Does anyone here know who owns www.hometheatertalk.net? They stole the Room Setup video from my company's web site, stripped out our name and copyright info, inserted a link to their own web site, and posted it at Yahoo Videos (http://video.yahoo.com/watch/333438/2158540) and Spike.com (http://www.spike.com/video/2834611?cmpnid=800&lkdes=VID_) and possibly other sites. I tried to find who owns hometheatertalk.net in the Internet WhoIs database, but it's registered through a "cloak" service to hide the identity. Likewise for their sister site www.interiordesignmadeeasy.info which is also hidden.

I honestly don't mind if my educational videos are passed around. That's why I made them! But to strip out the credits and source and pretend it's their content for the purpose of driving traffic to their own commercial site is way out of line. Any leads sent to me via the RealTraps Contact Page (http://www.realtraps.com/contact.htm) are greatly appreciated.

--Ethan

Hope this helps:


Technical Contact:
Private, Registration HOMETHEATERTALK.NET@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

They also stole the "hometheatertalk" in the hometheatertalk.com name. Booooo.

The site is hosted by GoDaddy on 208.109.181.141, and I'm pretty sure even they recognize copyright infringement/theft as part of their hosting Terms of Service (TOS). If you can stomach sitting on the phone with their CSRs, you can probably at least start the process of shutting them down...

bummer man. Checked out their site and it's nothing but one of those sites that links visitors to other sites and collects a referral fee for the service. Bottom feeders of the Internet for sure.

Each site is pimping a book, so if you can get ahold of one of the authors, they might have details.

Source is clean too, no author notes, company details in there.

H8 IP thiefs...

Each site? There are two now?

I can assure you the two sites are not related. There was quite the fuss over at the forums when the .net version showed up. hometheatertalk was around before AVS and they actually refered me here when it showed up. hometheatertalk had a very strict policy on copyright and if you even mentioned the word bootleg you there would be consequences. If it is still the same owner and the two sites are related, then I could tell you who owns it and who operates it if they are still around also. I would suggest contacting Mike to see who owns it if you think the two are somehow related. I don't think it is worth the effort however.

I did not mean hometheatertalk.com and hometheatertalk.net were the same owner.

If you look at the links on Yahoo and Spike, the ****** published a number of pics with banners of different sites in the videos. On Spike, the guy seems to be pimping snowmobile stuff.

I hate those domain proxy services. I guess if they want to proxy the domain ownership service, they should also proxy the risk and I hope it catches up with them.

Oh i see. I will not be watching the videos of the version they fourged where I am at, dial up such. Good info.

Thanks guys. I have emailed details to Yahoo and Spike legal departments, so hopefully I can at least shut down the video copies even if I can't find the perps. The site mainly hosts Google ads, though I'm not confident Google will tell me where they send the payment to.

--Ethan

Best of luck Ethan, this type of IP theft just makes my blood boil. I am a musician and I would lose it if someone were to lightly alter my lyrics and melody and relabel my songs under their name, let alone using the same music/lyrics and say that they wrote the song themselves and not give me any credit. In way that's what that website owner did, but IP's will ultimately always be protected under copyrights, so I think it will just be a matter of going through the process to get this sorted out.

-Sam


EDIT: Ethan, are you the actual Ethan on the videos? I have been following your videos and have been a fan for a long time since I first spotted them on youtube a couple of years ago

Best of luck Ethan, this type of IP theft just makes my blood boil. I am a musician and I would lose it if someone were to lightly alter my lyrics and melody and relabel my songs under their name, let alone using the same music/lyrics and say that they wrote the song themselves and not give me any credit. In way that's what that website owner did, but IP's will ultimately always be protected under copyrights, so I think it will just be a matter of going through the process to get this sorted out.

-Jay

Just kidding :)

Post of the Day, Staffy. :)

Post of the Day, Staffy. :)

-Sam

:rolleyes:

I think it will just be a matter of going through the process to get this sorted out.

Indeed, "the process" worked well this time. GoDaddy shut down the site 15 minutes after I sent a letter to their legal department. Even better, they sent the site owner my contact info and told him he has to call me to work it out. :D

And so he did. He's a college kid who apologized profusely, and said he was scammed himself because he paid someone else for what he thought was original content. He seemed sincere, and promised to send me contact info on who he paid for my video. He also offered to have GoDaddy redirect his site to mine, and when it expires in six months we'll let it die. Works for me. And a lot easier than tracking down the dozen-odd host sites where he posted the bastardized copy of my video.

Ethan, are you the actual Ethan on the videos? I have been following your videos and have been a fan for a long time since I first spotted them on youtube a couple of years ago

Guilty as charged. :cool:

--Ethan

Thats good new Ethan, I am glad that the system actually works. Very good to meet you btw.


<----queue for Staffy to duplicate my post (3, 2, 1...)

just kidding :D