Recently, the social media was
abuzzed with the news reports that celebrity popular Linda Ikeji was involved
in a case of plagiarism. At first, I dismissed it as one of those fabrications
by hungry mofons. But, I started paying attention to the whole saga when some
personalities started commenting on the issue.
In fact, this morning, the Imo
state born popular blogger wrote the long article you will find below on the
issue; and I knew the matter has gone beyond ‘be-careful’.
But, come to think of it, who doesn’t
get information from another? Who? Personally, am yet to see that media
platform that doesn’t get scoop from others. Truth be told. I haven’t seen any.
After all, no man is an island. If Linda Ikeji were to start punishing people
for lifting stuffs from her blog, yours truly would have been cooling his heels
in prison by now…but she doesn’t. The leeway, I think, is to give credit after
lifting, which I honorably do…Lol!
Linda hardly reacts to verbal
attacks, and I think these people are largely interested in bringing her down. Frankly
speaking, this damsel has been blogging for the past 8 years and has doggedly
curved a niche for herself in blogging, so would always excel… #stepbackhaters!
Check out what she wrote this
morning after this cut…
So something has been going on
for the past couple of days that I haven't reacted to because I wanted to see
it play out and see how far these people will go. They have gone far and it's
now time to react.
The only reason this is happening
to me is because I'm number one...so I am flattered. I am currently No.10 on
Alexa.com, more read than all the other news sites in Nigeria, so I understand
why I am the target. If I were them, I'd hate me too...lol.
So here's what's going on.
Sometime last year, some guys decided it was time to run me out of business
(duh, like you can...lol). So they began to spam by blog. And when your blog
gets a lot of spam, Google (which hosts my site) can take your blog down. But instead
of taking my blog down, Google took my Adsense down for a few months and
eventually re-instated it. So they didn't succeed. These same people started
sending strange emails to me...looking for different ways to have access to my
blog. But I wouldn't let them. If they could, they would have hacked it, but
they couldn't so they continued to look for different ways to attack my blog.
Please continue...
In April 2014, these guys decided
to close down the blog again. In the emails they exchanged back and forth, they
said 'plagiarism is a good excuse to finish her'. (they forget that if they
succeed in closing down LIB because I'm on blogger...I could easily start a
website). Now let me tell you who these guys are. They are IT people, security
experts who know how the internet works. They are hackers and
cyber-squatters...and only go after the biggest internet setups.
Immediately after I shared photos
of my new SUV, these guys re-connected again and decided it was finally time to
end LIB because there were quite a few people who were mad that I bought the
car and they wanted to play on their emotions. The head of this team is a guy
who goes by the name @MrAyeDee on twitter. They decided to use the plagiarism
card. He said it was the strongest claim to make and easiest way to get support
from other people. And then the campaign started with him claiming that I took
something from him without crediting him or asking for permission. 100% false.
If he owns a website, I've never visited it. He started by writing all sorts to
get people to notice...and then he acted. Like I said these guys are IT
experts, they know what to do to get blogger/Google to come after you. So he
and his team started filling several reports, sending links of my blog posts
and making claims to Google. Outrageous false claims. And because Google acts
first before they contact the blog owner, they took down some posts and asked
me to file a counter claim if I felt I had a right to re-publish those
articles. Now that my blog is under Google review, these guys have started to
spam it again.
They want Google to shut it down.
That is their aim. Will they succeed? I sincerely don't know. I'm not an IT
expert...I know they are spamming and filing complaints, I don't know what else
they are doing behind the scenes but they are relentless.
Now let me give you guys a bit
who this Aye Dee guy is. He's anonymous on Twitter. Nobody really knows who he
is but according to those investigating him, his name is Emmanuel Efremov
simply known as EE by his friends. He's the owner of 15Past8.com media group.
Based in Manhattan. Gets funding from some US organization. (His number - 212
9608127). He's apparently been stalking me for years now and have registered
quite a number of my domain names...lindaikeji.net plus 8 others. He also owns
9jalife.com...yep, he owns a blog. He accuses me of copyright infringement but
when you go to 9jalife and other websites he owns...98% of the things he has on
there are other people's content. You see pot calling kettle black? Lol.
Immediately he was found out
yesterday, the IT expert immediately started to redirect lindaikeji.net to my
blog. If you click lindaikeji.net now, it will redirect you to this blog. He
panicked yesterday and quickly did it. A name he register as far back as 2011.
Lol. Choi!
Not only that, he's also a cyber
squatter. Yep, he registers 100s of websites belonging to others around the
world and tries to make money off them. Guess one of his aims is to run me out
of blogger so I come to him and his team and pay thousands of dollars to get
one of the several names he's registered. Not going to happen, boo! Hehe
Below is an article from lawyer
and blogger Uduak Udouk of Africa Music Law about this guy and his
cyber-squatting criminal activities
"According to a twitter
handle owned by @MrAyeDee, celebrity blogger Linda Ikeji was accused of
copyright infringement of his works. He reported these infringing activities to
Google and what resulted was a take down of his articles/works on her site. He
also claimed with the rate and way things looked, Linda Ikeji’s site could be
shut down within a week.
I get the fact that this guy was
concerned about Ikeji’s activities and got Google to do something about it.
What I don’t get is his very strong response and continued massive tweets
talking about the same issue in an almost vendetta like style towards her. This
got me curious to know who he was and what could be a motive behind all of
these.
I began by looking at his twitter
page and narrowed in on his website www. 15Past8.com. The description of the
services he offered through his media group raised my curiosity. He says his
media group owns “hundreds of websites.” He also claimed some of the infringing
content on Linda Ikeji came from his site. Well one of his hundreds of websites
is 9jalife.com because it has the 15Past8.com media group stamped on it. I did
a basic search on 9jalife.com to see who owns it. The name ‘Emmanuel Efremov’
came up as the registered owner of 9jalife.com. 9jalife.com is clear it is
owned by 15Past8.com media group, @MrAyeDee’s company.
