They not steal video content, but also written content too.

Here is an article apparently written by Natasha Sandhu, with a couple of tit pics in there.

http://www.pokertube.com/poker-news/...after-you-play

And here is an identical article on Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efkk4...-at-your-desk/

Now someone at PokerTube either created that entire piece, and put her name/pics to it or Natasha was the one who claimed the content was her own...however it would have to be a pretty dumb editor to think that she created that work/handy pictures to go with it.


Someone who is more experienced in these things might want to contact Forbes about that. I imagine they have history in dealing with scumbags who steal.

If you upload something to YouTube, it still belongs to you. Copyright is inherent, it exists the moment you create something. If someone uses your content without permission, you can email a simple cease and desist letter (use Google to find a decent template), and hope they comply.

Failing that, try sending a C&D to their webhost.

Failing that, your only recourse is to sue.

Just curious, what kind of videos do you make?

Wooowww.

lol I picked one at random to run through copyscape, and it has 660 words directly copy/pasted from another article.

http://www.pokertube.com/poker-news/...series--part-2

http://alifeofproductivity.com/9-bra...lity-to-focus/

If we've learned anything ITT it's that any requests to pokertube for removal not submitted by email are ignored for not following the prescribed legal procedures.

Back when PokerAddict first experienced problems with Jamie's sites, I spent a few hours visiting those sites and found dozens more examples like the one you posted. At PA's behest, I held back from publishing a sample list at that time, though we did have some friendly disagreement about that and there is more to that story that it's really up to PA to share.

I suspect that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of pieces on Jamie's various sites are thus swiped, and my personal belief is that such ill use is an intentional part of his business model, and that it's been going on for several years. I also have suspicions that some of the writerly bylines attached to these stories are fakes as well, but I haven't yet dug that deep.

I can verify that PokerUpdate is under new ownership and I've chatted with Amy and Lior there about some of these very issues. They're aware that PokerUpdate is a heavily tarnished brand, even though their content is far cleaner these days with 180Vita out of the picture. Still, as some comments in this thread indicate, it'll take some time for the stink to wear off.

Nice find. After the images, the portions in the bullets and beyond were scraped from here, 345 words verbatim according to Copyscape.

Copyscape says the portion at the bottom under "Analysing your play afterwards" was copied from this page.

To Pokertube's credit, they did change "analyzing" to "analysing" and added the word "afterwards" to the header.

I decided to check out other posts with her byline. All four parts of that series are taken from other sources. All of these findings can be attributed to Copyscape.

First part of series (pokertube.com/poker-news/poker-gossip-opinion/poker-lifestyle-series) has 449 words verbatim from here. (Copyscape proof)

Part two of that series (pokertube.com/poker-news/poker-gossip-opinion/poker-lifestyle-series--part-2) copied nearly 100% of this article (Copyscape proof)

I found another paragraph in Part II from another site, while another one lifted from a different site.

Part 3 (pokertube.com/poker-news/poker-gossip-opinion/poker-lifestyle-series-part-3--while-at-the-tables) was scraped from many sources in bits and pieces. 157 words were taken from here, more from here, etc etc.

Part 4 was covered by the quoted post and expanded earlier in this reply. The link says Part 3 but it is titled Part 4 on PT.

I took screenshots of these Copyscape pages in case they time out and anyone wants to see them later.

I don't know if she is submitting plagiarized articles to Pokertube and they aren't vetting them or if the people at Pokertube are creating these and attributing them to her. Does Jamie or anyone else with that company wish to respond while I try to find out on my own?

I absolutely deserved your ridicule for that, especially in hindsight. I wrote a blog post about it a few weeks ago after I once again discovered my work on their site.

Those that want to read more about it should find the blogs belonging to Haley and I. They go into great detail on the topic.

Hi All,

Some of the points raised in this thread are relevant and I do want to ensure these issues are resolved once and for all, especially with regards to written content. I completely understand, why some would be skeptical of this, but I trust these parties will continue to keep us in check.

Starting a few weeks ago, we now run absolutely all written content through copyscape - Too little too late possibly, and I can only apologize for the issues regarding written content in the past.

Will do my best to respond point by point again.


1. Responsiveness - Anyone trying to claim we do not respond / act upon such claims is being untruthful. We do and I genuinely take these matters seriously - As I will demonstrate again today with the Mark Hoke show.


