China Mieville' speaks for us

[Parris]

as George has pointed out several times on his LJ blog, he does not have a Facebook account, nor does he twitter. We've been alerted to people creating fake accounts on both of these services, but since I refuse to join FB just to see if people are faking being GRRM, all I've done so far is rant, and asked Ty to help me come up with a plan on how to deal with the fakes roaming FB and Twitter, etc., pretending to be George.

Matter of fact, I wrote a private LJ post just a few weeks ago about this problem, about the same time that China was writing this:

Via Speculative Horizions:

http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/2010/10/china-mieville-vs-facebook.html

and like I said privately, we do have Good Lawyers, and if needed, we intend to use them as interest in the novels grows in anticipation of the HBO series. If people want to use the web to learn more about George, we want them to go to his website, or come to Westeros or several of the other fine sites that have been created by fans that are doing positive things for George and for the fan communities.

So if you do Twit or use FB, and you see anyone pretending to be GRRM, please do call them out as imposters. If we decide to start a verified Twitter or Facebook account sometime in the future, we'll let you know via George's website, here at Westeros, and other sites that we have long associations with. Having read FB's ToS, let alone their on-going battles over privacy and data mining, I'm not very enthusiastic about using FB EVER. We have no problems paying for an account that allows us to have control over privacy settings and other aspects of internet use/abuse, but sites like FB and even old creaky MySpace are sites that take away all your rights to protect your own intellectual property, your photos, your music, etc., without you putting up quite a struggle. We just can't allow that to happen. Just last week a friend sent me a link to another pirate site that was putting up George's work for free downloading. I could only access the one link she sent; there may have been other works of George's up on the site, but without registering and giving the site my personal information I could not investigate further. That alone drives me bug fraking nutz. We don't want to have to hire someone to do nothing but surf the web finding imposters and illegal file copies of George's work, and it shouldn't be only our responsibility to make sure his work is not being stolen and imposters are running rampant. Surely these companies, some of them now worth millions if not billions have some responsibility as well, and if it takes an uprising by artists and other folks who care about these issues to battle against these 'social networks' and 'pirate' sites, well, count me in, I"ll be the one holding the standard of "GRRM" and holding Grandfather Skull-Cleaver's war axe high.

[Lord O' Bones]

Damnit. Can't find the 'like' Button...

[Parris]

Damnit. Can't find the 'like' Button...

at least on dKos, you could hit the 'rec' button....

[Renasko]

Hmm...I feel an onset of paranoia coming on.

[Werthead]

Posted a note on the blog and also on the offending Facebook page. Unfortunately the 'Report Page' button is only of use for the copyright-holders. There is no facility for third parties to report the page on the basis that it's infringing copyright (although maybe if enough of us reported it as spam, Facebook would listen).

[jurble]

Silly communist Miéville, your identity belongs to the people!

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Parris, I don't know if Facebook will let you report copyright / IP infringement without an account, but it may be worth trying (or, if it comes to it, if Ty has an account already you can authorise him to act on your behalf with Facebook, maybe):

IP infringement page

Automated DCMA page

[Parris]

Posted a note on the blog and also on the offending Facebook page. Unfortunately the 'Report Page' button is only of use for the copyright-holders. There is no facility for third parties to report the page on the basis that it's infringing copyright (although maybe if enough of us reported it as spam, Facebook would listen).

thanks for the direct link Wert, I see who ever put it up is not only ripping off George's LJ posts, but they also using pictures that I took without my permission.

I guess we will have to deal with this in a Serious Manner when I return home and can co-oridinate with Ty, possibly with legal help with an intellectual property rights lawyer at hand.

At this point, if there are people who use FB will report the imposters as 'spam', I can only hope they do so.

tired of all this 'the internet wants to be free' crap and people thinking they can do anything they damn well please without even a note asking for permission of the original artists/writers/creators/owners.

[Parris]

Parris, I don't know if Facebook will let you report copyright / IP infringement without an account, but it may be worth trying (or, if it comes to it, if Ty has an account already you can authorise him to act on your behalf with Facebook, maybe):

IP infringement page

Automated DCMA page

I just went up and look at the DCMA page, thinking I could at least tell FB to take down the photos that are my property - what a crock - "Please note we provide your personal information to the entity that you claim is ripping you off" - oh yeah, like I want some asshole to have my personal details while they're ripping us off - and everything else is locked up unless I have an FB account, which I don't want and have no desire to sign up for their data mining and fattening of their net worth just to tell them to take down fake sites - how the hell did this FB page get put up in the first place? Why can't we just tell them that "George R R Martin" IS NOT THE FRAK ON FACEBOOK AND HAS NO FRACKING DESIRE TO EVER BE ON FACEBOOK. The way FB is setup, it's just a loop of hassles and attempts to either get you to sign up or to deny you any way to contact them directly. No wonder China finally spoke out.

Jeeez, I'm getting more pissed the more I think about this. I'm going to take a Valium and go get a couple of Cadbury's chocolate bars to calm down.

[Werthead]

Can people who are on Facebook comment or even just 'like' my statement on the page, hopefully if enough do it the person doing the page will voluntarily remove the copyrighted material since Facebook seem to be unwilling.

[SamanthaofHodorsfield]

Well when I find the statement I will. They've either deleted it or I'm having a moment of epic stupidity as I can't see it.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Can people who are on Facebook comment or even just 'like' my statement on the page, hopefully if enough do it the person doing the page will voluntarily remove the copyrighted material since Facebook seem to be unwilling.

You can not comment on the page or "like" something there unless you "like" the page itself.

[Werthead]

Well when I find the statement I will. They've either deleted it or I'm having a moment of epic stupidity as I can't see it.

