Last Updated July 1st, 2009 -- Click Here

Up until June 10th 2009 the sites known as WP-Board.com, WP-Board.net, WorldPlagiates.com and BigMouthShirts.net had been operating as illegal file sharing and trading websites -- in clear violation of both Criminal and Civil Copyright laws.

They are now closed and I, James S. Grady of Littleton, Colorado. USA. have control of the site domain names. They will not be returning as illegal file trading forums / boards / sites.

Over the last 18 months these sites, the administrators of them, the file contributing visitors and the t-shirt buying financial supporters, have done great damage to myself and many, many other small business persons world wide. The illegal posting of our content has caused many sites to close, revenues to drop as much as 60%, and people to be laid off.

One popular model recently had to drop out of college because the revenue she counted on for the last three years suddenly dropped when "TomTom" and "Platoon" (WP Admins) made her a premium model and started giving all her content away -- not just a few pictures, but all of the content of her site.

An entire section of the forum was dedicated solely to my work. It took me years to get any good at the pretty girl pictures business, and monthly it takes tens of thousands of dollars to maintain my sites and continue to produce successfull, highly marketable content. The idea of these people stealing from me day after day was a huge thorn in my side. My mean side wanted to just drive over to "Platoon's" house and beat his punk ass with a baseball bat.

The entire situation disgusted me and I decided to see what could be done through proper legal channels. It was a time consuming and expensive pursuit, but well worth it. Over the next few weeks -- when I have a few minutes between lawyer meetings and lawsuit preparation -- I'll be posting a series of short stories or blog entries here laying it all out, step by step.

Step 1 -- Identification and Evidence Collection

I hired a private investigator (former FBI agent) in Dayton to follow him and dig into his operation. This included going into his trash that was placed on public property in the alley behind his house and business. That was a goldmine of information, including printed receipts showing the full name and address of persons that donated to the WP-Board operation to help pay server and other expenses.

He went so far as to use a variety of fake return addresses for t-shirt shipping, but it wasn't enough to keep the skilled investigator from tracking him down.

The investigator, and others working with me online, simply located and organized a pile of rock solid evidence of copyright infringement (direct, contributory and vicarious) and many other actions that would take mister "Platoon" and his illegal file trading friends into court for years to come. That would include a possible prison sentence such as Daniel Dove (click here for info)

I am not using "Platoon's" real name in this outline. I agreed to that as part of a fast settlement discussed in Step 2.

Step 2 -- Preparing to Sue or Settle.

A Federal Lawsuit was prepared claiming copyright infringement and unfair competition. The suit was not filed, just prepared. On the evening of June 9th I flew 1220 miles from my home in Colorado to Dayton, Ohio so I could personally confront "Platoon". The private investigator met me at "Platoon's" shop the afternoon of June 10th. There was no threats or physical contact except the normal introductory handshake.

In addition to the lawsuit I had with me a few copies of the 125 peices of solid evidence we had compiled. I also had a 7 page cover letter from me to him (without lawyers involved) explaining who I was, what I knew, and what it would be like to be tied up in Federal Court as a struggling businessman with a small child. It also contained a proposed pre-trial settlement. The idea of me getting ownership of the domain names was not in that letter.

I was in his shop about 5 minutes and asked him to let me know by phone within two hours if he wished to accept the settlement offer or if I should have my people file the suit later that afternoon.

He called before the two hour deadline passed and agreed to all my terms. He mentioned in that call he was leaving the entire file trading / sharing scene rather than face other angry webmasters like myself. At that time I offered a reasonable amount in cash for the domain names and he accepted.

The more formal settlement gave me all logs, records, files, back-ups and other materials related to the WP forums. It also gave me access to the server by FTP to access other potential evidence, as well as access to the admin control panel of the forum software.

"Platoon's" real name will not be used here. In truth he seems to be a pretty good guy -- hard working at his own shop building important items needed by our military. He seems to have been led astray by the other admin known as "TomTom" who hides in Germany and gets other people to put servers, t-shirt sites and other items in their own names.

Step 3 -- Hanging a Pirate

That is my plan in the case of WP posters of my content. I'm going to hang a few out for the rest to see.

With TomTom hiding in his little German rat-hole, and others foolishly following his every word and acting all tough behind the fake screenames, I know that the illegal posting and sharing of my content will not soon be stopped. I've decided to "Discourage by Example". I'm going to actively pursue in the Federal Court at least 5, and more likely 8-10, of the biggest posters of my content.

The logs, files, IP addresses and other things collected in the last 60 days make it so darn rock solid that a beginning lawyer fresh out of law school could win each case.

First I'll send a "Cease & Desist" letter as required by the local rules of most Federal Courts. That letter is formal lawyer sounding information and offers a settlement. Some take it, some ignore it, and some in the past have even been dumb enough to try and fight and go into court saying they have a right to do what they want with my works. I've never lost a copyright suit.

I do the most basic work of C & D letters myself. If we actually have to file against any of these foolish people it will be handled by the lawyers that have been helping all along.

The persons I have selected to sue thus far are:

• NAME REMOVED -- The person known on WP-Board.com and other trading sites as "Zabalokis" and "DPBofTX" has settled the matter for $20,000.00 -- see the update below dated July 1st.

• NAME REMOVED -- The person known on WP-Board.com and other trading sites as "IDigit" has settled the matter for $20,000.00 -- see the update below dated July 1st.

• Michael Henry of Kennewick, Washington (currently in Japan). Known on WP-Board.com as "Denshaman".

• Richard Hillary at University of Texas at Austin. Known on WP-Board.com as "CharlieDodgson" and in law school of all crazy things.

• Paul Sullivan of Billerica, Mass. Known on WP-Board.com as "ILVSandra".