2. Mark Hoke Show - If I have offended Mark, by using his show as an example - I can only apologise.

The original correspondence from Mark seemed to be linked to the issues on Twitter and came through just a few days ago, so I thought it reasonable and apt to use it his show as an example. Originally, Mark did not state whether he wished for his show to be removed and it is fair to say that he at least seemed to appreciate that PokerTube generated extra exposure for his show.

This is the first time he has specifically stated he wishes to have his show removed and it will be within a matter of hours. It will never be re-published.

Update: All videos were removed within 60 minutes last night. This is consistent with how we have always reacted with regards to these issues.


3. Articles - As stated above we now run all articles and written content through copyscape on all our sites.

Natasha previously sent us the articles in .doc format, we then edited them and published them. It does surprise me that they are copies, as often significant editing went on, before they were published. I sometimes did this editing myself.

Anyway, any copied material will be removed and I can only apologise once again. In context, our sites have thousands of articles and the issues historically have only occurred on 20 or so pieces of work. 20 too many I agree, and we are getting better, but it is important to put the situation in context.

Natasha for example, clearly does know a little about the poker world and is a native English speaker. I would never have imagined she copied content, but obviously we need to be far more vigilant and this was naive of me. I understand she did add some of her own words, but copied facts from other sources - This is poor management on my part and inexperience on hers. Hopefully, we can all recognise it was not malicious.

I can truthfully state, we do not write her content on her behalf, nor were we aware of these issues. What we are guilty of in this instance is severe negligence and I completely accept this.


4. Over-reaction - I am disappointed, with the way many other media companies have chosen to express their grievances. In the instance of PokerNews, the situation is far from black and white and I can demonstrate this. It is hard to believe that any true advocate of poker would choose to incite a boycott vs a website many poker players and enthusiasts draw a lot of pleasure from.

The damage caused by PokerNews is far, far greater than any damage caused by the alleged 'theft' of their work. Regardless, stating that we steal PokerNews content is libellous in the first place.


5. Trespass Analogy - You can report someone trespassing on another's property, but you cannot sue the trespasser for this. You can call the police and the land owner can then decide how he wishes to handle the situation. We are not behaving unlawfully and if anyone believes we are, readers must ask themselves why no legal action is being sought?

It is not PokerNews' place to attempt to enforce the law / copyright related to work that they do not own. Regardless, as pointed out in my OP, one must ask: Why are PokerNews' so keen to ensure a show such as High Stakes Poker does not remain on PokerTube? You cannot view it anywhere else ad free or organised in such a way.

Sidenote: We will shortly be adding hand histories for the majority of televised poker shows, so users can view the numbers and action whilst watching the action. This is an example of how we are trying to add value and innovate - hopefully people enjoy it.


6. PokerTube Adverts & Logo - Nobody should see any adverts on the video page. It is possible they do - But, this is not our intention. Feel free to email me screenshots and they will be removed right away. I do not believe in showing ads on the videos because they detract from user experience and are not an effective form of monetization.

The PokerTube logo is displayed on the video player for a matter of seconds - not the entirety of the video, anyone attempting to claim otherwise has their facts wrong. Notice that when YouTube is embedded on another site, their logo is displayed far longer than the PokerTube logo. I am not trying to claim we are the same as YouTube, but simply using them as a reference point for this discussion.

Realistically, nobody can reasonably claim we are trying to present content as our own either. PokerTube videos all have a description, all intros are intact and we add no pre rolls / adverts. Very few sites can say the same.


8. 2+2

I am happy that Mason acknowledged some of my points. These points were made privately on numerous occasions, yet 2+2 supported the "boycott" of PokerTube and in my opinion genuinely incited damage against us.

It is also worth noting that, at no stage did we indicate to an advertising rep that we wished to advertise on 2+2 again. The plan was that we would have a phone call this week to clear the air, but it looks like that is off the table thanks to PokerNews' damaging and unsubstantiated claims.

For the record, I do respect what both Mason and 2+2 have done for the poker industry. However, this does not mean that 2+2 are above being questioned. If we are scrutinizing poker sites, let's scrutinize them all - Not with a view to damage them, but to improve them. The problem is that asking 2+2 to justify their standpoint, is interpreted as an insult - It should not be.

Regarding the Rational group - I best not comment any further. It is not my business, but was mentioned to demonstrate that a nobody is immune to the "great squeeze" occurring at the moment.


9. Content Monetization / Content ID - Some good points.

* Content ID - This technology is very costly to develop and would not be effective for poker content.

For example Content ID would not be capable of stopping uploads of new PokerNews content for example, as it would not necessarily recognise it. Furthermore, remember that poker content is niche - Content ID will work for things like music videos, but has no hope for an edited version of the (Yes I'm saying it), Mark Hoke show for example.

