Problems With Album Art Exchange

[Marla]

Has anyone here had problems with the moderator "Scott" who runs the site? I used to post on his site and had no problems until one day he claimed to have sent me an email and then banned me permanently for not responding it. When I has asked what his problem was he came across combative, emotional, and abusive. His claims was that I has posted too much on his site (suddenly why this was a problem with him I'm not sure) so I had asked him to remove all of my images (again, if they were such a problem) and he refused to do so.



"Do you mean sort of like refusing to accept responsibility for your own actions and overreacting and becoming reactionary when someone temporarily bans you in order to get your damned attention? Personally and based upon my experience, I think that you ignored the message because you knew I was going to ask about your massive file usage."

This is news to me. I had no ideas what his PM was about nor did I care. When I had told him it went into my spam filter he became really angry with me refusing to accept that might be the case. Seems rather ironic that if this was a problem with him he would delete my images.

"It’s your responsibility to hold up your end of the communications. Your claim that you thought it was Spam is simply ridiculous and it couldn’t be more obvious that this is an excuse. That’s probably why you ignored my mention of this in your last reply. There is simply no way you could have accidentally missed THREE emails and the messages saying you you were TEMPORARILY banned when you attempted to log in during those two temp, ban."

The log on there is automatic. As far as his last message is when he became combative. And there is nothing in terms of service that I have to hold up any communications with anyone

All submissions become property of AlbumArtExchange but we can talk about it once you send me proof that you’ve deleted the 9600 images you’ve taken from the site. Meanwhile, we’ve deleted others to accommodate superior images when you’ve uploaded them and I’m not putting holes in our collection."

His collection? So did he work on my images?

Strange, I also supported that site and this is how he treats his patrons. From what I can gather, this seems to be a trend at Album Art Exchange in they not only block IP addresses from users they have (imaginary) problems with but countries as well.

[jeremyv]

This seems to be a trend...

[Artwork Lover]

Marla, you keep lying and re-writing the story to suit the narrative you wish to assert.

No, at no point did I become "combative", "emotional" and certainly not "abusive" - That was all YOU and you are a liar! I have the emails and PMs here (and can share them on this thread) where you claimed to "report me to the DMCA" and had reported me for "fraud", called me a "dick", "childish" and other things.

You are sent an email indicating that you have a Private message. After you logged in three times and didn't see it, I put you on a two day TEMPORARY ban at which point, you are sent another email indicating such. You ignored that, despite trying to log in where it was presented to you, and so, I put you on a 7 day ban at which point, you were sent ANOTHER email (a total of THREE, at that point). When attempting to log in during the temporary ban(s) you were presented with a banner that told you that you were TEMPORARILY banned, when it would expire and a message indicating, and I directly quote: "Sorry, only way that I can call your attention to the fact that there is a PM waiting for you.". Yes, you're a big girl now and are responsible for your own (in)actions. No, I've run this site or 12 years now and our emails do no automatically go into the Spam folder UNLESS you set a filter for them to do so.

I had no ideas what his PM was about nor did I care.

Now THERE is the crux and absolute truth of the matter. You didn't care what I had to say or ask you and that is what you are refusing to accept responsibility for. Nope, nothing in the TOU that says that you have to communicate with me, that's common simply common courtesy. There's also nothing that says that I have ANY obligation whatsoever to allow people that don't answer basic questions about their site usage (e.g. file leeching or racking up a massive volume of downloads). Your arrogance there is what got you in trouble. Your reactionary stance and reaction to a simple temporary ban and repeatedly blowing up my email with threats and name calling is what turned an otherwise temporary ban into a permanent one.

I was only "abusive" after over a dozen emails from you and after a lull of a week or so, wrote to me and told me that you'd "Reported me to the FTC for fraud", at which point I called you stupid because like the DMCA reporting claim, it was obviously fictitious, groundless and well, just plain ignorant. That you would believe that making a "Contribution"; a voluntary act for which you were promised absolutely nothing in return, gives you legal rights to special special treatment, a subscription or any other consideration is simply asinine.

Yes, JUST LIKE ON THIS SITE, whatever you submit is ours / Fanart's to delete, keep or do whatever with. What you are leaving out is that I told you that we'd already deleted other submissions in preference of yours and also that I was not going to spend 15-20 hours deleting your submissions. I did not say "mine", I said "OURS" because we are a community. Where do you get "his"? You keep trying to change what actually happened...

That you would think that a $10 contribution made years ago would buy you special favor or consider yourself a "Patron" deserving special treatment is more of the same entitlement you've vblasted forth since your first message to me on the site. I put more weight into the contributions which is why I bothered to even ask your about your activity rather than outright deleting you. Further arrogance is demonstrated by the fact that you think it is somehow okay to start posting those 9600+ images here on this site, just to spite me in direct violation of the legally binding agreement you made with us and the TOU / Site policies of both AAX and Fanart.

[Artwork Lover]

This seems to be a trend...

Does it now? Who / Where are you? Only people trying to create duplicate accounts, are on IP blocks with security problems or using VPNs or Proxies are blocked.

[Artwork Lover]

From what I can gather, this seems to be a trend at Album Art Exchange in they not only block IP addresses from users they have (imaginary) problems with but countries as well.

Whoops, I forgot about this.