• Peter Droubay of Alexandria, Virginia. Known on WP-Board.com as "datagram".

• Peter McDermott of Rensselaer, New York. Known on WP-Board.com as "crzydude".

• Chad Carlson of Sarasota, Florida.

What is Next?

I encourage you to check back here often. I'll post more as soon as time allows. If you have questions or comments please feel free to send them using the form below and I'll reply as soon as possible.

James S. Grady
40 W. Littleton Blvd #210
Littleton, CO. USA. 80120
1-877-686-5393.

Latest News -- June 20th, 2009

I can't do it. I simply do not have to time to participate in all the forums and discussions. Remember, I do have a fun business to manage and enjoy. I have trips to "On Location" projects in South Florida, The Virgin Islands and San Diego to plan over the next 13 weeks, and of course to deal with these copyright violators directly.

The best thing for me is to simply post the latest news and information right here. That way I only have to type data just once and don't have to spend too much time surfering all over the Internet from forum to forum, site to site, etc.

If you have a question you would like answered please use the form below and I'll reply by email as soon as possible. Be carefull to type your email address correctly.

I have photo shoots all of today and Sunday (21st). I'll try to update this page early Monday the 22nd. For now consider these tidbits.

• The case is expanding. I'll be adding a couple of guys to the list above next week. About a dozen other website owners have been in touch and are looking for copies of my records so they can pursue actions against others.

• Some of the illegal traders are taking legal advice from other illegal traders, rather than hire their own lawyers. They do so without even knowing the name of the person giving them advice and sending them email, private forum messages or ICQ discussions. That is the funniest thing I ever heard. Taking legal advice from somebody with an anonymous screenname. Some of these fools are just plain funny. One guy emailed me and said he can't be found guilty because the cops have never given him his legal rights! I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Talk about somebody that watches way too much "Law & Order".

  These are civil matters and lawsuits, not a murder case wrapped up in 60 minutes of TV time!

• One such person -- taking advice from some anonymous screenname "lawyer" even sent another webmaster an email claiming he had hired such and such lawyer and that we (webmasters) didn't know what we are talking about and how we (webmasters) should be refreshing ourselves with "free domain laws". I have no idea what he meant, but whatever.

  Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I approve of the defendants hiring lawyers. It is the best thing that can happen. Lawyers will discuss the matters without emotion, and once they see the records and know the whole story, they will talk sense into their clients. I hope many of them spend the money to hire lawyers that are familiar with Federal Courts, copyright laws, obscenity laws and more.

  In the case of the young man sending the emails telling another webmaster to back down and that he had hired a lawyer. That was welcome. As I just said -- I welcome discussing this matter with lawyers. As soon as the lawyers talk to me and learn the whole story they always tell their client to settle ASAP.

  With that in mind I called and emailed the lawyer the guy mentioned so that I could arrange to send him some documented information. The lawyer he claimed to have hired and to be defending him and giving him advice had never heard of him. Never. Didn't have the guy in his files, didn't know the guy, had never heard of WP-Board.com (until I gave him the link).

  The guy simply lied to the other webmaster. That of course hurts his case. He claimed to know nothing and have nothing to hide, but now he is on record as very clearly being a liar.

  I wonder how many other of the violators are taking such great legal advice from persons online that hide behind anonymous screennames.

• I have extended the deadline for pre-filing settlement on a couple of matters simply becaise I'm behind schedule getting C & D letters out (another reason I must avoid attending every forum or show where this is being discussed). Its just a couple of extra days, but its fair.

• Many other webmasters have asked me to help them with issues related to WP-Board.com. I'm sorry, but I can't. I simply don't have any spare time. They are welcome to come visit and review everything I have, but I can't act on their behalf.

• More over the weekend. As soon as time allows -- maybe even after my shoots today -- I'll try to post more, starting right at this spot.

Latest News -- July 1st, 2009

Michael Henry has called from Japan, crying like the little punk he is. He claims he is just a student living on a small stipend -- blah, blah, blah.... He is a loser thief and nothing more. He was given a few days to discuss the matter with his friends and parents, then get back with me with a settlement offer. Its amazing how tugh these guys are online, and how whimpy they are in real life. I also heard from Tetsuo Tamai, Chair, Committee for Information Ethics, The University of Tokyo. Seems they are also looking into the online activities of young Michael. As I told him on the phone -- I hope they kick his ass out of school right into the Pacific Ocean.

My back injury from the 1997 ATV crash flared back up on the 22nd and had me laid up most of the last 10 days -- even delaying my trip to Florida and causing photo shoots to be canceled. It seems to have settled back down a bit and I should be able to follow through on a few of the guys that have yet to be served.

Digging through the WP-Board site data has been very time consuming. The forum is now back online so that all posts through the 9th of June can be reviewed. Some people are stupid enough to think that I'm lying about that -- TomTom told them in various posts that I didn't have anything. I didn't have the database, didn't have names, logs, emails, files, etc.

TomTom is a liar and nothing more. Why people would trust a guy that got them into this mess? Below is a small sample (click it to see full size). That is the board, fully active as it was on June 9th, 2009. Its the TrueTeenBabes section showing IDigit's posting of the TTB update for 06/04/09 (last before WP was purchased and closed). As you can see -- I am viewing it in Firefox 3.5, which wasn't released until June 30th, 2009 (confirm here). I guess some people better stop taking advice from TomTom. He lied -- I DO HAVE the entire board (purchased from the real owner) and have TONS of logs and proof.

All those people claiming they never been tere, never knew my stuff was posted there, never downloaded or uploaded -- all the lies just piss me off. Time to cut the crap boys -- cut the crap!

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