However, someone in our team manually publishes all videos and they have a list of content producers whose content should never be published. As far as I know we are yet to make a mistake here, and if we do, we will rectify it. We certainly have no business motivation to sneak in an episode of 2+2's Pokercast or PokerNews content. As demonstrated, we risk incredible reputational damage by doing so.

* Content Monetization - This was our agreement with PokerNews and honestly I feel it was used against us. We spent a lot of time curating and organising their content, only to be told a few weeks later it must be removed. Fair enough - it's their content. Then forevermore, we have been accused of stealing their content, threatened and beaten up over it, much to the delight of the angry mob who have stood firmly behind PokerNews :-)

We do offer opportunities, but realistically content that can really be monetized effectively is hard to come by in poker. Again, forgive me, but I will use the Mark Hoke show as an example: How much money do people believe any site can make by virtue of having this show? I am sorry, the answer is basically nothing - His show is not at the stage, where it can actually drive traffic to a website. In fact, as pointed out in my OP it is the other way around. We also know banner ads are becoming less effective, and this is why as a company we do not use them.

Anyway, big picture is that there are opportunities - As you might know we are covering more live poker events now, and investing in producing our own content. Additionally, we are always talking to the larger content producers within poker. For example, if somebody wishes to publish their content on PokerTube and have a banner displayed under their content and a link to their website, it's not a problem - We always accomadate our partners wishes. We do this for lots of people and it does drive additional traffic to their website. We can even attempt to monetize the content for them, but we must remember poker is a niche and it's tough to squeeze money out of thousands of views.


10. Overall - We are not perfect, but we are responsive. Those who claim we wilfully defy content producers wishes and ignore their requests to take content down are being untruthful.

The damage caused by other industry members with their barrage of tweets and planned boycott, far exceeds any damage we could have possibly caused by showcasing their content on PokerTube. PokerNews say they do not wish to have their videos on PokerTube - They are gone. 2+2 say the same about the PokerCast - It's gone, never to return. But why do these companies prefer to shoot first and ask questions later? In the case of PokerNews, when coupled with their attempt to blacklist our sites from Google, and general refusal to ever specify content that should be removed, it is hard to see the situation as anything but an agenda to hurt a competitor.

Is it really so unbelievable (after the facts presented in my OP) that PokerNews have a vested interest here? and if you are indeed a true poker advocate, why does this not upset you? Surely such behaviour is significantly more damaging than what we stand accused of?

---

My Skype: Jamie.Nevin
My Email: Jamie@PokerVIP.Com

If anyone wishes to discuss finer points of this thread with me, I remain at your disposal.

Jamie

---


P.S. Regarding Beta Weaktight & 180Vita in general - We re-invest absolutely all income into our products. Hand parsing technology, is paramount for the growth of online poker. At best it will take us 3 or 4 years to recoup the investment here, but honestly it might be an endless blackhole as maintaining these parsers is hard work. I believe being able to share a poker hand directly to Twitter or sending a hand to a friends cell, will greatly benefit online poker. Again, I accept we have our flaws, but few others are re-investing their revenue into products that actually benefit the player. Instead it's always another B2B product, another industry awards ceremony or a product outside of poker. I do think about online poker a lot and despite what many might believe, want to do my bit to help it grow.

Merge HHs will shortly be working on Beta version of the site. We will not put Beta live until it's functionality at least matches that of the current WeakTight.

That has to happen for all existing content as well. At least that would be the right thing to do.

Are you using that trespassing analogy because it sounds nicer than "theft"?

While that's a very good thing if true, it's also just a business decision to maximize expected long term profits.
To use a poker analogy: You move up in stakes instead of cashing out.

that would have a negative effect for SEO and the $/click i guess ^^

so far it seems like it's just an attempt to be the cool kid, who doesn't like the "poker industry/media" and just want to offer a nice product for the players.

i would say, it's more likely a "copy&paste to get cheap content, focus on SEO and make ez money" business ... but okay, i could be wrong

If anybody wants to read what I wrote on this previously, I'll post the link on my Twitter account, not here. 2+2 doesn't own this story topic.

While 2+2 may not "...own this story topic", I think it's an important story to be read:

The Plagiarism Shuffle: PokerUpdate's SLAPP C&D at PokerAddict [haleyspokerblog.blogspot.com]

Just out of interest if i wanted to legally watch high stakes poker, old WSOP etc there doesn't seem to be anywhere to buy it and no one is showing it, so where would one go to if not to this dudes site ?

