I think you do what you do for money and not because you love poker. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The new WeakTight site looks nice but it doesn't work for me (Merge HH).

"Additionally, we have received emails from PokerNews stating they have reported PokerTube to Google to attempt to get the site blacklisted"

If this is true, and you have proof, poker players (and people in general) should boycott pokernews.

There is absolutely ZERO reason to blacklist a site from the web. To do so is akin to the attempts to blacklist online poker. Just as bad as Sheldon, if not worse.

Edit: This is coming from someone who has never visited Pokertube.

A lot of people win money straight from the fact that the video is uploaded on their own channels/youtube. When it's somewhere else, they don't.

Besides, that's their (Pokernews') content, so whatever they wanna do with it, they have all the right in the world to do so.

PS. Although I truly believe it's impossible to stop that kind of thing from happening, and trying to do it is the absolute worst of the lines to take, so gl to them. #napsterfeelings #metallica

Just pointing out that Pokerupdate.com is no longer owned by Jamie or part of his group of sites. Was purchased just over half a year ago by a different company.

I remember a long phone conference Mat Sklansky and I had with you and your father about ten months ago where you promised to do better. Also, our advertising rep informed me last week that you wanted to renew the advertising at a much reduced price.

This is not worth responding to. I think it's obvious the role that 2+2 has played in the growth of poker since we first formed the publishing compny in 1987.

OK.

OK.

I don't run your company and am not interested from whom you may have or not have permission from.

So when you tweet out our 2+2 Pokercast and have no permission to use it we're not suppose to know that you don't have permission from us to do this.

The dispute is between you and PokerNews and is not 2+2's fight. However, since you have now posted this here, PokerNews is also welcome to post their response.

I did not know, and this is the first I heard about it, that High Stakes Poker was being shown on Poker Tube.

Don't you have banners on the page where someone watching High Stakes Poker will see them? But I really don't care about this.

OK.

Saying that 2+2 is getting squeezed by Stars is news to me. Perhaps you know something we in 2+2 management don't. If not, don't you think it's best not to make statements about other companies which appear to be based purely on speculation.

In general, 2+2 operates independently of other companies and does not have the type of relationship with other commercial entities that you are describing here.

That's fine, but 2+2 does not feel the same way.

*

This does not apply to 2+2. We're not getting squeezed and if you follow our site, recent improvements are clearly there.

2+2 has always gone to great lengths to do much for poker. This includes putting out top notch books where we paid our authors far higher than industry standard royalty rates, and all the work and improvement that has gone into www.twoplustwo.com over the years. But you already knew much of this because of free markets and competition.

pokertube is so 2007

This is actually a pretty interesting topic

Very well written rebutal from pokertube imo and I rarely view that site.

It's well-written and makes some good arguments. The question however, is if it's true. If not, it doesn't matter how good the points are, the argument would be moot.

Is it fair to ask the PokerTube rep to respond to this post?

Hang on.

I might need someone with some legal expertise, but isn't this (the bolded) akin to seeing a stranger break into my neighbor's home then calling the police (and/or my neighbor) about it?


Oddly, there's quite a bit of disrespect in your post and in your tone, even though you generally make some perfectly fair points (which Mason himself acknowledged in his own reply).

For what it's worth, I've long felt PokerTube could (and does) play an important role in filling sizable gaps in poker-related video content. Only via grass-roots efforts could we see some of the shows that came out during the first few years after the boom. It's not like you're driving traffic away from DVD sales* by carrying old Poker Superstars Invitational episodes. Bravo wouldn't go broke if you offered its Celebrity Poker Showdown series on your site. I could see why anyone with a vested interest in driving content to their outlets would submit C&D letters, and props to you if you're honoring them expeditiously.

[We'll ignore for a moment how bad the two shows I cited were: the first for its format, the second for its actual play. They were just examples of some of the early post-boom shows that I could remember offhand. Not even sure if you have them.]

Now if you could somehow wrangle Joe Sebok away from his grapes and see if he'd release PokerRoad's Poker Weekly Update videos to PokerTube (these were poker versions of SNL Weekend Update with Scott Huff, Joe Stapleton and Amanda Leatherman as hosts). No one seems to know where those are, and Sebok is probably the only one who could realistically locate them.






*Pause for laughter.

No, stealing IP is theft. So a valid comparison is you seeing someone steal a DVD at Walmart.

If you want to do anything about that, you tell a Walmart employee who alerts security. If someone steals IP from ESPN, you can contact them and they alert their laywers if they want to.

