I think the problem here is that some paysite owners lost the reality woth how tgp's work nowadays.

Of course, when our thumbs do lead to autodialers/install and other sponsor, we will complain. But just a do a little more research. Most TGP's skim traffic, and sometimes THOSE trades add autodialing shit etc. It's not that the affiliate link directly to that.

When you don't want that your content is used for skimming, you should add that explicit in the terms, and FHG area, since it's a common way of doing business nowadays. That's what I mean with keep up to date.

Also I doubt if you saw such thumb on teeniefiles, madthumbs you had acted the same way.

Andre

Sixzeros of Comus Thumbs TGP script here.

I just want to say.. the Comus Thumbs network is getting bigger, somewhere around 10mil to 15mil surfers a day.

99.999% of them are skimming to trades.

99.999% of them are running hosted galleries.

If you dont want to be on the Comus network, then get a message to me, and let me know your domain, I can make sure you get purged.

I think most sponsors would rather that I added them though?

It's not peachy, it's just not relevant.

Obviously Torn doesn't want his site & his wife's image associated with a site using trojans or exploits. That's a no brainer. If that was the only reason he'd turfed the account, this thread would've ended on page 1.

What *is* relevant is how a "NO using free content or FHGs on TGPs with skims" policy affects honest, hardworking webmasters. There needs to be a clear list of sponsors who won't allow this.

I see your point of view Kcat, but I see things as being exactly opposite. I think the skim is irrelevant, and the exploit is the issue.

Torn didn't know about the skim. It may come as a shock to some TGP people, but there's a lot of adult biz that doesn't know the details of forced trading.

But his first point, and his first reaction, was to the autodownloaded exploit. Then he meets the skim, which he doesn't know, and gets doubly pissed.

But the real crime here is the autodownloaded exploit. How many thousands of dollars have been spent by just the people reading this dealing with exploit infected computers? And it's not the email viruses that are fucking us, nobody here is that dumb, it's the scumware and toolbars and malicious dialers autodownloaded and deceitfully downloaded.

Now Torn knows about the skim, and this will cause sponsors everywhere to clarify their policies. That's good. The skim was never threatened.

But these fucking exploit downloaders are daily fucking every single one of us out of money, if you'll excuse my language.

Sorry to break into the meaningful conversation...

I read this thread and the gfy thread.

Found it pretty interesting reading- not having a clue about TGP's.

There's no school for adult, so whatever one learns off boards is taken as the way to do things.

...until you read otherwise or see people in real life and chat about it.

Bill, the use of exploits/dialers have nothing to do with copyright infringement or any other gripe Torn may have. That is (or theoretically is) Kloots business decision. Torn can climb as many walls or beat up as many small people as he likes over hitting a page with a dialer ~ but it aint illegal in the context of his gripe with Kloot.

The use of his pics to build a TGP is his gripe...

If Kloot had been forcing trades via a textlink as opposed to a thumbpic taken from his promo material, then this whole situation wouldnt have arisen, dialer or no dialer.

i can't be sure what was in Torn's mind, but I agree copyright infringement is the tool, the legal weapon that makes this case so interesting.

However, this situation has multiple parts. Torn is within his rights to send a copyright warning to the host. We don't have to agree with it, but he has the legal right to do it.

Then, the host owner came here and said "Hey, wasn't us that shut kloot down, we just passed on the message". But because Kloot WAS shut down by someone, it makes a big splash, because it's such a dramatic example of the power of copyright infringement claims as a weapon.

But, it turns out it's Kloots "friend", the freehost owner, who shut him down, not Torn. Torn was as surprised as anybody that the guy was shut down so hard.

So, it's not really Torn who has gutted Kloot, it's Kloots friend, who is also presumably the one who installed the 3 autodownloading "somethings" that tripped Torn's norton.

Does Torn have the absolute legal authority to say "You can't use my content in the skim.". Clearly, YES. Is it a good business decision if you want to be used on TGPs? Probably not but who the fuck knows? TGP owners may think the world revolves around that traffic but it don't mean he couldn't make plenty without TGP traffic.

It was said earlier, this debate wouldn't have lasted a page if it had just been about autodialers, but that is what it's about.

It's an unintended side effect that the copyright threat was enough to scare Kloots cheating "freehost" "friend" into shutting down his crime operation loading toolbars onto the stream of TGP traffic.

I'm reposting this advice by Jim in the hope that more people would learn to act professionally:

Everybody who is running an affiliate program (including Torn) should listen to the advice Jim gave by telling what he would have done in a similar situation:

The skim is relevant to me because I submit to TGPs that skim.

The exploit is irrelevant to me because it's obviously wrong/cheating & I don't cheat, use exploits, dialers etc. etc. Doesn't apply to me.

If this was just a thread about another webmaster who's got dodgy shit on his site, I'd file it under list of sites to blacklist. End of story. But considering the skim "cheating" is a major issue affecting a lot of honest webmasters. Does that make more sense?