PS I dont want to watch old episodes of HSP etc...

PPS I know this doesnt make IP theft ok

PPPS But everyone does it

Every season of HSP is available on YouTube. GSN doesn't seem to care at all.

All the WSOP stuff is there too. ESPN/Caesar's kind of doesn't care, but it's a little more complicated.

who cares. no one watches that **** anyway.

Jamie,

Thanks for the post. I was just wondering why Natasha's plagiarized Forbes' article is still up on the site. Also, what's up with her eyebrows?

He is working on removing rogue content. It is not like he is Captain Kirk and can instantaneously beam the content off the site.

We've helpfully linked him to a particular article - doesn't seem all that difficult to remove it.

Of course you have business motivation. In case there is anyone reading here who doesn't understand, let me explain.

When you tweet out our show, you're trying to direct potential traffic to go directly to your site and to skip www.twoplustwo.com, and if you're successful, you might even be able to get them to sign up to a poker site through one of your affiliate ads/links. And if you're very successful, there would be no need for PokerTube to buy advertising from 2+2.

Mason

Hey guys,

Matthew Parvis here.

I could probably ramble on for quite some time about this... (you've all seen the Lederer files right) but I'll do my best to keep it concise.

We're very protective over our content at PokerNews, because quite frankly -- we put a lot of hard work and effort into it. We all have a passion for poker, and a passion for advancing the game of poker and hope that comes through in our product. During my time alone at PokerNews we've invested millions of dollars in to ensuring we have teams of bloggers, photographers, and videographers at major events across the globe. That said, when we do find others who we feel have abused our IP we do what we can to protect it. Most of the time it's a simple, "can you please take this down" and that's the end of it. The same way Two Plus Two wouldn't want their books copied, printed and distributed by another publisher without consent for profit, we don't want our content distributed on another platform without our consent.

In 2013, we noticed a substantial number of PokerNews videos had been downloaded from our video players, and re-uploaded to PokerTube with PokerTube logos to start each video. This is very very different from YouTube, which allows you to "embed" a youtube video player on to other sites, which we allow. When you embed videos through YouTube, the source still remains the same, and therefore the views would still essentially be cumalitive on our PokerNews YouTube Channel. Wanted to highlight that the two while similar in name are not remotely similar in business model.

We approached PokerTube about this content, and that we were unhappy that it had been uploaded to their site without authorization and Mr. Nevin suggested maybe we try to work together to achieve a win-win. Being we're all for working together with others in poker, we agreed to a trial that highlighted a PokerNews channel for our videos on the site. The videos were supposed to be shortened versions aimed at driving traffic through to PokerNews. I think this highlights that while we were upset about our IP being abused, we were still eager to find an amicable solution. To be clear though, we didn't go to Pokertube and ask them to load up all of our content... we simply were trying to deal with a hand we were dealt as best we could.

Long story slightly less long... the trial period didn't pan out the way we would have liked. A teaser video solution was never found, and only a tiny fraction of the views on PokerNews' channel on Pokertube actually clicked over to PokerNews. We requested that all PokerNews videos be removed from their site, and I'd say for the most part Mr. Nevin did in fact remove those videos.

That has not stopped new PokerNews videos from being uploaded on to PokerTube over time without consent. In fact just last week I noticed that the Lederer Files were uploaded to Pokertube, and today while writing this post I've found another video that is ours and has been posted without our consent. While Nevin claims it's exposure for our brand, this is not exposure we want. We don't want our videos and our brand next to to adverts that are on Pokertube for a site that's actively trying to acquire US players in unregulated markets.

http://www.pokertube.com/videos/pca-...ke-a-hot-girl-

Does Mr. Nevin remove content when prompted? Yes, he does, and we appreciate how swiftly he acts. That still doesn't make it OK to use others content without prior consent. It'd be like saying if I went to a store and snatched a candy bar without paying, it'd be OK assuming I didn't get caught. I mean I'd give the candy bar back if you caught me... isn't that ok? Of course it's not. The purpose of my tweet wasn't to act as bully as Mr. Nevin seems to think. I wasn't attacking him, i was simply defending the time, effort and money we put in to what we do. I feel strongly that those who create content should have the right to protect that content. The more we as an industry work together, (yes I have respect for our industry no matter how much others disrespect it) the better. If there is a site out there like Pokertube which uses others content without prior consent, then that needs to be addressed and brought to light.

It's not like this is a one-time thing. This thread alone has pointed to a number of similar issues with other publishers in the poker industry and Pokertube.

