I don't suppose anyone would mind the initial snarfing, as long as they had some say in the subsequent publishing.  Some people might be only too glad if you had grabbed their stuff and could restore it to their possession.

Right now he's probably too busy getting his lawyer briefed on suing Eric and Kathy.  If they didn't lie about the turnover, they certainly must have misled him about how much of the site was legally theirs to sell!

oh!  Examine the place carefully - he could have pulled all sorts of tricks while it was down.  See if the admins are still admins and if the creators are still allowed to remobve their downloads.

Well if he does invite the same staff over, and lets them set the tone for the new site, then it should be ok.

I just can't get over just *how* out of order it was for K&E to "sell" the site when apart from one or two small downloads it was totally the work and copyright of the unpaid contributors!  It wasn't even theirs to sell, only the domain was.  They didn't even own the server.

ixany ixon hupcl?

Presumably Mrs Thumbscrews has instructions who to hand it on to.

He's a bastard but not a low-down bastard 

As well as all us just-plain members hopping on and off and hammering the refresh key to read the latest

Normally I respect even paysite owners' copyrights.  But Eric diddled people who could hardly afford it out of THOUSANDS of dollars using emotional blackmail and lies.  I say put the InSimenator anywhere we like.

I think it would be the greatest satire of all time.  I don't know if it would be the best thing to happen to the community, but very entertaining nonetheless

Or maybe Pescado would show us he is capable of being sort of normal in some contexts?

Edit:  Yep - see Pescado's post that nipped in just before this.

Assuming Walt is genuinely who he appears to be, I reckon he's not guilty of much more than naivety, so I am not gonna give him a hard time.  It's Kathy and Eric who have let us down as members of the community.  I won't put it more strongly than that, having calmed down overnight.

That's exactly what I am saying.   Look at how the large sites that take uploads from large numbers of creators have shifted the cost burden from creator to downloader.  Many people will obviously think that is only fair - so I am not knocking it.  Just observing.

I pay $7 a month for space I choose to use to enable me to share what I make (you can pay less but I have very good quality hosting).  No one told me to make it or share it, so I don't want to ask anyone else to pay my hosting costs.   A metaphor:  If I have a houseparty and invite guests, I expect to pay for the food and drink according to what I choose to give my guests, not charge them for it.   The nice thing is my guests will invite me to their parties too, and I won't have to pay for what I eat there, either.   So in the end it all evens up.   If one of my neighbors couldn't afford their own party, I might tell them to invite their family to mine, and celebrate there (eg sharing my space with other creators)

To continue the metaphor, the large sites are as if instead of having a normal houseparty in my own home, and letting my neighbor invite her family, I let *all* my neighbors invite their families.  Then I find my house is no longer large enough and I cannot afford to buy food and drink for all the guests who will come.  I now need to hire a hall, and get caterers in.  Now I can't afford it myself, so I have to ask the guests to pay for tickets or put money into a whip-round.

I have been trying to say for years that it is possible for every creator to have their own free (limited) or pocket-money (almost unlimited) site for their creations and not to need any donation drive ever!

Perhaps some of the newly-disenchanted insim staff can now explain to me why Beosboxboy changed his userID to be the same as his female modding partner?  (So they became Marvine and Marvine)  I was pretty much told to mind my own business when I expressed surprised before.