FWIW, if you have to put "because we love poker" in bold as your motivation, you're probably either doing a very poor job of phrasing your business model or you're just lying..

Paying whatever sum you agreed for advertising just gives you that advertising. It doesn't entitle you to their copyrighted material. Copyright is governed by the Berne convention, not just the DMCA. I am not connected with 2+2 but the 2+2 podcast is particularly interesting because if you are tweeting about it then it is clear that it is not a rogue user uploading things you don't know about.

You make some good arguments why content producers should want to have their content hosted on your site. The applicable moral and legal standard though isn't should want; it is do want and have approved it.

Part of the attraction of working for oneself rather than as part of a large organization responsible to shareholders is that one isn't obliged to always make the financially rational choice. If the 2+2 founders or any other content owner from the poker world has decided they don't like you and are willing to forego the potential financial gains from working with you then you're just out of luck.

Jamie - You make several valid points but there are a few things I want to discuss while you are here.

I feel like I can, but will give it a * and say that was in 2013 to a site you no longer own. My two 2014 emails I sent directly to you got the content removed but I had to figure that out on my own since nobody bothered to reply to my emails.

IANAL, but I don't think it is lawful for your company to copy a large portion of an article I published at another site and present it as its own without permission from me. That certainly isn't what I consider "fair use".

Do you display the Borgata banner ad for free?

The safe harbor under DMCA applies to service providers that unknowingly host copyrighted content uploaded by users. You know the content is there and know you don’t own the rights to host it. On top of that, you slap your logo on it and place a banner ad above it. All of this is done under the claim, “They have never contacted us to take it down”.

I don't think that falls under the spirit of the DMCA safe harbor, at least as I understand it. Do you feel that you comply with all 5 of those safe harbors?

I’m especially interested in how embedding a Pokertube logo applies to:

I see a Borgata banner above the player, a Pokertube logo at the start of a video and that logo burned into the top left of the video in its entirety while displayed in the player.

I absolutely agree that your company provides a great service to those that agree to have their content used or upload the content themselves, which I know is the case for many online poker rooms. I think that if you adopted the policies used by You Tube for monetization by producers, and automatically blocked previously reported content, the goodwill would be invaluable and you would never again have to deal with this. It would take your company to the next level. I just about guarantee it.

I don't think anyone would ever argue this point and it goes with the above one made, but it is completely irrelevant to the larger issue. If Hoke wants his work promoted on Pokertube, that is great for both of you. This type of relationship should be exactly where your site thrives. The people complaining don't want their work promoted there under the current business model, which is an entirely different issue.

It is nice that you can apologize for this now. This would have been a far better solution than what you pulled in 2013 when I pointed this out. I do want to dig a bit deeper into the topic under the assumption that you are sincere about your remorse.

I think the fact that this keeps happening shows issues with your company's vetting of authors. This wasn't just one or two people doing it.

Are you letting unknowns publish work without an editor's approval? Are you finding authors in non-gaming freelance forums that know nothing about the topic? Are you paying just a few cents per word? Are you hiring authors that are not fluent in English?

Those are all recipes for ending up with plagiarized content.

There must be some common thread between these authors. If you are serious about putting an end to this problem, figure out what it is and plug that hole.

After all I have been through with you and your company on this topic, I have a hard time believing that you care about fixing the problem. I sincerely hope that you will prove my opinion wrong.

I have said this many times. There is so much upside to your company. This industry has an extremely short memory when it comes to conflict. Figure out a way to make the content producers happy and the rift will heal quickly.

Wouldn't you like to not have to waste your time with this over and over? So would everyone else. I hope that you will think about why you are in constant conflict with others and fix it.

LOL, what industry. Poker media is done.

Mark Hoke just posted on his facebook page his perspective on the situation since Jamie brought him up in his post. link :

https://www.facebook.com/MarkHokeSho...nf&pnref=story

The last part includes the quote "For these reasons, I demand that you remove my material from your site immediately. Thank you for your swift attention to this matter"

Yeah, same idea. Point being, Jamie's notion that only the victim may report a trespass, and that anyone else doing so constitutes anarchy, is quite ludicrous.

Mark Hoke doesn't use twoplustwo but asked me to post this reply for him.


