I Think It's Time I Walked Quietly Away from TVTropes

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, Spacebattle post is up. Any fellow Spacebattlers please help me out here. Apathy seems to already be setting in.

http://forums.spacebattle...s-have-no-rights.223905/

[Bluemage]

I particularly 'liked' the bit where they thought DW was your Old Shame.  Y'know, despite it being a continuing work you maintain a forum (in part) to discuss.
Oh, and the part where they commented on you being a hypocrite.  That was worth a bitter, disappointed laugh or two.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[LynnInDenver]

If they're saying that authors have no control over what's posted, then they might well already be in violation of the DMCA safe harbor clauses.

Bob, as a note, if you do send the DMCA request and they don't respond, or worse, blow raspberries, you can always send the request to their ISP, and a complaint to Google in terms of "this site you advertise on has refused to remove my copyrighted material". Google's ad business, like most of their business, is under a lot of pressure from the copyright cartel, and if YouTube advertising is any indication (video game reviews with footage are specifically called out as a no-no, that's how strict it is there), they'll pull advertising in a hurry if there's an indication that copyright violations are earning someone money somewhere.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Logan Darklighter]

I don't think the posters at Space Battles understand what the real issues are and the context. I don't think it was made clear who Bob is and what his status as a Troper was and WHY he's doing what he did. Absent that context they think he's "just a whiny drama queen" and this is a non-issue.
I can sort of see their POV in regards to fanfic citing. Normal non-derivative works of fiction fall under fair use and all. Fanfic even more so. For purposes of satire, review, commentary and all. So the idea of an author restricting what other people say about their work is a no-go zone apparently.
But that's what their conversation seems to be focusing on. Not the initial censorship at TVTropes that sparked the action.
So I think they are missing the point.

[Bob Schroeck]

JFerio -- I've done my research, I already have a set of DMCA letter templates. I've got whois information so I can do a snailmail send at the very least. (And discovered something interesting when digging it up -- the original wiki admin, Webmonkey Gus, is supposed to have died a few years ago. But he and his company are still listed in the whois records for the latest renewal of the domain name.) I plan to do this by the book and as politely as possible, but yeah, if Eddie blows me off, I will be escalating. But I don't anticipate him blowing me off, honestly, regardless of what mental state he seems to be in. I don't want to turn this into a war.

Rob -- I forgot to mention, I deleted the Fenspace rec, which is at least one thing that you've contributed to.

I particularly 'liked' the bit where they thought DW was your Old Shame. Y'know, despite it being a continuing work you maintain a forum (in part) to discuss.

Oh, and the part where they commented on you being a hypocrite. That was worth a bitter, disappointed laugh or two.

The really amusing part was that apparently only one person read my original note, which was identical to all my other edit reasons, a polite "please don't do this" instead of a demand, and mischaracterized it in the thread -- and everyone else fed off the mischaracterization and never looked at the original. So they're all reacting out of ignorance to something that doesn't exist.

Okay, Spacebattle post is up.

Well. That was useless. (Sorry, BA.)

Look, this is getting a bit out of hand. All I wanted to do was disassociate myself from a new den of censorship, maybe with a little dramatic flair. Well, I got the drama.

And to be honest, I don't have a right to force them not to discuss my work. I had hoped that they would have enough respect for my request to comply, but they don't. Oh well. The world is full of impolite jerks -- like I have to tell anyone on the Internet that. I've left TVTropes, and except for the occasional bit of research I won't be back. That's all I really intended on doing.

Not that I'll discourage anyone from taking independent action.

It occurs to me that one way to make the DW page as useless as it would have been had it stayed deleted would be to poison it -- slowly, over the course of months, add/remove/edit bits to change it from reasonably accurate to wildly wrong, perhaps hilariously so. ("Doug's actually a reincarnated Asian dragon! DW4 is actually set in the Andy Griffith Show! Ernest Borgnine travels with him in an apartment inside one of his motorcycle's panniers!") I might even be persuaded to open a thread just so I can solemnly state in public whatever nonsense someone wants to add with a WordOfGod link. ("According to a post in the author's forums, Doug's body armor is actually made of enchanted Oreo cookies.")
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

Rob: The following pages on TVT mention you by name:

Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater:

(Entry originally written by Rob Kelk for The Anime Primer, and used with permission of the author.)

LightNovel/DirtyPair:

(Original entry text written by Rob Kelk for The Anime Primer, and used with permission of the author.)

It's also possible the Main/Meganekko page has material of yours.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

And Fast Eddie has slammed the door behind me, shouting "And stay out!"

Found an email address for him, though. Takedown notice goes out when I get home.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jinx999]

Do we have a list of the purged pages?

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, IP blocking just from the expressed desire to leave is a bit much. I can understand locking the account - sometimes public expressions of leaving roll into a large amount of "flailing" drama, and locking an account at least ensures they don't come back and then wind up pissing everybody off and rendering at least one thread a radioactive wasteland. But IP blocking should be reserved for spammers and trolls, and I can't see you as being either.

To let you know, I'm not even using TV Tropes as a reference at this point. I can't be verified I'm getting ALL the data, and for all I know, a page I was referencing may cease to exist the day I actually need something from it.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Rev Dark]

When you drop your final message to Fast Eddie, please send him my love and tell him to eat a bag of foetid donkey dongs.

[CattyNebulart]

PS: I hate Yuku.

If they're saying that authors have no control over what's posted, then they might well already be in violation of the DMCA safe harbor clauses.

No they are not. For one simple reason, there is a fair use exception for criticism and commentary. It is under attack, and that is a shame, but no author ever has the right to demand that you do not discuss their work. Imagine if that right existed, you would never be able to give anything less than a 5 star notice because companies would send takedown notices at comments they didn't like.

