Today I have completed the year long achievement “What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been” in World of Warcraft, not bad for someone who gave up Raiding a few months ago and is not a member of a Guild. Before you ask “no I am not back playing World of Warcraft”, I just had some unfinished business to deal with, as I had complete all the other parts of this year long achievement, it was only right that I done the Brewmaster achievement to complete the set, so when I am old and my grand kids are watching a history program about the Digital Crack we call World of Warcraft, I can say, “yes I was addicted to WoW also” LOL

If you’re not interested in World of Warcraft, why are you still reading? If you are, here is the achievements that had to be complete during the past 12 months to achieve “What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been”.

• Hallowed Be Thy Name – (Hallow’s End): October 18th – 31th
• Merrymaker (Winter Veil): December 15th – January 2nd
• To Honor Ones Elders (Lunar Festival): February 5th – 23th
• Fool For Love (Love is in the Air): February 11th – 16th
• For The Children (Children’s Week): May 1st – 8th
• The Flame Keeper (Midsummer Fire Festival): June 21st – July 5th
• Brewmaster (Brewfest): 20th September – October 4th

Keep in mind only a tiny percentage of players in the world will have completed this in September 2009 the 1st month anyone was able to do so.

And finally here are 5 screen shots, as proof, not that many folk reading my blog will be demanding proof LOL.

So that’s that, all done and dusted. I will be checking in on WoW for at least an hour each week, just to keep a hand in for when the next expansion comes out, feel free to give me comment abuse for posting something about WoW

Today I decided to respond to the funniest legal threat I have had in such a long time. I have had many, some have gone to lawyers, some have even got to court but all have never went any place because ultimately the person pointing the finger knows my company has not deliberately done anything wrong and always acts reasonably and responsibly.

Now here is the thing and I will say this up front, I don’t like people stealing other peoples content and when I see my content stolen I will write a straight forward request for it’s removal, will keeping my right to take legal action. I find the majority of people remove the content without to much fuss. But this guy who’s name I will conceal as I am for protecting the venerable in society as this guy clearly is, has no idea on how to write a reasonable letter he could later use in court.

A bit of background before you read the emails, the site he is making the complaint about is a site that provides information and support online for anyone affected by the death of a baby during pregnancy, at birth, or shortly afterwards. My company UK Internet Sites Ltd has hosted this site completely for free since around 2000. And the copyright infringing that is talked about here is a lady who’s child died and she left a dedication to the child with a poem allegedly written by the guy that emailed us.

He emails us via a Hotmail account and sends a copy to our upstream host each time as well as the site owner. Look at the times he emails in, the words he is using, the spelling errors. Anyone reasonable would expect a poet to have a good grasp of the English language. He also provides no proof or PDF talked about in the 1st email.

1st Email

Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:48:07
Subject: Notice of Copyright reference

Sir, Madam,

Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ****** detected by Plagiarism Detector

“I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described below as allegedly infringing is not authorised by myself as copyright owner, or the law.”

“I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”

The material is currently illegally clearly displayed on your servers without my requested or given author/owner consent. It must be removed as in line with copyright law and host master Terms of Service United Nations Europe UK and USA 2006/2007

If signed copy of this notice is required by your company I will email one today via PDF attachment (identical as fax) for you to view/print.

*************

*NOTE the thief had clearly ignored anti theft protection as legal copyright notice and licensing notice hacked into a file source code or typed this out to steal the material.
Material displayed as below on your servers Poet ********* ****** Copyright Notice NOT public domain strictly not for copy public use or any form of display without registered licence

2nd Email

Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:43:33
Subject: FIFTH ISSUED LEGAL Notice of Copyright reference

Criminal action is now being taken against site owner and host master alike with risk of imprisonment as penalty

With respect,

Death of anyone is not an excuse for breach of the law, keep ignoring we’ll have you arrested

Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******

This means European USA and UK Government will take legal action if the matter is not resolved swiftly. It is a criminal offence for such material to be transmitted back into Europe USA or UK by any server owner let alone a site owner

Data theft is no different by law to shop lifting and a host master and site owner are no different to someone handling stolen goods whether aware of the matter or not

With Respect

3rd Email

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:37:09
Subject: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright notice

mark my words site owners and host master alike will face crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge a notice of copyright is itself a crime

4th Email

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:11 AM
Subject: FW: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright notice

I AM GOING TO BOUNCE ********.COM and host masters THROUGH EVERY GLOBAL COURT IN THE WORLD SHUT THEM DOWN AND SEE SITE OWNERS IMRPISONED IF THIS IS IGNORED ONE MORE TIME

Now This Is My Reply To Him on the 16th September.