I can understand Torn being pissed if he thought he was being cheated because he didn't understand skimming.

I can understand Torn being pissed at the exploits the freehost was trying to install.

BUT BEING PISSED DOES NOT GIVE A PERSON THE RIGHT TO ACT ABUSIVELY!

Being pissed does NOT excuse this kind of BAD behaviour:
running to the boards, posting affiliate's private information, sending a C&D to the affiliates host, calling their affiliate "little piss ant", and deleting the affiliates account - Doing all this WITHOUT first giving the affiliate time to respond to the complaint.


Torn's mistakes:

1.
He sent a C&D to his affiliate's host without giving his affiliate time to respond to the complaint.

2.a
He ran to a board to complain about an affiliate without giving his affiliate time to respond to the complaint.
2.b.
He posted his affiliate's whois info and domains on a board called possible cheaters and implied that the affiliate is a cheater whose account he already terminated and telling that he wrote a C&D to the affiliate and to their host.
Again without giving his affiliate time to respond to the complaint.

3.
He posted his affiliate's private email address and home address on a board.
(this isn't much of a tragedy in this case since Kloot had his home address listed in his domains whois info but about 50% of webmasters don't have their home address in their whois information - including Torn aka PO Box 8xxx - and I think Torn wouldn't be happy if I started posting his home address on message boards.)

4.He was insulting and abusive towards his affiliate by calling him "little piss ant".


Do you want to join an affiliate program who treats their affiliates like Torn?

Here is a hypothetical situation:

What if Kcat was promoting katcash through a gallery she submitted to a skimming tgp and Torn would find it.

If Torn would have acted the same way as he acted towards Kloot:

Torn would have written a thread in a possible cheaters forum where he called Kcat a "little piss ant" and informed that he had just terminated Kcat's account and sent a C&D to Kcat and to her host.
Torn would also post Kcat's domains and information to make sure that this implied cheater is known and her reputation is ruined.
Then Torn would proceed to post the private email address and home address of Kcat.


Does anybody else but me see this kind of behaviour by Torn as WRONG?

Here is another hypothetical situation:

What if you owned a TGP with a logo which is your trademark or brand and you provided it for use by webmasters as a recip 120x60.

It's your logo, your reputation and your copyright.

Then you find that this logo is being linked to malware and other sites which have nothing to do with you every 1 click out of 4 (or whatever ratio).

Do you think that a surfer will click on your logo ever again? How many surfers will never want to visit your TGP again?

I agree that skimming is a traffic building activity etc... but as Bill said, the adult World does not just revolve around skimming TGPs.

I agree that the timing of this incident is unfortunate, but I bet ya kloot would still be online if he hadn't used a free host.

ya see to me this is a big problem. If torn doesnt know how tgps work then he shouldnt be offering hosted gallerys. To offer out hosted gallerys and then say well..... I didnt know tgps worked like that and this is copyright infirdgment. See that makes Torn an idiot (No offence)

This I would like anwsered ......suppose I had a thumb tgp that took submits and that tgp skimed, ... follow me so far ?......
someone premoting torns program submits a gallery with his content that he gave out to his partners, Now I guess Torn is gonna start sending Dmca notices to MY host ????????

If you look at Torns actions it makes all of his content unlinkable

the toolbar is really irrelevant,

As a newbie who has been looking into starting a skimming thumb TGP I would really like to see this answered. It would have very far reaching implications if TGP owners would be forced to police Torn's affiliate program. Especially when you add in DD's (not sure what affiliate program that is) as he has stated that he does not want his content used this way, and the hundreds more that could at any second change their minds on the issue.

The only other thing that concerns me is the lack of a TOS on Torns site. As a newbie if there are no terms stating how a sponsor does or does not want their site promoted, I would have to assume that standard practices would be acceptable.~Ghost

This opinion is not the view of my lovely wife Lliandrin |smooch|

I've read every post in this thread and one thing really stands out. Many of you are too busy insulting each other to really argue your point. Yes, I realize that Torn started this thread with 'little piss ant', and while I'm not defending that, I at least understand his response to the situation as he percieved it to be. He, as the producer is going to have the last word pertaining to how his content is used. Just because his terms of use did not address the use of his content on skimming TGPs does not mean he's unjustified now. There are always going to be unforeseen circumstances and that's why TOU are always evolving. He did not know that the current trend in TGPs is traffic skimming. That does not make him an idiot. Uninformed perhaps, but not an idiot.

I wonder how many of you know every single aspect of the complete realm of the adult industry. If Torn informed you that for every new signup at his paysite, a puppy has to die, you'd be shocked, wouldn't you? (Yes, a ridiculous example, but stay with me here) Well, for him, it was somewhat shocking to find out that a great many TGPs now handle traffic in what has historically been considered a cheating manner. This new model sends the surfer to a location not promised by the link they clicked. That's not horribly honest, is it? Just because there happens to be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of TGPs doing this, does not convert dishonesty into honesty. I too use a trade script on two TGPs. One skims with 90% going the gallery, 10% to trades. The other only uses the script to monitor traffic and build a toplist. No skimming. So yes, I too skim on one of my sites. But I am not about to defend the practice or paint it as a wonderful business model.