Click on 'By George R.R. Martin and others'. The page defaults to 'By George R.R. Martin' (obviously not really him).

You can not comment on the page or "like" something there unless you "like" the page itself.

That's a problem. However, the page informs me that plenty of BwBers 'like' the page already, so a few could take action on there.

China and George should perhaps forward their complaints to a major outlet like BoingBoing or io9. That would get a lot more attention very quickly.

[mashiara]

At this point, if there are people who use FB will report the imposters as 'spam', I can only hope they do so.

Can people who are on Facebook comment or even just 'like' my statement on the page, hopefully if enough do it the person doing the page will voluntarily remove the copyrighted material since Facebook seem to be unwilling.

Done and done. I put a little comment of my own there and I reported the page as Spam - Scam.

I only "liked" the page a while ago when I saw a bunch of other BwB members liking it, I didn't even think that this was against George's wishes. I did consider "unliking" it now that I know the truth but then I won't be able to post there.

[Harlot]

I'm not a fan of the page that Mashiara and Werth posted their messages on, but there's only 1800 fans of that page. Why aren't you guys posting on the page with 20,000 fans?

As an FYI, I became a "fan" of that page at some FB update that took my old "interests" and autolinked me to the pages.

The page with 20,000 fans doesn't seem to have new posts by the creator but it is a huge spamfest.

[Werthead]

AFAIK, the other page is a 'fans of ' page, not a page purporting to be by GRRM himself. The page linked is reposting GRRM's blog posts, including copyrighted pictures, without his permission. Because everything posted on Facebook is 'owned' by Facebook, even material submitted by third parties, this creates significant copyright-control problems.

For what it's worth, this Facebook fan page is IMO the best of the ones on there with a solid community and a strong anti-spam attitude. They have reposted a lot of pictures from other sources but are willing to remove them or go through them all and note the original creators if asked.

[alguien]

Seriously threaten litigation and I bet these sad impostor pages will vanish instantly. That may be the nuclear option, but I cannot think of a more clear example of fraud.

I use Facebook and its an excellent way to keep up with old friends from college and high school. But the fact that they don't have a team on their company to squash this sort of thing just boggles the mind.

[Werthead]

Facebook has surrendered to China Mieville's attack. They may have gotten wind that he knows about giant killer krakens.

Obviously GRRM might have to look into doing something similar (stirring up the fanbase via a blog entry, not deploying giant killer krakens) if he isn't getting anywhere through the other methods.

[mormont]

I use Facebook and its an excellent way to keep up with old friends from college and high school. But the fact that they don't have a team on their company to squash this sort of thing just boggles the mind.

In fact, I believe they do. Having run foul of their rules on impersonation myself, for the crime of having a duplicate account (I wasn't even impersonating anyone, as such) I'm aware that it's against FB's own terms of use to have an account in anything other than your own real name. I believe it's also against their terms of use to post content that you do not have the right to reproduce, which appears to be more relevant to the page Wert has mentioned. (That's a fan page, and anyone can start a GRRM fan page on FB. They just can't repost his photos, blog posts, or other copyrighted material without permission.)

The trouble here is twofold. One, while FB does have a team to regulate this stuff, the sheer number of people breaking their terms of service* means that they're very unlikely to get around to investigating particular cases unless a big fuss is made. In this, Mieville had the right idea. Second, it's hard to raise that kind of fuss if you don't have a FB account, because FB make it difficult to talk to them if you don't.

So, the best thing to do is for FB users who are fans to report any GRRM impersonators - repeatedly, if necessary. It might also be worth contacting them via PM to see if they will respect George's wishes. Posting stuff on their wall seems very unlikely to have an effect, to me, but I suppose it might at least get others to report the page too?

*this is partly due to their terms of service being stupidly restrictive in some areas. OK, you can't pretend to be George R. R. Martin if you're not - but equally, even the real George couldn't sign up for an account under the name 'GRRM'. It's your real name or nothing: even the nicknames you can use are restricted.

[Parris]

I'm not a fan of the page that Mashiara and Werth posted their messages on, but there's only 1800 fans of that page. Why aren't you guys posting on the page with 20,000 fans?

As an FYI, I became a "fan" of that page at some FB update that took my old "interests" and autolinked me to the pages.

The page with 20,000 fans doesn't seem to have new posts by the creator but it is a huge spamfest.

Because I can't see the alleged pages you refer to. I was told about them a few weeks ago, but am unable to do anything without becoming a FB member, please read my original post; damned if I'm going to join FB. As you may have noticed, we've been on two long business trips with a bit of vacation on the side and I lost half of the time at home between thee two long trips due to a lung infection, and I do not have the tools and phone numbers needed to deal with these things. George is working right now - on set at the Paint Hall, and has tv interviews lined up for local media this evening. Ty is on jury duty, and he never knows when he'll be called into a jury pool from day to day. I haven't heard from him since last week, and suspect he's in a seated jury. But until I hear from him, I'm pretty much guessing at what's going on at home.

When I return to the states, I'm going to call our IP lawyer first. Then I'll proceed from what she tells me to do. Until then, those people who have FB accounts, please do notfiy the fake pages reader that their 'liking' a fake page unauthorized by GRRM, and that the photos on the pages - which I can't see to confirm - are most likely to be copyrighted photos by me and others. Decent folks will turn away from those bogus sites if they know they are bogus. Right now, I have to rely on the faith and power of GRRM fans who are on Facebook to do what they can to stop FB allowing these fake pages to exist. Once I'm home in early November, I can address these issues more seriously with knowledgable people and information that will allow us to do what it will take to stop FB from allowing these fake sites to flourish.