Saturday, November 15, 2008

YouTube Impersonation

YouTube Imersonation YouTube Impersonation Originally uploaded by Linux Chick.


Recognize that girl? Yep, that's because it's me. Only it isn't.

A good samaritan recognized me on Flickr and tracked me down to Facebook to let me know that a woman(?) claiming to be "Amaya" had stolen my images in hopes to bump her own traffic and was harassing other YouTubers, making racist comments and overall sucking at life (Thanks, Diana for your diligence in finding me!).

Is your head spinning, yet? Mine was.

Apparently, the user claims to be somewhat of a hair expert and enjoys calling out other users for "fashion faux pas." One of her primary victims, Ateyaa, sent me a sweet note to let me know that she hopes I sort this out, since people now know who I am and believe me to be a "mean person."

I can see that I've also received some messages on my Flicker account. So now, I'm irritated that I feel I need to write this post to defend myself. In case it isn't obvious by this point, here it is:

I am not BeautyIsMe911, and I don't know who is. The profile pic is indeed my image, but it was stolen and used without my knowledge or permission. I'm not a part of the hurtful and ignorant nonsense spewed by this user and am doing everything in my power to wrap up the matter quickly.

I've reported the user to YT, posted on her videos and even J has demanded her removal of my stolen images. Fortunately for me, from what I've read today, it looks like YT takes copyright issues fairly seriously. We'll have to wait and see.

And as much as I hate to send my traffic her way, I'm eager that together we can pressure her to do the right thing before YT takes action.

Lame!

http://www.youtube.com/user/BeautyIsMe911

Amaya, if you're reading this: do the right thing. It's time to own up.

4 comments:

Vighpyr said...

Okay, so "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"... blah, blah, blah. But this is ridiculous. I hope that YT does their part and pulls the plug on this person. In the meantime, I'll do my part and encourage this person to do the right thing, as well.

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others..." -Thomas Jefferson

Anonymous said...

dumb bitch, if you put your pics on the internet without copyrighting them they're public property.

Jeremy said...

Dumb bitch? Beauty, did you venture all the way over to Blogger now?

Regardless, you're wrong. Pictures placed on Flickr are NOT public property. Those pictures are legally available for use by someone else only with Thia's explicit permission. Obviously she didn't give it, or she wouldn't be complaining about it now.

Further, the problem here is not just that the picture is being used, it's that the person using it is using it to impersonate Thia. BeautyIsMe911 used the picture as her profile picture on Youtoube (as well as her background), then implies with her profile info that the picture is indeed her. Add to that the fact that BeautyIsMe911's sole purpose on Youtube appears to be harassing others about their hair care and other appearance-related bullshit. Other people clearly believed that BeautyIsMe911 and Thia were the same person; hell, the only way we found out about it was because several other people found Thia's Flickr and Facebook pages and let her know about it. It's an impersonation, plain and simple.

Thia Michelle said...

Oh, NET impersonation is definitely illegal and this woman is definitely going to jail for it.

http://www.marketingvox.com/watershed-ruling-in-myspace-suicide-case-may-criminalize-fake-net-personas-042175/