[…] Edit: There was a small but nice screengrab from SLFlirt.com here, but Mike Manhatten kindly requested me to take it down. More information on this in SLFLirt’s Mike Manhatten doesn’t want to date me anymore! […]

LOL LOL LOL :-))))
you are the greatest, Vint!!!

great response, Vint, congratulations!;D

Uh, Mike, I know you’re reading this, so take a deep breath, relax, and then consider: The next time you start acting like a humorless ass, remember that it’s “copyrighted,” not “copywrited.” People still might not take you seriously or give you much respect, but at least you won’t look stupid. Okay, end of advice.

No wait, I can’t resist. The more you engage, the more we want to talk about it and the longer Vint’s posts on SLFlirt will stay at the top of the search engine rankings. If you really want to promote your site, this crap is the absolute wrong way to go about doing it. Ever look at http://www.getafirstlife.com/? Linden Lab sent the creator a “permit and proceed” letter instead of a “cease and desist.” Any press is good press, Mike, even Vint’s awesome takedown of SL Flirt. I never would have looked at the site until she mentioned it.

Vint, I sure that you didn’t broke any Swedish copyright laws with your post. I’m not sure about the copyright laws of other countries but the basics are about the same and in most countries you have the right to cite, and reproduce a small part of the material for a review is allowed.

I loved your review of SLflirt.com, I can understand you being pissed of at them, I should. I would have replied with an and extract of §22 of the Swedish copyright law, maybe translated to English. I might have removed the link to there site however to make sure that they didn’t get any traffic from my post.

I’m sure that with out your review I would never have heard of them. But on the other had I don’t need the dating service :^) Get to many IM’s all the time already.

This definitely gets nominated as a Post of the Year!!

That is far too hilarious, V! :-)

———

Only thing I can think of is maybe he had to pay a fee himself to use that artist’s work on his website, and so didn’t want others using it freely? Which still doesn’t make sense, as he is using the picture as a almost sort of logo for the website, and you posted the name of the webiste together with the image, which would be free advertising for him…

Oh well, either way, I’m not going to stop laughing any time soon.

:-)

Nadine, I considered that, and what you are saying is something in the line I thought it was, but didn’t feel like looking up things or calling a friend I know that did his thesis on copyright laws. I figured my case was stronger anyhow, even without laws to back it up. And I did remove the link. ;)

Alexander, I knew about the ‘permit and proceed’ thingie. I thought of that as utter genius. Still do. What happened to that LindenLab and why was it repaced with the one that’s currently running business? :(

Wrath, thank you for your nomination and Andro and Looker, thanks for the support!

Received an IM from Mike that’s rather funny considering current circumstances, but I think - legally - I need his concent to post it, no? So Mike, would you please repeat your offer here in the comments? *grins*

I just love the tag line on the main page - “This site is not owned or operated by Second Life? or Linden Lab?.” Note the question marks.

They don’t know if they are owned or operated by SL or LL? That is something you really should know about yourself.

wow, looks like some people dont like free advertising, that is so weird. Anyway keep up the good work, your posts always make me smile and laugh ^^

Thank you Tiana. I try to do my best. (Although some are bloody serious. For the meta-me, that is.)

Zorn, I think Mike (’s site) has mistaken the trademark symbol for a question mark. But we already knew his knowledge of ‘copy writing’ is limited. ;)

“copwrited”? Reminds me of Sly Stallone’s Cop Land being mistaken for the great jazz composer Copland. To say the least — embarrassing!

LOL! This is very funny that a supposed internet entrepreneur would turn down free advertising! All I can say is with his business sense, he is destined for failure. Here is how it works in the U.S. (take this from me as a newspaper editor and ex video producer.) It’s called the Fair Use Doctrine. Editorialists (you) can use anything you want in your review as long as it’s not a full length movie or the full length book (you can even use the logo, which by the way is covered by trademark not copyright.) Although, I can’t think of a reason why you would want to use the logo unless you were reviewing logos and critiquing the graphic artist’s skills. At any rate, a screen shot is OF COURSE permitted. It is not his full website, it is just a photo of it. The photo belongs to you!
Now here is the catch. Anyone can sue you, whether they are right or wrong. It all boils down to money. (If Mike is from the U.S. he would sue you in the U.S.) The filing fee for the court has to be worth it to the person. In this case, that would be about $30US in small claims court. Most people are too cheap to pay a filing fee because the “damage” that was done to them is usually of much less value. You will see some total idiots sue based on principal for things that are just not that important. (These are people with money to burn who have no common sense.) I realize, Mike’s common sense IS a matter of question here. In this case, you actually gave Mike something free (it’s called advertising) so if anything, he owes you! As long as you speak the truth you are protected in the U.S. even if you are speaking negatively about the person or company. I would put the screen shot back up and ignore him because in my opinion he has damaged you. ***Only if he gave me something of value as compensation ($$$) would I take down the screen shot. That’s right, he needs to pay you. Just my opinion. :) Consider this, he has actually damaged you and your search engine rankings by asking you to remove a snapshot that you created. Your site has now been eliminated from all search engine image rankings. He didn’t create the screen shot, YOU did. It’s YOUR property and it helps boost your rankings in the image searches. If I take a photo of Paris Hilton, I am the owner of the photo, not her! I can sell it to the Star or People or whoever I want, because it’s mine! If she wants me to not publish it, then she has to buy the photo from me for big bucks (that or quit showing her mug in public.) If Mike doesn’t want people taking snap shots of his site, then he needs to take it down or make it private. Problem solved.

Megan - you have a scary email address btw, I have a love hate relationship with it’s direct competitor - you’re right. I wonder if 30 USD would suffice to get an international warrant and my belgian provider to take my site down of SLflirt.com? :D

Funny thing is, that by now, he’s probably violating Second Life’s new trademark policy - regardless how insane at times - with SLflirt. Which could lead to an in-world ban, if I remember corrrectly. Wonder if the site is still up even? *goes to look*

Nope. Down. Tss.. I should have kept the screenshot for archiving fun! :D (And still ranking first for SLfirt. *post-mortem sticking my tongue out to Mr. Mike Manhatten*

;)

Aww. Not only slflirt.com is down, but it had a robots.txt preventing it from being backed up by the Wayback Machine on http://archive.org/, thus, I’m unable to take a look at what it was!

Ironic that a dating service would not like to be indexed by search engines…

Vint - What? My email scarey? LOL! :) Are you referring to Joomla or Yahoo’s competitor? Yahoo has many but Joomla is second to none… :) at least in my book! Of course I web design with only open source content management systems including Wordpress so open source rules! Wordpress however is not a competitor to Joomla - they serve too different purposes. Community sites are better served by Joomla.

Gwyneth - It is common for designers to insert the robot.txt in their root when their site is in Beta and they don’t want the competition to get the jump on them. Also, they may be hiding from someone, such as the Lindens. I am sure Mike is a working stiff like the rest of us, so you can hardly blame him.