Mr. Nevin through his comments on this thread seems to adamantly believe that IP is something that's not that big of a deal. I strongly disagree. Intellectual property deserves to be protected, and I stand my my original message that we in the industry should stand together and continue to protect our content.

By the way. A big sincere thanks to those who've giffed, photoshopped and parodied me with the Lederer Files. I really get a laugh out of that stuff. The derped eye is my fave...

Thanks guys, Without this thread I seriously wouldn't have known about pokertube.com

TBH Mark Hoke and Matthew Parvis are coming off as asses.

Jamie Nevin has repeatedly said that whichever content you do not wish Pokertube to broadcast, shoot them an email and they will remove it. Jamie has swiftly acted upon these requests and is always happy to comply.

Pokertube allows users to upload poker videos to their site. As you'll notice with most video hosting sites, a lot of infringing **** is posted. Not even Google is always up to speed with Youtube.

I don't know why Mark Hoke had to have Chainsaw post a bitchy response on 2p2 when he could have just emailed Jamie and advised him that he did not wish to have his videos on Pokertube? It is already evident that Pokertube is willing to comply with the artists request.

I don't know why Matthew Parvis had to come on 2p2 to add more fuel to the fire when, again, he could have just emailed Jamie the videos he wanted remove and, again, Pokertube would have complied.

Is this seriously what the Poker Media is?

PokerNews are again misleading readers of this thread.

The Lederer Files and all other instances of PokerNews content cited in this thread were published in 2013 or before. We were given explicit permission to publish these items by PokerNews. It was only on Sept 2013 that they stated they wished for all PokerNews related content to be removed.

Although I do not deny a few PokerNews videos may have been published between Sept 2013 and today, I am yet to be presented any evidence of these. Anyone attempting to claim we regularly publish PokerNews content today, is wilfully misleading you. All of the infringing content relates back to the previous agreement and PokerNews refuse to define it.

Over the last year or so, I have emailed PokerNews several times asking for an exhaustive list of videos, but they never provide one. In fact, they never even provide video URLs, just vague statements and then we are left to guess as to what they are referring to. Instead PokerNews prefer to damage us in public, for content that we truly have no desire to host on PokerTube.

Here is an excerpt from an email I personally sent to PokerNews on Friday Feb 7th, 2015:

This email was acknowledged as received, but of course PokerNews have no interest in doing a scan of the site or compiling an exhaustive list. Their modus operandi is to cause as much damage to our company as possible. In fact, the reply I received indicates that the "boycott" was probably a pre-mediated attack:

Over the past week PokerNews have significantly harmed our business, including but not limited to relationships with a number of our key partners, WSOP and of course lost us the trust of many poker players.

Why is it that PokerNews chose to start a boycott and publish that PokerTube are 'Poker Thiefs', in addition to other slanderous statements? PokerNews are not for win/win situations, they are for domination - This was demonstrated when they attempted to blacklist PokerTube from Google, but they do not wish to comment on that. In fact, qe have typically responded to their emails within a matter of minutes - Far better than YouTube or any other site.

PokerNews have damaged us far more by publishing these slanderous accusations, than PokerTube possibly could by showcasing their content. Their senior management seemed to stand strongly behind a boycott and inflicting as much damage as possible at the weekend, what has changed?


Jamie

----

As always: PokerNews, please send us an exhaustive list of all infringing content. This is now the 9th occasion I have asked your senior management for such an email.

P.S. As for 'business motivation' - There is no money to be made from getting 1,000 views on a video where there are no adverts. Even if there were adverts, we are talking about no more than $1 in revenue on average. Again, the damage inflicted from the 'boycott' far exceeds anything, any party could conceivably claim we gain as a business from hosting this content. Also consider, that in the instance of PokerCast, we genuinely probably spread it's reach and got some more people to listen to the show at 2+2. This is not to say, 2+2 did not have the right to ask for it to be removed, but their reaction was far from proportionate. Not even receiving an email (especially after we had tweeted numerous times over the previous month), and opting to publicly attack us, is odd to say the least.

P.P.S. We have run the majority of content on all our sites through Copyscape and so far, so good.

Okay. This is ridiculous and I've had enough. Enjoy your vacation.

Mason

I've got a technical question as I have no idea how this works. If a company like pokernews wants to find all of their videos that are posted on pokertube, is that an automated process similar to running a virus scan? Or does someone have to manually search through all the video listings to find them? Likewise for pokertube. Is there some automated way to check videos before people upload them to see if they belong to someone else, or is that also a manual process?

Thanks.