Mr. Nevin,
Thank you for taking the time to answer me. Being that I am incredibly busy currently covering the Seminole Hard Rock WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open, my schedule is very tight and dealing with an issue such as this requires significant time to formulate a response. Because of your very public comments on a forum site and needlessly interjecting me into this debate, I now have to focus time and energy that needed to be spent elsewhere to make a response to you which I also will have to make public because of your actions.
First I have to say that taking a private email, twisting it and using me as part of a post on a public forum to prove your point is horribly disappointing. It's fairly clear you do not know very much about my show or how it operates. Its primary focus is my terrestrial radio show on KLAV 1230 AM in Las Vegas. I am also attending my eighth live event since the 2014 World Series of Poker doing live reporting, broadcasts and commentary and am currently scheduled for four more between now and this year's World Series of Poker. I also spending 49 back-breaking days covering the WSOP each year from morning until night. These videos of those live shows and other videos for my radio shows make up a very small portion of downloads and revenue that I generate and they have far greater purposes than generating raw views. I have worked incredibly hard over the past three and a half years to establish myself in an industry where when I first started I had no standing whatsoever and have now become one of the industry's standard bearers in the media. My status and reputation is incredibly important to me and I do want as many people as possible to view my shows.
But what you are doing here is wrong. You say you are not hurting me and giving me exposure but you are hurting me along with everyone whose material you are using without permission. As is the case with many of us, the content we create is something on which we spend our own or our company's money and work tirelessly to put together. And with you posting it and presenting in the manner you do, you're taking credit for being a part of something you are not and are also insinuating that we have some sort of working relationship with me which is not the case.
To me, the views that you get on your site are not worth the de facto theft of mine and other people's work to drive traffic to your site. You may not think those views going to you and away from myself and others don't hurt, but YouTube offers the opportunity to monetize our videos by adding their advertisements to them. So every time someone goes to your site instead of looking to myself or anyone else's YouTube page, it costs them. If they go to your site instead of the rightful property owner's site to look for that material, it takes away web hits, thus taking away traffic which for many people putting out content can be the difference between a lucrative sponsorship/advertising deal or something far worse.
In your response to me, you made it clear there would be no monetary opportunities allowing you to use my content and in all candor I have a difficult time believing your claim that "we truly make nothing" considering the fact that just on your front page I saw no less than seven advertisements. Taking an even deeper look at your "store" you are selling coaching video packs, tracking software, poker books, individual coaching videos, education tools and apparel. Content like mine drives people to your site thus giving you the opportunity to sell products and make money from affiliate relationships. Are you offering a revenue share and/or monetization opportunities from your affiliate deals and sales to people whose material you use? I'm sure we probably know the answer to that. And the more offensive part is that you are doing all this without their permission. Without the content you are taking, your site gets no traffic and those monetary opportunities do not exist.
Normally, I don't like to give people tips on how to do business. I've fought and struggled my way through this industry without someone guiding me through it or the benefit of being hired by such organizations as PokerNews, Bluff, AnteUp Magazine, WSOP etc. For the most part, I have had outstanding cooperative relationships with many in the poker media. I also directly benefit from relationships with Rounders Radio and PokerFuse. Those companies do things the right way. They are certainly not part of the "circle jerk" you called the poker industry which you criticize and insult but one that and your colleagues are currently participating in and using for financial gain. I'm not going to tell you how to correct your business model so that it would be offensive to no one and could actually be welcomed.
But what I am going to tell you is this: Never, ever post anything in a public forum about a private seven-line email (two of which were a greeting and farewell) and twist it into something that it's not. I do not support your use of other people's material nor the business model you currently use. Unfortunately, you have not made a friend within a very small and tight-knit industry by dealing with it in the manner that you chose.
For these reasons, I demand that you remove my material from your site immediately. Thank you for your swift attention to this matter.
Mark Hoke
Twitter: @MarkHokeShow
Facebook: The Mark Hoke Show


Mark Hoke

Oh snap

Poker Media

Does not use 2p2

lol @ pokermedia

Wait are you saying that it is wrong to copy and download without paying for things on the internet?

surprised affiliates haven't come in here to share their stories about Jamie. weren't there a lot of rumors going around about him (1) using dirty tactics and threats to poach high volume players from other affiliates, (2) offering rakeback above site maximums to poach said high volume players, and (3) hooking US players up with ipoker accounts post-BF as a way to drum up business?

these are admittedly all 2nd or 3rd hand rumors but I know affiliates absolute detested him a few years ago.

Sorry if I am late..

Does anyone know if this applies to regular users who upload videos to YouTube? I've had a few of my videos ripped and hosted on PokerTube without my permission, right down to the video title and video description. Do I legally have the right to do anything?