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Hello Christopher, it has been established that an internet provider cannot be seen as publishers of content on websites they host and do not actively monitor, if you had visited a lawyer they would have told you this and would have stopped you from sending poorly written, falsely accusing, threatening emails at midnight and 2 am.

In matters of alleged copyright theft it is your job to go to court to prove you are in fact the original copyright holder and ask the court to send us a legal request for the removal of the alleged text. We have no way of knowing who is the original copyright holder and cannot get involved in disputes unless we have been legally instructed by a court to do so. We have no legal obligation to respond to your email as anyone can open up a Hotmail account and pretend they own something that they do not. I will, out of courtesy, contact the site owner and ask them if they would kindly remove the post by one of their users however they are under no legal obligation to act on an email from ourselves.

We trust that this amounts to a sufficient explanation of our position and that the matter may be regarded as closed.

In the meantime, this letter is written entirely without prejudice to our whole rights and pleas, and is not to be founded upon in any litigation, administrative procedure or other quasi-judicial proceedings of whatever nature, save with our prior written consent.

Yours faithfully,

Clarke Duncan

UK Internet Sites Ltd
http://www.ukinternetsites.com

And he still writes back after that email, with the following.

5th Email

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:15:04
Subject: RE: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright notice

What do you think this is

Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******

This means you have failed to understand and acknowledge the law

6th Email

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 3:03 PM
Subject: RE: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright notice

US and UK Government will now be in touch with you directly

An official complaint of theft and piracy has also now been lodged with UK Police

Government Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******

This means you have failed to understand and acknowledge the law

LOL I can see it now,

999: “999 Emergency how can I direct your call?”

Whack Job: “Hi, yes I like to report a grieving mother for posting a dedication to her dead baby using one of my poems, I have already contacted the US and UK Government and I want you to storm the hosting company HQ and arrest all the staff”

Seriously we are just a tiny hosting company, we hardly have any customers as it’s not our main business any more, so what are the big guys getting on a daily basis if this is the whack jobs we get. If the guy had half a brain he should have wrote to the site and said “Hey look, one of your users has posted one of my poems, I know she is grieving for her loss and I feel for her but it is my copyright. Would you either remove this or add my copyright statement with a link back to my original poem at my site” … feck if I could get links like that, I would be writing to everyone saying, yeah keep the content just give me credit and link back to me, I would be an online millionaire that way

So their you have it, it’s all in a days work for me to deal with these types of people.

* I have removed names etc and replaced with ***** just because I am not in the game of pointing fingers back.

Today I decided to split my Twitter account, well actually I decided back in March 2008 that if this Twitter thing becomes a serious business tool then I really should keep personal chit chat to a personal account that my friends would appreciate and at the time registered both my real name and my “screen” name.

@ClarkeDuncan has developed into an important business tool for me, it’s not the front for any of my businesses as they have their own Twitter account, but it has been great for getting messages across and meeting up with people and engaging in conversation I would never have had, in turn these are benefiting all the businesses I am involved in. Twitter is just that good for business, if you actually get a grip on how to use it.

But I realised at the weekend that the time has gotten closer to keeping my views of a film I watched or a TV show I am following out of the business space, sure a lot of my friends are also involved in Affiliate Marketing but many of the people following me are not and most are looking for information that benefits them in their business and of course I am trying to get information across that might just say to people, you know what this guy is worth listening to, might even send a little work his way. So they really don’t need that overloaded with a lot of personal stuff in that space.

@Supercod is that personal space, that will allow me to still enjoy Twitter and the social aspects but keep a more professional face (with the odd outburst I am sure).

I have to say it’s no easy task taking on a split account, indeed I only know a few people who have done this and successfully (most of the time) before. Things will over lap from time to time, my true friends shouldn’t have an issue with that.

Split Blogs have worked for me, this blog here  being my personal one to talk about things I find online, family etc and that is not going to be of interest to people reading my Affiliate Marketing Blog. So I am expecting split Twitter accounts will also be a good move.