Dear Desteni Movement...

I have watched you try to scam people for a while now. I have also watched as you filed false DMCA notices and flagged channels down that exposed you for what you are: A cult like organization that is trying to scam money out of people via a pyramid scheme. I have watched as good channels were permanently shut down for the simple reason of exposing you. And I have decided that I won't watch any longer.

As you may have noticed, a lot of the counternotices to your false DMCAs recently filed had MY name on them. That's right, MY name, which is perfectly legal, as I have accepted a co-ownership of the videos you had falsely removed. Falsely removed, because they were covered by the fair use provision. As a bit of a reminder, here is what copyright law has to say about fair use:

17 U.S.C. § 107
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

You will notice that none of the videos you filed a DMCA claim against were of any commercial interest. The sole purpose of these videos was to critizise and comment on your money making scheme that you so blatantly hide behind your supposed social and environmental program.

Since you had the courtesy to publish my full name on your website after receiving the counternotices (and I have no doubt in my mind that you passed the rest of my details on to your members), I have decided to do a bit more than the friends that have simply tried to expose your scams on YouTube. Your pyramid scheme is illegal in many of the countries you operate in, including the country you operate out of. I may not live in South Africa, but fortunately one can report activities such as yours from outside of your country as well. So I have contacted the Financial Service Board South Africa to report you, and I suggest anyone who got scammed, false DMCAed, doc dropped or otherwise harassed by you do the same.

The website for the FSB: http://www.fsb.co.za/

For residents of South Africa there is a toll free phone number to call:

Fraud and Ethics Hotline: 0800 313 626

For those not residing in South Africa, there is an email:

fsb@tip-offs.com

And to show you I am not kidding around, here is a transcript of the email I wrote:

from XXXXXXX@gmail.com
to fsb@tip-offs.com
date Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:29 PM
subject Desteni movement pyramid scheme
mailed-by gmail.com

hide details 12:29 PM (1 hour ago)

Dear Sirs,

there is a movement operating out of South Africa that, under the
guise of political and social interests, operates a pyramid scheme
that I believe to be illegal. Their operations by now are
internationally done, but their main location of operation is still in
South Africa, which is also where their website is hosted.

They sell rather dodgy self-exploration online courses, for which you
are supposed to pay a monthly fee of 200 Euro, and give you the option
to earn these courses and additional income by recruiting more people
for these courses. Income generated from these recruits and their
recruits respectively will only be paid to you, if you continue paying
your monthly fee of 200 Euro yourself. To gain a better overview,
please visit their website which clearly shows how their pyramid
scheme is built:

http://desteniiprocess.com/income Overview of what they claim is the
possible income.
http://desteniiprocess.com/pricing Overview of the amounts they
require you to pay.
http://desteniiprocess.com/courses Overview of the "courses" they
offer for these amounts.

The website is registered to the name of

Susan Elizabeth Spies
PO Box 641 Msunduzi
Pietermaritzburg, 3231, ZA

and the listed admin contact is

Andrea Rossouw
Desteni
P O Box 641 Msunduzi
Pietermaritzburg, 3231, ZA
phone: +08 61378364

Any attempt to expose this pyramid scheme online is met by falsely
filed DMCA notices, people who file counternotices have their privacy
violated by this group making contact details public to all their
members.

I sincerely hope that you will investigate this matter. Should you
require further information, I will gladly provide you with any
details I have so far been able to find out about this group.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXX

Now before anyone whinges about me having "doc dropped" these poor Desteni people, let me tell you that this information is freely available when you check on the whois information for the website mentioned above. It does not take special skills to find this info and they publish these names and addresses themselves, unlike the people they have doc dropped after receiving their details from counternotices to fraudulent DMCA claims.

So there we go, Desteni. I hope you enjoy the attention. Have a nice day!

Science and Education FTWTF?

Let me get this straight, I have not always disliked Thunderf00t. Actually, Thunderf00t was one of the first atheist channels I subscribed to when I realized there are other atheists on YouTube. I sat through the time when he received false DMCAs, I mirrored his videos (tiny as my channel was at the time), I began making videos because I wanted to show support. As a matter of fact, that was the reason I even began making videos, to help other people fight against false DMCAs and flags, because free speech is one of the things I value most.

