Picking Fights and Losing

About a week or so ago, a writers forum that I frequent (Absolute Write) was yanked by the hosting company because a scam artist "literary agent", Barbara Bauer was a bit put out by her name being listed on the 20 Worst Agents list -- she called the hosting company and apparently threatened lawsuits and bad publicity and whatnot. Her reason? They "posted her email address and that caused spam" or some nonsense and she cited the DMCA as proof that the ISP would be liable.

This is not illegal, and it's not a DMCA claim.

The ISP shut down Absolute Write anyway. Her email is posted on her own site, so the idiot at the hosting company who responded by pulling the plug was ill-informed about law or just plain stupid. This same "agent" has threatened to sue for -- get this -- one billion dollars for the "use of her name" on Writer's Weekly forums.

This is utterly ridiculous. And to add insult, the hosting company JC-Hosting in Nashville, TN, has refusedto give the site owner access to the database so she can move the forum elsewhere. The forum is populated by 7000+ writers, and is extremely busy and the archives contain several years woth of people's writing and comments. Bad move.

They have changed their story several times on why they "pulled the plug" and each story is getting thinner than the last. Now, they claim that it was "bandwidth overages" and this was just the catalyst for their actions. Of course, they are "saints" to put up with this, and everyone on the AW forums are horrible poeple who just want to malign them. (Sound like any three-year olds you know?)

And to add a new twist to the story? The owner of the hosting company just opened up her own writing forum -- and apparently invited many people from the AW forums to join. Ah, no.

This has pissed off a lot of people -- and they are not the quiet type.

Making Light
RichardCobbet.co.uk
KuroShin.org
Nanowrimo.org
Digitamedievalist.com
ChillingEffects.com
Amazon.com
Chatworthy Blog
Apocalypse Cow
Twiliterary.com
DeborahWoehr Blog
The Good Web Guide
Tailrank.com
Miss Snark LIterary Agent
BoingBoing
Technorati Listing of all blogs
NVCN id Vides
Juliawrites

And a Technorati tag, just for fun:
BarbaraBauer

and, quite literally HUNDREDS more posts and blogs and articles about this fiasco that are linked from those above. I'm sure that Ms. Bauer and her 19 worst-agent friends have spent a lot of time in the last few days throwing up.

Want publicity? You got it. It just ain't gonna be good.

It's simply not a good idea to pick a fight with the internet.