Disagreement over website ownership, now what?

[haynesey]

I honestly think theres nothing any off the people here can do. You transferred the domain and without a contract signed he can legally keep the site, i think :s

[TheDean]

"As I've said, I have been the legal owner of the RakeReport.net domain since March of this year. I pay the bills, I do all the work and have built up trust with my advertisers. My name is on the domain and the webhost where the files are stored."

Ya, thats exactly why I transferred it to you. We had an agreement. I trusted both your ability to do a better job than me and your integrity to follow through on your word to me.

Your arguments here sound like me arguing with my girlfriend. While everything you are saying is true, there is no reason to your accusations.

So what if I said any of that? What has that got to do with the fact that you lied to me and stole my site?

[TheDean]

A pity that we have to do this in public but its the only place I can get you to respond.


You made me a deal to take over the site and run it. At the time I was offering to sell it to others and you talked me out of that:


"

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	from		Anthony J Martino		hide details	Feb 23
	to			Degen
	date			Feb 23, 2007 12:01 PM
	subject			Hey, don't sell RakeReport.net, got an idea
	mailed-by			comcast.net

Hey Bill, I saw that you posted something about valuing a website for sale on 2+2 and figured you meant RakeReport.net My regular work schedule should be somewhere around 40-50 hr/week. With RakeReport.net I wouldn’t need to be dealing with tons of customers on a constant basis, so here’s what I was thinking: I stay on as Manager for RakeReport.net and take charge of attempting to grow the business, since you don’t have the time with the success of your other sites. It would be an opportunity for me to develop myself in marketing, SEO, etc. and earn some extra scratch on the side. Considering the viewpoint that a number of the affiliates have of RakeReport.net (because of the RakeAid.com connection), perhaps we could spin it and make it appear like I’ve purchased the site from you (i.e. customers don’t realize you’re connected with the site still) We still make sure that RakeAid.com gets good placement, but not the top spot constantly because that would be too suspicious. I believe you said you were getting some decent signups from the site, but if you sell it off you’ll lose out on those new players and potential profits from listings at the site. I would want the ability to create my own plans for how to advertise, develop the listing fee’s, etc. This way I wouldn’t need to constantly bother you with questions about it and you could just sit back and have money coming in. Obviously it would make sense to set things up so that I have incentive to grow the revenue for the site. Here’s what I was thinking: Under 5K Monthly Revenue: I earn 20% of site profits 5-10K Monthly Revenue: 20% on first 5K profit, 30% on anything after that up to 10K 10K-15K Monthly Revenue: 20% first 5K, 30% next 5K, 40% next 5K 15-20K Monthly Revenue: 20% first 5K, 30% next 5K, 40% next 5K, 50% last 5K Examples: 2K monthly revenue: $400 to me/$1,600 to you 7K Monthly Revenue: $1,600 to me/$5,400 to you 13K Monthly Revenue: $3,700 to me/$9,300 to you 19K Monthly Revenue: $6,500 to me/$12,500 to you Now, when I mention the revenue, I mean after ALL expenses. So I would expect you to deduct any costs associated with the site, such as (but not limited too): Site Hosting Fee’s Site Registration of www.rakereport.net yearly Contract Work (Craig performing site updates/maintenance, etc) I would likely tell affiliates that I (Anthony Martino, wouldn’t use AJ) am the new owner, and I’m a long-time poster on 2+2 under the name grandgnu, etc. Try to build a trusting relationship and get more traffic and revenue going. Pretty much, I only get paid if you’re getting paid. You would still own the site (although you may want to change the registration info for it, so that people like Beanie don’t investigate and start bad mouthing the operation) Lemme know what you think. AJ

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		"[email protected]"	to Anthony	show details	Feb 23

done

you call the shots now, tell me what to do

also RakeAid's spot has to be free and it can't be lower than 3rd"


That was our agreement. Possibly you even intended to keep that. But being myself, after we made that agreement, I continued to ride you about small details and be a jerk to you. The very reason you quit working for me on multiple occasions.

I'm sorry for that, I really am. You aren't the only person I've had problems with due to my methods, and you wont be the last. In many instances this works in my favor (I'm far from busto FYI, I'm currently travelling the tourney circuit direct buying into 10k events...), and in many it makes people hate me. You were one of those people.

The fact remains that I have great ideas, one of them was RakeReport.net. Another was rakeaid, it is a hugely successful site and I recently turned down a $500k+ offer to sell it. I have other ventures that are blowing up beyond belief now. I'm quite good at what I do. Dealing with people, I'm not so good at.

I'm sorry I've pissed you off so much and as well for attacking you so many times over this. I just want what is right and what we agreed to. I offered you today to pay me $1000 for everything you owed me since March and to give me 25% of revenue going forward. Thats far less than we had agreed to but given the circumstances, I'd be willing to live with that. Just transfer me the money online and we don't have to have any contact.

Yes I am a huge jerk and have been bad to you, but we had an agreement and you should honor it AJ.

[PPP]

Sounds like the earth should swallow the two of you up. This sort of issue is appropriate to discuss here, but it is clearcut. The technical owner of the domain is the legal owner. Even if perhaps not moral owner, this issue is legally and technically clear, so there isn't more to say here other than: don't legally transfer domains if you expect don't want to transwer all rights to it; don't send lunatic emails.

[hoursurfing]

Originally Posted by PPP

Sounds like the earth should swallow the two of you up.

I have to say, the funniest comment I've heard you make.

Edit: Im still laughing

[TheDean]

Originally Posted by hoursurfing

I have to say, the funniest comment I've heard you make.

Edit: Im still laughing

funniest part was how true it is. i hope we can solve this and save future generations from listening to our drivel

[Jeremy]

Threatening to rape someone's wife is reprehensible. I don't care what the circumstances are. After I read that, the rest of the story really didn't matter.

Most of our wives have no idea what the poker affiliate business is all about, but I think most are confident that it is not straight gangster.

That's fucking creepy dude.

[adioking]

Doesn't anybody else agree that this thread should be taken to another forum? I've seen mods in here, but nobody has brought that up. If anybody else agrees, move it. I'm not going to move it without a second motion to move.

Actually, PPP said it. Moving now...

[Kyle]

I could have sworn I saw a post by you that said you didn't actually tranfer the domain, but he did it on his own through your account manager and tricking him ?

But then you keep saying "I transferred him the domain". Which is it?

If it's the latter you are shit out of luck and the most you could hope to do is ruin the new owners rep (which is kinda pointless since nobody knows him anyways).

[losercore]

Originally Posted by TheDean

"As I've said, I have been the legal owner of the RakeReport.net domain since March of this year. I pay the bills, I do all the work and have built up trust with my advertisers. My name is on the domain and the webhost where the files are stored."

Ya, thats exactly why I transferred it to you. We had an agreement. I trusted both your ability to do a better job than me and your integrity to follow through on your word to me.

Your arguments here sound like me arguing with my girlfriend. While everything you are saying is true, there is no reason to your accusations.

So what if I said any of that? What has that got to do with the fact that you lied to me and stole my site?

Then cut all the files from the host and move them to a new host. if you own the domain you can transfer the DNS for the domain to point to a new host.

Sounds like you have the domain name so just change hosts and change the DNS to the new host. Any new host will allow you to transfer your information. You can even do it with no down time.

If you don't have access to the files then you get the domain back but you will need to put up a new site.