PSA for comics fans

[schmevil]

So I've been mostly offline since Thursday evening. I'm working tonight, so I may or may not have time to slog through the backlog of comments. I did catch the latest wrinkle in the Scans Daily suspension. It appears that LiveJournal, either on a complainer's behalf, or their own, is targeting comics fans who've posted scans of Marvel comics with their eljay account. So far they've only been contact with requests to take down the offending material, but it's been requested that they don't share the requests. Something sounds off about that, to me at least. For now though, practical matters:

For those of you who haven't already taken steps to protect yourself, now is the time to backup and lock down your stuff. Content that violates the lj terms of service is not safe.

Unfortunately I have to run, and can't give you an exhaustive links list, but here's a FAQ on how to backup your journal, and another for MAC users.

Comments

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

I got a look at the email, and it looks like they're going after people in links Marvel pointed out and that it's more telling the user that you don't have access to this post anymore. Which is sort of dumb because hi, lj you suspended the community no shit they can't access the post. I'm starting to also wonder if there is some major miscommunication going on in abuse.

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

Ok, think about it this way, they're issuing secret requests to users to take down copyrighted content, and threatening them with suspension should they publicly post those messages. Shades of Strikethrough. Whoever's in charge of this mess is screwing up badly. This is not how you run a business.

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, no. I wasn't saying that this wasn't majorly fucked up. Sorry if it came off that way.

I just meant I don't think they're going after every member of s_d, more of us would have gotten notices by this point. And that the notice seemed not to be a request to take down content as being told 'oh yeah we already reacted and took down where the content was, so it's not like you have access too it, but we're going to yell at you anyways'. People can't take down content they can't access anymore.

But then I could be giving LJ Abuse too much credit.

The secret requests are par for course with lj abuse sadly. Because you know heaven forbid people know what they said and try to publicly hold them to it or publicly talk about it. LJ Abuse has been fucked up for years. I'm not even sure if most of them are paid employees.

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, but if people aren't already backing up their stuff, then they're fools. If you're violating lj's tos flagrantly, and part of a community that just got taken down for it? Dude, cover your ass. I'm not saying flock. Obviously I haven't flocked. I've just moved my stuff to less jumpy hosts. You can't take down the posts, but you can take down the images. Surprisingly that's usually enough to get Marvel off your back.

No, Abuse is, afaik, largely made up of volunteers.

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

Why do I have a feeling LJ proper has no fucking clue what lj abuse as been doing.

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

Ha! Entirely possible. I'm thinking we have two choices: 1) go along with things quietly; or 2) blow this thing up. It's epicaly unprofessional.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

There hasn't been an "LJ Proper" for several years.

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. I hung on through so many wankstorms, but now that there's an alternative in development that has all the same features that lj offers (and more), I'm seriously considering pulling everything and salting the earth as I go (to Dreamwidth).

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

I'll only move my S_D stuff there - nothing more. :p

[schmevil.livejournal.com]

*nod* I'm a fic writer, as well as a comics fan, and eljay has not been good to us. ngl I'm getting fed up with stealth deletions, threats and their generally pathetic PR and communication skills.