As for any author that requests their work not be commented on I'll just say though luck you shouldn't have published it.

Also do note that if you send a DMCA take-down for something that you know or should have known is covered under fair use you are liable for damages and for perjury. Granted that could solve the wiki's money problems, but probably not in a way you want.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Sweno]

the proposed DMCA takedown notice is for a work of Bob's that is reproduced in full on the forums. Not for critique/commentary on his work.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Bob Schroeck]

the proposed DMCA takedown notice is for a work of Bob's that is reproduced in full on the forums. Not for critique/commentary on his work.

Correct -- it's for post #118 in this thread.

ETA:  And takedown request away.  This is, btw, a simple, polite(-ish) "you have infringing material on your site, please remove it" note.  (I followed the model of the first example here.)  If he chooses to ignore me it goes to the step where the wiki might get hurt, but regardless of what's been going on, I do not think it will come to that.  The thing here is to enforce my rights, not hurt the wiki.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Dartz]

I'm not going to use a DMCA takedown as a "get even" smack

Please don't.

I detest the DMCA with a passion. And it may be taking things that bit too far. If there's one thing I know, it's taking things too far. I think it's fair to ask people not to talk about you.... it's a valid request to make and if they don't want to honour it, it's on their own head.

But smacking on the head about it with that thing which has been used to delightful chilling effect across the internet is probably not a good idea when free speech is being talked about.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Bob Schroeck]

I've caused a problem here in understanding what I intend by carelessly confusing the term "takedown" (which I should reserve for the big complaint to people outside the infringing site) with "cease and desist" (which is what I have generally been meaning, and which is what I just sent to Fast Eddie). It would be, despite my earlier flights of fancy, impossible to jump right to the takedown -- I need to make a good-faith effort to have the site admin solve the problem first. I am counting on Eddie not being so irrational as to trash my email without reading it, and will make several tries before assuming otherwise and moving to the big guns.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

Update: Fast Eddie has removed the infringing material.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[LynnInDenver]

That was fast. Of course, he might be hedging against you having a leg to stand on should it come to a formal filing under the DMCA (true), have a definite avenue to use it (also true), and that you're potentially unhappy enough to make it ugly (not quite so true, but let him keep that illusion).
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Norgarth]

edit: nevermind.  Feel free to delete this post, Bob.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Black Aeronaut]

Glad that Fast Eddie saw where the wind was blowing.

Off-topic but related anyhow - does anyone know why on Earth SB forums doesn't like discussion about other Internet communities? The Internet being the interconnected thing it is, goings on at some place as visited as TV Tropes is bound to have some sort of effect elsewhere.

[Bob Schroeck]

Glad that Fast Eddie saw where the wind was blowing.

It really wasn't so much as that as it simply being the only rational and proper thing to do.  There would have been no way in hell to justify ignoring a C&D just to spite a user he was banning, especially when under the law doing so would have made him vulnerable to a deserved massive retaliation that might well have taken the entire site down for a little while.  

I have no doubt it irked him -- it probably looked like I deliberately timed it to get in a last zinger by being able to legally force him to delete something of mine, with the implicit threat that I could down the entire wiki (and cause a third Google Incident in the process -- the actual "takedown" would have included bringing Google in on the matter) if he blew me off.  But that was never my intent or goal.  I just wanted my story removed, it took me that long to do the research and get the chance to send the C&D, and I trusted Fast Eddie not to be irrational or a dick about it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jorlem]

I've seen that in a number of forums actually. Some boards don't like it when people bring drama from other boards to theirs.

You might have gotten a better response if your OP had mentioned some of the other things TVTropes/Fast Eddie were doing while acting all high-and-mighty, and explained what was going on with Bob as the most extreme case known. As it was, I could see how the post could come off as you trying to draw the SBers into a fight between Bob and Fast Eddie, instead of trying to raise awareness of how the admins at TVTropes are treating contributors and creators, as your thread title suggested.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Thesilentjackofalltrade]

Hummm...I almost wish you had taken down TV Tropes, I like the site and all, but lately they needed a good, swift kick to the nuts, not so swift though that they couldn't see it coming, but that they couldn't do anything about it if they ignored the problem.
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Veni, vidi, vici. [I came, I saw, I conquered
Quote from Julius Caesar

[Bob Schroeck]

That would really require them to do something stupid and self-destructive, above and beyond just embracing censorship with all the eager glee of Mary Whitehead or Phyllis Schlafly. Regardless of idle entertaining fantasy, that didn't happen, it wasn't happening, and probably won't happen.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Thesilentjackofalltrade]

I know, I know.

(Sigh.)
_____________
Veni, vidi, vici. [I came, I saw, I conquered
Quote from Julius Caesar

[LynnInDenver]

I've seen that in a number of forums actually. Some boards don't like it when people bring drama from other boards to theirs. 

I've seen bannings when one's said "I'm leaving"... but from what I've seen, most boards will just lock the account ("You said you were leaving, so we're adding a kick to the ass on the way out, buh-bye!"), rather than ban the IP address. Banning the IP address has the potential to block legitimate users by mistake, since most people surfing the web are assigned a temporary IP out of their ISP's pool.
Plus, IP blocks aren't terribly effective. As Bob noted, he was able to use a proxy to view the site anyway. The most use of IP blocking is to make it more troublesome than it's worth for a troll or spammer to keep trying. They'll move on to softer targets.
And yeah, Bob, I agree, to ignore the C&D would have been monumentally stupendously suicidal. I don't know if Google would have applied a "3 strikes" with the prior two "adult" complaints considered the first two, but it's not a risk someone would want to take. On the other hand, I'm not sure how well anyone can clean a user-submission wiki of "adult" material once it's had it, so I'm expecting him to have a third Google Incident in the future, regardless of how ape he's going now.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor