DS is a pirate site!

[knifeinhand]

Allowing pirating continues at DS!
(Link to suspected pirated material deleted by FF Admin)

[Bluestone]

So, if any of the material posted on that thread is pirated, you should notify Geno. No sense making it more available by re-posting the link here.

FF Admin
(Suspected pirate link has been deleted from this site.)

[knifeinhand]

Damage has been done. My lawyer is now referring this to counsel in LA so as to pursue legal action against DS and it's owners.

[Bluestone]

Damage has been done. My lawyer is now referring this to counsel in LA so as to pursue legal action against DS and it's owners.

My suggestion would be to concentrate your efforts on the real pirates out there, some of whom are making money by re-selling our videos. We're trying to disappoint all of those who have paid monthly fees to these pirate sites. They'll lose their money and get nothing in return, because we're taking down these sites as soon as the material is posted. That is the battle that your lawyer should join, not attacking the forums where the odd link is posted and not brought to the forum owner's attention. These forums support producers. You can imagine how many videos you and I would sell if DeadSkirts, FF, and Fetnoir stopped allowing producers like us to advertise on these forums. Not a good idea to try to take down the sites where we all advertise, some of which such as DeadSkirts, FF and Fetnoir do not make a dime from operating these forum sites.

Am I just a voice crying in the wilderness? It would be good if others chimed in here to support one position or the other, or to take different positions on this topic.

Blue

[Nyghtfall]

Am I just a voice crying in the wilderness? It would be good if others chimed in here to support one position or the other, or to take different positions on this topic.

knife,

Geno's a dick, but Blue's right, you're barking up the wrong tree. I don't miss DS, but it's too valuable a resource for others to risk having shut down.

[knifeinhand]

I'm willing to settle out of court for damages.

[smudger]

To be fair, I did observe the thread complained about. It does not lead to a pirate site as such, merely a Russian site very similar to Mediafire and the like. The video complained about was not up for sale and was not a full clip, just a compilation taking a few seconds' excerpts from a large number of clips, predominantly Paul's. In fact it could even be used as advertising material, I remember Paul had a channel on Youtube doing that!

This was a long thread putting up mainly photomanips rather than videos, and it would be rather unrealistic, I think, to say that Geno should have picked out this one post from such a long thread, in amongst the many other threads.

As Blue says, there are far more serious threats out there.

[Grace X]

I hate pirates with a passion...despite not being a producer myself (I wish!), I consider all of the splendid producers to be friends, and when you hurt, I hurt. We even host a private area over at FN where producers can confer together, share notes, ID pirate sites, and coordinate ways to fight back.

Paul, I empathize with you so much, but what the guys are saying is important to keep things in perspective. If I or any of the Admins spot a pirate link at FN, it is immediately taken down, the poster contacted, and if an innocent member of the community who honestly didn't know, we inform them not to ever patronize or advertise that pirate site. We red flag the site in our Producer Anti-Piracy section, to let all the studios know to watch out for them.

But all of our forums in the community (the most well known being FF, DS and FN) have so much traffic it is hard to catch everything instantly. Geno has often had antagonistic relationships with various studios (and I know has been very rough on you, Paul hon), but I don't believe he would ever knowingly support a pirate, nor would his moderators, who are great guys and care a lot about the community.

[knifeinhand]

The proof is that what's going on is NOT promoting more sales. It's causing sales to drop because thru a message board, they can find the same stuff for free.

I appreciate what you guys are saying but I will go by the advice of my counsel on this. He just should not have made KHP a target as he has.

[Bluestone]

The proof is that what's going on is NOT promoting more sales. It's causing sales to drop because thru a message board, they can find the same stuff for free.

I appreciate what you guys are saying but I will go by the advice of my counsel on this. He just should not have made KHP a target as he has.

Well, good luck collecting. Unlike his royal Blueness who hosts the rich and famous at his luxurious Bluestone Mansion, I believe that Geno lives in a cardboard box in the alley behind an L.A. greasy spoon known as "The Deal Skirters", but he's a little hard to pin down, because he's always out pushing his shopping cart around the neighbourhood. He has a lot of pop bottles to collect in order to pay the monthly hosting rates for DS. Just sayin'. LOL!

His Royal Blueness

[knifeinhand]

I believe the law now allows us to seize his shopping cart and all his bottles to liquidate to pay the suit. :)

[Bluestone]

I believe the law now allows us to seize his shopping cart and all his bottles to liquidate to pay the suit. :)

That's right, and if you're looking for a buyer for the liquidation sale, I can offer five bucks... of course, that's Canadian!

Blue

[knifeinhand]

I doubt it's worth even that much.

[Chris B]

It has nothing to do with DS. Geno can be a pain in the butt sometimes but he is not supporting pirating. Like Night said you are barking up the wrong tree. Someone who buys your stuff is sharing it and as a person who is in the top 5 producers that are pirated, and a producer who has hired a lawyer to fight them, I will say that it is futile. It is also pocket change compared to the fees you will pay. I have thought about litigating in a few cases, including suing another producer for stealing and selling over 230 films I paid for, edited, shot, directed, and all other aspects. I wanted to sue TPAP for selling my films for years and always "losing merchant accounts" and have never seen a dime of over $10k in revenue they collected, but "exposing the community" to that type of scenario would be all bad. It is so damn frustrating, even to the point of making myself ill from the stress, but it does not matter. Even thousands of dollars of lost revenue won't make me spend thousands of dollars to be exposed in any way shape or form. CB

[xj900uk]

Agreed, Chris. Geno hates pirates almost as much as he hates 'porn peddlers'.
if he does have any links to pirate sites on DS, point them out to him and he'll take them down as quickly as he can, if he hasn't already done so (he'll probably deny they were ever there in the first place, but he will remove them).