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no offense, but I don't understand why this is a big deal..
(probably because I've been at 2+2 for less than a month....)
could someone explain to a poor noob?
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hi brian.
this really has nothing to do with newer members not understanding because of time in forum etc.
this is about a person that decided to take advantage of an unregulated market and steal the brand that someone created.
if i were to open up a poker forum and call it
www.two-plus-two.com, that would be pretty scummy. but it probably would be EV+.
if i were to open a rake rebate site called moon-dogpoker.com (or whatever), i would do this only so i could steal the name that these sites and people have worked hard to create.
it has nothing to do with whether GRANNY is copyright protected or not. it has to do with an individual creating a bonus code with the SOLE purpose of deception that would be caused by confusion, and him creating this code to capitalize on another person's business.
i have bills to pay like everyone else. for this person to come to this environment and slap a banner in the classifieds to cash in on the name recognition of the banners in the main forums is deplorable IMO.
if fulltilt and the owners of this forum had decided to not assist me, there really was no recourse i could turn to. so what would i do to combat this?
how about if i started a mock site like party-riches.com? do you think this individual would have thought it was clever? in the absence of jurisdiction, i had only the forum owners and fulltilt to turn to. i think it was an easy decison for them because they are business people with morality.
how about if i were to go to dobrosoft (or write my own code) and open a site called full-tilt.com. do you think that would be ok? there's not much anybody could do to stop me. however, fortunately for me, most poker people that are successful understand that certain things, while quasi-legal, are completely unacceptable business practices.
this person not only made no attempt to differentiate, he actually mimiced my style of the classified as well as completely presenting his code as if it were another individual placing the ad.
i think pov stated it best:
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It is pretty undeniably clever. It's also pretty undeniably underhanded.
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as far as i am concerned, this issue is closed. if the mods want to lock this thread it would suit me fine. i have a family to support and i was not going to let that ad remain there without everyone knowing it was not mine.
all i can do is tell you my take on the situation and ask people to put themselves in my shoes and then tell me if it was clever or whether it was a major breach of ethics.