"Imaginary Problems? REALLY?! What have you "gathered" and how? What possible clue would you have of the security problems that we are having and where they are? That's right, you couldn't have even a thread of a clue but nonetheless, are talking straight out of yer bumm as if you know, anyway, Just like with your claim of reporting me to the DMCA (not at all how it works) or reporting me to the FTC (nope), this is what I meant by childish. THIS is "emotionally immature". Not issuing a temporary ban. Who in the hell do you think that you are to even MAKE that statement? Considering that you don't even have clue one as to what I am dealing with, you should mind your own damned business. Getting butt-hurt over being banned for being irresponsible and then going and trying to ingratiate yourself with others or gain their sympathy by lying, uploading our images and saying idiotic things such as this statement indicates some serious issues and feelings of entitlement. Good freaking riddance to you! Ghad! I'm only sorry that I didn't pull your plug a year ago before you started leeching.

[Artwork Lover]

LMAO. I just noticed that JeremyV (above) joined the same day this reply was posted and hasn't been back since. Obviously a fake account set up by Marla. People are strange.

[jay.fannin@gmail.com]

I don't know who here is telling the truth and who is lying but I lean towards Marla's account for one reason. I joined Fanart.tv today because I too was just recently banned from Albumartexchange after having submitted quite a bit of work in the past year or two. I wasn't sent one email notification about it either. I recreated my account using the same email address and it was accepted immediately which indicated to me that my account was deleted entirely by the admins at AlbumArtExchange. I tried to log into their site today but was banned with the following message (verbatim): "Oh, look who's back. Dude, I don't believe this is legitimate use." I guess I could be upset but I'm not. When I signed up to the site, I agreed to the policy that what I submit is no longer mine but if this is how the admins at AlbumArtExchange handle fake accounts, I guarantee you they're banning more legitimate users than they realize because it's apparent they don't have the means to verify user's identities.

Marla, it sounds like you did the right thing by checking out Fanart as an alternative. Maybe Fanart will show us mercy when it comes to user verification.

Jay

[Marla]

That's right, you couldn't have even a thread of a clue but nonetheless, are talking straight out of yer bumm as if you know, anyway, Just like with your claim of reporting me to the DMCA (not at all how it works) or reporting me to the FTC (nope), this is what I meant by childish.

And don't forget the police for your continued on-line harassment and threats. Go on, get your lawyer on the phone love to talk to them.

THIS is "emotionally immature". Not issuing a temporary ban. Who in the hell do you think that you are to even MAKE that statement?

Who the hell do you think you are harassing me and issuing false statement about me? Like I told said, you do have emotional problems and a short fuse.

Considering that you don't even have clue one as to what I am dealing with, you should mind your own damned business.

More threats.

Getting butt-hurt over being banned for being irresponsible and then going and trying to ingratiate yourself with others or gain their sympathy by lying, uploading our images and saying idiotic things such as this statement indicates some serious issues and feelings of entitlement. Good freaking riddance to you! Ghad! I'm only sorry that I didn't pull your plug a year ago before you started leeching.

Irresponsible? Over what? Your anger issues and harassment?

And for the last time, nothing I uploaded here belongs to you. Not one goad damn ting. All of my scans are time-stamped, including the ones I posted on your shitty site. You have no case. Just a lot of anger. As far as I know, you have no rights to Creative Commons Control for if you do I'm sure there are a lot of record labels that would love to talk to you. As far as I can tell under the "law" of course, you need the copyright holder’s express permission. Did any of the original owners give you that permission? You’ll need to attribute the image to that person and you may have to pay a fee. Have you paid any fees to the record labels? You can contact the copyright holder directly or get a permissions researcher to do this on your behalf. As far as I now you have failed in the aspect.

Fair use is a legal principle that basically means you can use a copyrighted image without permission, under certain conditions. Copyright laws differ country to country, and this concept is also sometimes called ‘fair dealing.’ In general, under fair use/fair dealing, you may be permitted to use the image for the greater good of the public. Fair use usually applies to using the image for the purposes of criticism, reporting, research, comment or education.

You have broken this law by making your images non-public, requiring registration to obtain them and then harass those who do and then requesting money for your site. That in itself is a transaction. You have/had no EULA agreements at the time which is also misleading the consumer Again, if you are profiting off of someone else's creative commons control I'm sure the RIAA would also love to talk to you.

I don't have any "9,000" images of any of your shit anywhere. My Yahoo accounts was hacked along with some 50,000 other accounts. I tried explaining this to you and you in return basically told me to go fuck myself.

Also, if I see any of my images I posted here that you bullied to get deleted on your site I will take action against youto have them removed and consider that to be another form of harassment. Remember, all of my images are time stamped and have their own meta data different from your dumping ground.

So good riddance to you. I suggest you seek some form of therapy

[Marla]

I agreed to the policy that what I submit is no longer mine but if this is how the admins at AlbumArtExchange handle fake accounts, I guarantee you they're banning more legitimate users than they realize because it's apparent they don't have the means to verify user's identities.

Marla, it sounds like you did the right thing by checking out Fanart as an alternative. Maybe Fanart will show us mercy when it comes to user verification.

Jay

He has no legal or authoritative rights to any image either. He should really know the law about Creative Commons Control and having images on a public forum By the way, if he has sent you any harassing emails please report him.

[jay.fannin@gmail.com]

I consider my time as a contributor on AAE a lesson to be learned. Why do I need membership in order to contribute and download images that are free to the public? The membership only serves the administrator so it would be better for the general public to access sites where private access is not required. Album Art Lover, obviously an admin at AAE, indicated on another forum that AAE only bans people who try to access their site using a VPN which just isn't true. Aside from contributing a lot of images myself, I downloaded a plethora of album art from time to time to add to my large music collection, never having used a VPN. I'm guessing AAE has been dealing with illegal use of their website, saw my download activity as a liability and banned me as a precaution. Their statement to me as to why they banned me conveyed suspicion rather than a knowledge of how I compromised their service so take them as true amateurs who are biting off more than they can chew.

Jay