In the end, I doubt Torn is worried about losing an affiliate who serves his sites from a free host or one who skims so heavily that the surfer is never going to see the sponsor gallery anyway. The only thing that will result from this thread is a lot of sore feelings. If part of your argument is an insulting attack on the other party, then it is not an argument at all, it is a battle.

We adult webmasters have many more worries of greater import looming on the not-so-distant horizon. Shall we focus on them, or continue this pissing match?

UW,

I haven't insulted Torn, I'm just shocked at the way Torn acted and I'm even more shocked that many people here seem to think that this kind of behaviour is OK.

Who in here thinks that the way Torn acted is the right way to act in this kind of a situation?

(I seriously would like to know this so I can avoid people who think it is OK to act abusively)

Ya know what, I shouldnt have called him an idiot

that was wrong and I am sorry.

For some reason this topic really sets me off.

What I have seen from Torn so far makes me pretty sure that he would send DMCA notice to your host, he would also post all your information (home address,private email address, all your domains etc.) he had to message boards and imply strongly that you are an evil cheater, he would also call you abusive names and try to ruin your business and reputation.



If only more people would act like Torn the world would be a better place.

This post made me happy.
Thank You.

I'm wondering:

Did Torn and DangerDave fully realize the implications of their view on skimming?

They have made all thumb tgps unable to use their free hosted galleries but they have also made all thumb tgps as content police for their programs.

If a submitter submits a gallery made using free content provided by either of these programs the tgp owner is in hot water if he lists this gallery.
The TGP owner and their host would no doubt receive a C&D for listing either sponsors gallery.

If a tgp would receive a C&D because listing a submitters gallery that submitter would not get their galleries listed at that tgp anymore.

In order to protect themselves all thumb tgps have to blacklist both katcash/katvixen and dangerdave's program(s) and all other programs who have a similar view.

Tommy, this is a solid point, and I personally agree with it 100%.

In my personal opinion, Torn made a bonehead move getting pissed about the skim. I'd bet money Torn is kicking himself right now, altho he may not yet fully understand the skim, and like a lot of people, he may still think it's just CJ under another name, which arguably it is, despite the fact that everyone does it, and you can't have modern TGPs without it.

DMCA attacks threaten everybody. It's a dangerous weapon.

We can't know the answer to this. The frightening thing is that Torn may have the legal right to do just what you you give as an example. But so does every other copyright holder in existence. This is the danger of DMCA.

Hosts need to step up and tell us how they are going to protect us from DMCA attacks, because this is not the last time we are going to hear about this.

Abso-fucking-lutely! Untill Torn clarifies his policy in public and in writing you would have to be an idiot to put his content on a gallery or a TGP. (Except maybe for the 5 or 10 TGPs like Richards that don't skim.)

You and I might think it's crazy for him to say "you can't use my content for skimming TGPs.". But it's his content, his decision, and he has to make it. If he decides for no skim, we might think it's dumb, but the only thing we have to say about it at that point is "yes, I'll follow your terms...". or "no, I won't promote your ridiculous program".

And on this point I DISAGREE 100%. The toolbar was the first criminal act that started the whole thing. AND the toolbar was the real cause of Kloot's getting shut down.

Remember, the advancedhosting guy came here and said, "We didn't delete his site...".

We can't know yet what a real host would do faced with this same situation, because kloot was hosted by a theif.

(hopefully these quotes work the way I want them too.)

Bill look at this


He dont know whats goin on but hes ready to send out dmca notices



but when kloot put up the galleries there were no terms and there were no restrictions
Torn made up those terms after the fact .....
he made those terms up 30 or seconds before he sent that dmca notice to Kloots host

also 24 hours to remove something is not a resonable amout of time

I went to another board and was reading up on this. A board where kloot hangs out, He seems to be one of the regulars at the board, seems to be well liked and is treated with respect

I also took and good HARD look at his submits at Tommys. I feel have a GOOD DEPENDABLE way of figuring out who is a cheat and who isnt and Kloot passed easley

I'm pretty sure this has already happened, as there are more people reading this thread than are posting in it.. I have a feeling that there are a lot of gallery listings being pulled, too.

This should be a lesson to smaller program owners. Yes, you have every right to protect and control your copyrighted material in every way you feel neccessary, however outlining acceptable uses in Terms of Service is ABSOLUTELY NECCESSARY, otherwise how are people supposed to know what's acceptable or not? Telekenesis?

I'd like to throw in one quick point.

It's not Dave's program. DangerDave seperated from Outback Cash a while back. So don't call it Dave's program.

Dave's a very strict old-fashioned webmaster. I think that according to his principles, the skim is just another name for circlejerk, and it's a ripoff.

But, don't call it DD's program, that's incorrect.