For my article on Linda Ikeji,
many have been saying they are surprised she does not own her own domain.
Purely out of curiosity, I looked up Lindaikeji.com and noted it is owned by
someone else, a case of cybersquatting. I also look up Linda Ikeji.net and see
the same ‘Emmanuel Efremov’ come up. Now I am very curious. How is it that
Emmanuel Efremov owner of 9jalife.com, a subsidiary of 15Past8.com, also owns
LindaIkeji.net? Am I missing something?
Needless to say, I google the
name ‘Emmanuel Efremov’ and lo and behold, there is a case by Volkswagen
against an Emmanuel Efremov for cybersquatting. Looking at the description of
15Past8.com, the registered domain owner of 9jalife.com and Lindaikeji.net and
the case by Volkswagen against Emmanuel Efremov, I am left feeling that the
credibility of @MrAyeDee is shot and very weak at best. It also makes me wonder
about any prior existing relationship between him and Linda Ikeji as to the
issue of domain ownership i.e. cybersquatting. It is not uncommon for
cybersquatters to ask you the legitimate owner of a trademark to pay them to
own your own website.
If you accuse someone of
copyright infringement, it is a good idea to make sure your hands are very
clean and there is no connection whatsoever with a possible bad faith attempt
to hijack their domain name. I am curious to see where all of these
leads." Uduak Udouk
Now talking about copyright
infringement, Mr Aye Dee feels that crediting source is not enough, that I have
to write a written permission to the website owner. That's laughable at best.
So if there's a breaking news on TMZ, I will first write to the editors and
wait for the 2/3 days it will take them to reply me...that's if they even
bother to.
I admit that I take content from
other sites. Plenty of it sef, but the question is, which website in the world
doesn't? If you go on Bossip.com, 50% of what is there is from other sources.
Daily Mail UK takes from other sites, re-writes and give credit. UK Mirror
takes from other sites. MediaTakeOut quotes other sources. E! Online, Us
Weekly, People and even CNN take news from other sources and give credit, so
why is mine an offense to the extent that my blog deserves to be shut down?
Even in Nigeria, which site doesn't take news from other sites? Which? That is
how media runs. Perez Hilton makes $10million a year from blogging and 50% of
the content on his site is not originally his. As long as you give
credit...which I do! Except in cases where you don't know the original source
of the story or photo. So many blogs take content from my site, how many of
them have I gone after? In fact, I'm happy that they do so, I have nothing
against it. If I take content from another site and they approach me to take it
down despite giving credit, I will take it down. But that doesn't happen.
I try as much as possible to get
as many exclusives as I can, but because I work from home my team is so small.
I've been planning to employ more hands which I will do eventually and then get
a proper office. I'm kinda glad this happened. It's now pushing me to act and
take my business more seriously.
So Mr Aye Dee, Mr EE, Mr
#bringmedown or whoever you are and Jeremy Weate (look who is talking ..lol)
and all the others talking, I am not afraid of you! You didn't bring me this
far and you're not enough to bring me down. Like if you dream it, speak it, act
it, hope it, envision it, see it, pray it....YOU are not enough! You can't
bring a good woman down. You can try boo, oh please keep trying...but you see
this lady, she ain't going nowhere. You don't even know who you are dealing
with. You don't know what drives me and how far I plan to go. I've been a
hustler since I was 17, doing it on my own...on my own terms. Plus I have the
backing of God...and of course my hundreds of thousands of readers. I repeat,
YOU are not enough!
I have been blogging for close to
eight years and I plan to be around for many more years to come, so get used
it. If you manage to close down LIB, I'll come back bigger and better. So keep
trying boo! And enjoy all the attention you will get from this post...you've
earned it. Kisses!
Oh by the way Mr EE, one of your
friends who you were doing the #bringlindaikejidown campaign with has turned
against you and contacted me. He's a LIBer just like you...hehe...but decided
it wasn't fair and reached out to me. God bless you Mr Aye Dee. I hope your
hustle also pays. All the best.
To others reading this, if you
want to be successful in life, please prepare yourselves for something like
this. People don't go after failures. You have to be really crazy to gather to
plot the downfall of an orange seller or a gate-man (with all due respect).
These people go after successes. Once you succeed in any field, they will come
after you...it's inevitable. Ask everyone who has succeeded. It's not whether
they will try, because they will...it's how you respond to it that matters.
Don't you ever, listen to me,
ever let anyone defeat you. You didn't work so hard to get to the top for
somebody who didn't know how you struggled to bring you down. You will be
disappointing God. You don't even know how disappointed He will be. How dare
you let them win? They will come for you...that's a guarantee just make sure
you defeat them.
These people are not even
haters..they are excuses...they are the natural reaction to success...put in
this world to take actions against people who are climbing the ladder of
success. If they see you're about to fly, they will try to cut your wings
because when you fly, there's no stopping you anymore. And that's what they
want to do...to stop you! Don't let them distract you. Stay focused on your
dreams and keep flying.
Lastly, You know how negative
voices can be so loud that you can't hear the positive ones? In moments like
that just quiet the noise and listen again...listen only to the positive
ones...because they are all that matters.
May all your dreams come true!
May everything you put your hands into succeed. May your enemies show their
faces so you know who they are...but may they never win.
Thank you so much to all LIB
readers for your loyalty all these years. I keep saying you changed my life and
I will always be grateful. Long live LIB.
Thanks guys and have a blessed
day.
Now back to blogging
Why are they after this hardworking lady...? God bless her
ReplyDeleteIkeji is the best! No doubt
ReplyDelete