But what has changed since then? Well, first of all, Thunderf00t seems to have turned from what I perceived as a reasonable and logically thinking person into someone who will not listen to reason and logical arguments anymore. It may very well be that my original perception of Thunderf00t was already warped though, who knows.

What I do know is that the more I saw of people voicing valid criticism, the more I saw Thunderf00t dismiss them and instead respond to either trolls or easy targets with no valid arguments, presenting them to his audience as the voices of his detractors. When people I considered friends made video responses with valid criticism, they went completely ignored until the moment we finally resignated and jokingly made a video blowing raspberries. And of all the videos he could have responded to, he decided to pick that particular one, and as if that wasn't enough, he didn't even give me the credit I felt was due, but presented Coughlan666 (now known as Coughlan616) as the organizer of this video. Granted, he was my inspiration, after seeing him blow the original raspberry during the London YouTube gathering, but the idea to get many people on cam to blow raspberries at Thunderf00t was mine, damn it! Credit where credit is due, even if it is for a childish thing!

Back onto the issue though, in his response then, he diagnosed Coughlan with some mental disorder he found on wikipedia... oh wait, that the troll amet found on wikipedia and Thunderf00t just copied, in order to dismiss any of the very valid points Coughlan had raised. When he realized that people did not appreciate this below the belt attack and the voices of criticism grew even louder, he finally agreed to have a discussion with DLandonCole, which went on for quite some time, but ended up with no proper outcome and a lot of drunk people and plenty of drawn bell curves instead.

Thunderf00t then proceeded to actually ask his audience what they would prefer to see on his channel, and the overwhelming majority requested that he goes back to making science videos as he used to. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to happen though, as he felt the urge to continue attacking especially Coughlan with his more than flawed arguments. This however is not my main issue. In his attempt to "pwn" Coughlan, he is going to new heights (or should I say lows?) of unfair attacking. Not only does he quotemine, but he willingly destroys the reputation of an innocent and uninvolved person now in order to make Coughlan look bad. I don't care much about the bickering between Coughlan and Thunderf00t, I am sure Coughlan can hold his own just fine there, as he has proven repeatedly, but what I DO mind is if someone I consider a friend, who has not participated in ANY of this, gets dragged in by Thunderf00t quotemining from a joke made on blogTV and presents it as hard facts, not caring at all if the person who got dragged in has to suffer from it.

So aside from the very good video Peach made on the issue already, my last words addressing the eternal drama whore Thunderf00t will be: Fuck you, Thunderf00t for not even bothering to clarify that LatumWay was in no way connected to all of this. You knowingly threw him to your dogs just to get to Coughlan. How low is that?

Oh noes, all the ebegging!

Funny, how some people insist that I'm paying for the Liverpool trip via e-begging to my paypal account, asking me how else I could possibly afford such a trip. Seems these people don't know about things like Lohnfortzahlung and Krankengeld. However, they keep insisting that I somehow prove that I am not funding anything via e-begged trips, and while I don't owe them any explanation at all, I am quite amused by their repeated attempts to make me look like the shocking notorious e-begger.

So here's the harsh truth, folks! FelidaTheGeek's e-begging income over the past year! Brace yourself for the ungodly amounts I received:

Shall I go into detail about the transactions? Oh, and click on the pic to enlarge for details.

1. April 24th: Donating 5$ towards the sex change operation for a transgendered friend.
2. April 12th: PayPal refunds withdrawn funds for confirmation of credit card.
3. April 12th: I buy a replacement screen for my netbook.
4. April 12th: My boyfriend sends me money for the screen (yes, I haz boyfriend!)
5. March 22nd: I pay for an ebay purchase (birthday present for my daughter)
6. August 29th: I donate to devchelle's HIV/AIDS charity.

Yes, these sure are the steps of a notorious e-begger. As you can see, all the funds to pay for Liverpool must have definitely come from here! ;-)

Have a nice day!