anyone who did.

It's better than spending money on promos at shows.

I do not think that the guys he is suing were running these sites where the photographer's content was illegally re-posted. If I understand correctly, these are American individuals simply re-posting the photographer's content on a surfer forum or forums to 'share" with their friends. That's what makes these settlements even more amazing in my opinion. Imagine being able to track down and sue some of the individual posters on a site like pornbb. A lot of them will be Americans with a job, maybe a wife and some assets, and many of them will have no idea that someone would or could come after them just for re-posting their content on a public or semi-private surfer forum.

Jimmy, I have another question- can you give us a rough idea of what you had to spend out of pocket for the attorneys and private detective and for other expenses in order to reach a settlement with the first individual or first few individuals? I like to get an idea just how cost prohibitive this kind of action is for a small to medium sized company that is looking to protect their copyrights.

Paul, just like Jim, some companies are being active. Some are working with Remove Your Content, and others are doing it on their own.

Jimmy

Hit me up I want to hook you up with a free copy of CCBTools. Thanks for the work fighting piracy! If we all did this our industry would be in much better shape then it is right now!


It will free up some of your time from having to assist webmasters getting them link codes and such and it will provide those that want to promote you with more then enough reasons to get started right away! :)

The t-shirt part is for funding. They set-up the sites as a forum to trade and discuss, but it was huge at over 7000 members. They even wanted to host the content so DMCA to Rapidshare wouldn't get files taken down.

For funding Platoon set-up a site to sell t-shirts and it at first used PayPal, then another service called PayPay.

The forum had special sections you couldn't get into, including the stuff they hosted themselves, unless you donated money by purchasing a t-shirt.

Buy a t-shirt, get special access to all sort of other content they hosted themselves on a server in Turkey.

The site owners never replied to DMCA, C & D, or anything else. The site was moved about 6 times in 18 months -- hosts would get sick of complaints from guys like me. The last host was in Turkey and states right on their site they ignore American DMCA.

That doesn't matter -- the owner was in Ohio!

Jimmy

Jim, thats exactly right.

The site / domain owner was American in Ohio. Hew as hosting, paying for hosting in Turkey, etc.

He is liable for what he was doing, but we also knew he was a broke dick. Bankrupcy in 1999, investigators found late payment notices in his trash for mortgage and just in March Bank One sued him for not paying credit cards.

Going after him was done to get the data he had. He knew the REAL NAMES and addresses of t-shirt buyers / donators, and of course had the forum and all the logs that go with it - IPs, email addresses, etc.

That data is the most valuable thing. Its super easy to cross reference the IP in CCBill database for paying member with the IP in the forum database for the person posting what he just downloaded.

That is why we have three settlements, and will have more. They know we have them rock solid. They don't want the wife or boss to know. One guy IS A CONTENT PRODUCER of sorts -- he works at a Hollywood production company that makes movie commercials, like seen at start of a DVD. The IP address he was posting my stuff from was from their network --

Do you think he wanted to lose his job for viewing my site, then posting the content, from their office?

You would be surprised -- One of the guys on our list is a rel estate guy from Boston area and owns at least 11 houses and two apartment buildings.

He has enough to pay, and certainly would prefer to pay as opposed to going to court for pretty girl photos.

Oh, that's some nasty stuff.... and the guy was American. I want to be shocked by the stupidity of the guy, but I'm not.

Nice job on the fight!

Many, many hours of my own time -- and that of a few other webmasters comparing IPs and other records.

The P.I. was about $1300 in Ohio.

Airfare, hotel, etc -- maybe another $800.

Lawyers -- just a couple of expensive lunches! Actually, both lawyers have been helping me with other stuff, like contracts and leases and things, for years and this was just sort of bundled in with general conversations. That will change in late August when all deadlines have past and we actually file a suit against those that haven't settled.

Thus far I am way ahead (if you don't count my own time).

Remember, besides the settlement money received thus far, there is the "member" issue.

Membership is up. The names are old names -- meaning guys that would subscribe a year ago, but hadn't recently -- but are back now. I think, as does another webmaster that helped me, that those guys (he sees same trend) would just get the content for free because they could, but now buy because they have to.

Jimmy

Good For Jimmy to stand up for what's his:thumbsup:thumbsup
Specially love this comment:winkwink:
"Its amazing how tugh these guys are online, and how whimpy they are in real life."

Good job Jimmy...

Was probably easier to make sure he got all the server files. Better to make a deal with one guy to be able to hang the rest.

Fucking awesome!!

Congrats on doing this and having it work out. I do have to say it's always sad to see the big Adult power houses that have shit loads of money for lawyers never do anything on the piracy end. Yet it always seems to be left for the little guys to do the grunt work that actually changes things.

If nothing else, I'm sure people will think twice when you send them a C&D.

good to see someone taking action

You are a true star and I take my hat off to you. :)

+1 :thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thum bsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup