Has Rachel Larratt stolen BME ?
17:26 Sunday 7 Oct 07
It very much looks like Rachel Larratt has indeed stolen BME from it’s creator.
(Please consider all links here to be NSFW)
I used to read Modblog every day. I would also read Shannon’s page at IAM and at Zentastic. I am an ex-IAM user and there are photos of mine in BME Extreme. I’ve been reading a while and even debated joining IAM (but they didn’t take Paypal and that’s a whole other story). So it was more than surprising to see Shannon blog at Bodytwo that he was locked out of everything he had created. And it has continued. The guy isn’t allowed back. What he has worked for over years is now being stolen by a woman who has no history of presenting content. Sure she may have done financial stuff but the actual person who blogged every day and who drew the audience in has been thrown out.
Modblog is already stale - they have also removed the comments code from the template. Not just turned comments off, but changed the theme files. So they aren’t even prepared to speak and have comments - which is stupid because comments go elsewhere, you lose that last semblance of control, of keeping things in one place, of moderating and defending, of allowing the voices of reason and calm to also have an influence. It’s a short-sighted move when you are answering to tens of thousands of users. Zentastic and the IAM page are dusty and unused - yet despite all the garbage Shannon is still there blogging and promoting what he does and loves. Rachel Larratt might know cars, might know other stuff useful elsewhere but she has no clue at all about making sure BME runs. It doesn’t run because it’s cheap, or it’s got a large userbase or because it’s cool - it runs because of the ceaseless promotion by the one person. And in all my time reading there I can’t recall anything bar the one article when she has the gold star inserted into her eye. So who is going to promote the site? It won’t do it by itself.
The words below were at the bottom of http://bmezine.com. I copied them here because the Shannon’s copyright notice at the bottom of ModBlog was removed and replaced by something else. You can’t do that.
READ THE FINE PRINT: All pages and images copyright © 1994-2007 Shannon Larratt unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. …. All BME logos and slogans are trademarks / copyrights of Shannon Larratt.
So she is using his work, without his permission. That’s wrong. That’s theft.
If I had an IAM account right now I’d backup and quit. Delete and go. It won’t get better and from various blog reports it’s not so stable.
So ……. why did Rachel Larratt steal BME?
1
Your friend is still listed on Wiki as being Ed, Pub and main contributor…
http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Shannon_Larratt
http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/ModBlog
I think, given time, people will migrate over to your friend’s blog and this Rachel person will find out that what goes around comes around. WebCopyright issues like this were an ongoing issues back when I was still reporting and I doubt very much they’ve been fixed since. I used a lawyer at the University of Ottawa as a source numerous times, his name’s Michael Geist, he blogs at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/. He’s one of the best Net Legal minds out there and loves hearing about stuff like this. He’d probably help Shannon at least find out what his legal options are.
18:44 Sunday 7 Oct 07
2
I expect a little wiki-war over there, not just with Shannon’s page but also Rachel’s
I would expect he has some excellent advice going his way but no matter which way I look at it he is having wrong done to him.
I find the cutting out of comments to be the most telling aspect. She can’t silence what others say (and I don’t include myself, I mean others who are closer and more prominent in the body modification arena).
18:55 Sunday 7 Oct 07
3
Thing is… if the community is small enough, or strong enough, and there’s a putsch like this it’s easy for the ousted party to set up shop right next door with a shinier product. It’s not like getting your content off of what is now Her site is difficult… copy, paste, new community. With the comments thing, there’s always the 60% of a Web-based community who don’t really know what’s happening with ownership issues, so I’m sure she’s trying to do whatever she can to keep as many people in the dark for as long as possible.
I don’t think this applies, but I think this is also a good example of why using a photo-hoster is a really good idea. If all those ‘copyrighted’ photos were hosted on individual Flickr accounts it’d be pretty easy just to turn them off… if someone took over one of my blogs (please don’t) they’d be photo-free as soon as I could login to Flickr.
19:40 Sunday 7 Oct 07
4
I agree that’s it’s shit what’s happened… there’s so many different stories around that it’s hard to know what to make of it all. I will however point out that iam2.net is there, and free at the moment -it’s a project by a member of IAM to make a version that will scale better, and is known about by Shannon, so it may just take over if he has no luck getting IAM back, or if the sporadic outages on there continue to go on as they have been
11:26 Monday 8 Oct 07
5
Interesting! I’m way out of that scene but I do remember a post on IAM when I was trying to access MrMe’s page. It was written by Rachel and all about the rumours that were spreading about her and Shannon and their break-up. I can’t remember the details now but basically it was denying the kind of stuff you’re referring to now :)
16:43 Monday 8 Oct 07
6
I believe in KARMA and whom is in fault will pay in many different ways!
22:41 Monday 8 Oct 07
7
I’m not sure karma is needed here. The copyright is clearly being violated, and totalitarian rulership is replacing what was a community.
18:47 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
8
Gabriel - “I don’t think this applies, but I think this is also a good example of why using a photo-hoster is a really good idea.”
BME is the “photo hoster” site. The person who took over the site is his ex-wife. To compare this to what you are saying, not only did she take over ALL of your blogs (Shannon’s BME, IAM, ModBlog, Zentastic, and others), but your Flickr account as well and you are now locked out of everything.
19:01 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
9
I actually just finished running through the sites to get a better idea as to what’s going on… . You’d think with the lessons learned from their offline relationship there’d be some paper contracts hanging around in a lawyer’s office somewhere.
If all they’re doing is slapping a copyright symbol and a few lines of what may or may not be legalese on the sites… well, offline Canadian copyright law is bizarre and arcane, but at least it’s recognized by the Courts. Online copyright law in this country, however, is a joke. Simply listing a piece of writing or a photo as “copyright” online is mostly just asking me as a courtesy not to steal your stuff.
I really hope, if this is as fucked for him as it sounds, there are contracts — written by a lawyer and properly notarized real-world paper contracts.
19:56 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
10
Now that the site has been kidnapped unto the US, US law may have jurisdiction. In the US, rightfully putting your copyright on your work is legally significant. Both civil and criminal action can be taken against a copyright infringer.
21:18 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
11
Problem is that Shannon fought to keep BME / IAM out of the US and away from the lack of privacy in the US. He knew that what people chose to do would be viewed very differently by some in the US and that there were legal implications. He wanted to protect everyone who had contributed.
So while the copyright may be Shannon’s because it’s in the US, everything held on those servers is now open for all agencies in the US.
Shannon mentioned this in a comment on that really long post but it seems to have dropped off the radar.
Rachel just took your privacy away.
21:24 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
12
Privacy laws in the States are actually a little… dual personality. There are far more laws there which protect the individual, but at the same time law enforcement has much greater access. The lack of laws here mean law enforcement has a fuck of a time getting stuff done online, but there’s almost no protection for the individual.
But when it comes to servers and collecting personal information there are no borders between the US and Canuckland. I don’t want to go too far off topic, but if you’re in the system here, you’re in the system there. That includes your credit cards, retail cards, Pay Pal, buying patterns and the rest of it… the company which collects and manages all of that information for Canadian banks and retailers is actually (taa-daa) American. And once that information is collected by that American company in its very American-based servers it’s subject to American (re: Homeland Security) Laws. The story broke about two years ago, but the only thing done was a “request” from the Canadian government that the information be used for good, and not evil.
For the next 1600 words I kind of slipped into a little low-level paranoia and there were all kinds of Angelina Jolie-Hackers/Acid Burn references… sorry to go so far off topic, it’s been awhile since I’ve had a reason to talk about this stuff.
22:54 Tuesday 9 Oct 07
13
I miss Shannon… I don’t feel like to check Modblog anymore, without him blogging for it. He had a real sense of body art.
Can someone tell me what is the actual reason behind his absence…????
16:04 Thursday 11 Oct 07
14
Shannon’s new blog is here: http://www.bodytwo.com/blog/
It’s basically modblog.
In the ‘drama’ sections he explains his side of the story. It seems Rachel doesn’t want people to know there is a story, by the disabling of comments, IAM accounts ect. It seems that he really is locked out of his own site, and isn’t even being allowed to communiticate that fact.
18:00 Friday 12 Oct 07
15
I know there are a lot of support sites for shannon coming online now as well, one example is http://www.bmezine.ca
09:32 Tuesday 16 Oct 07
16
Plain and simple the cunt is a thief period!
20:36 Thursday 20 Dec 07
17
Gregory seems angry.
I love how no one knows what happened but still says terrible things.
Since Rachel is living in Toronto, I think it is safe to assume the servers are there. not that I have any real idea.
I always wonder how Shannon allowed himself to be ousted so easily. If it is his company shouldn’t his name be on everything? Shouldn’t there be no legal question as to who owns the company? maybe he has other partners? maybe they forced him out? no one knows.
Either way, IAM is still running. I still talk to my friends. seems the same to me.
I would imagine the reason BME is not being updated is there is a court order for no updates until everything is solved.
23:08 Thursday 20 Dec 07
18
Not angry just speaking my mind
23:49 Thursday 20 Dec 07
19
hello.
no one knows what happened. but we do know what we have witnessed since the mysterious ‘incident’ that set all of this off: a woman scorned, lashing out at anyone who dares question her authority, tossing threats of libel suits in the face of anyone who offers anything but praise, brazenly posting sunshine-y posts as she calculatedly destroys the man she once claimed to love.
non-iam members do not have access to anything but the first page of this blog, but even what is public right now is enough to see that this is one sick, smug bitch.
14:54 Friday 21 Dec 07
20
that is, this blog.
14:55 Friday 21 Dec 07
21
oh my god, someone please put me out of my link-retarded pre-coffee misery: rachel larratt’s blog.
14:56 Friday 21 Dec 07
22
If she is such a sweet heart and loves her kid then why does Ari need to be put in day care. The woman doesn,t have a full time job and yet she puts the child in day care only to pick up the kid at 6:30 pm at night. Then takes Ari home to feed her and put her in bed. She spends no time at all with her. I also heard that Rachel threaten Shannon with legal action if he did not put HER CUNT NAME ON BODYTWO. She is also a fucking coke head to top it off. Cares more aboutr what labels she has then her kid. She doesn,t want her around she just doesn,t like the fact that Shannon wants Ari more then two days a week. PURE CUNT!
20:06 Friday 21 Dec 07
23
What Shannon did was wrong
And this site is based in Canada - the US laws are nothing tod o with it. They should just butt out. She’s a fucking rotten cow to do what she did to him. That was teh worst breach of trust ever and I hope she suffers for it
00:27 Thursday 3 Jan 08
24
What Rachel did was wrong
And this site is based in Canada - the US laws are nothing tod o with it. They should just butt out. She’s a fucking rotten cow to do what she did to him. That was teh worst breach of trust ever and I hope she suffers for it
00:28 Thursday 3 Jan 08
25
Ignore first comment I made - I wrote Shannon’s name by accident in the first paragraph. I’d meant to write Rachel. I wanted to just clear that up. Shannon’s a good guy
00:30 Thursday 3 Jan 08
26
i dont no wether any one has seen this forum, but not really to sure what to make of it, from this and other forums, the whole story thats out ther, looks like, shannon was violent towards racheal, and she pressed charges, then when he was being questiond/detained she poped onto BME and Modblogs and locked him out, wilst allso deleeting his IAM account to, then people started talking and posting so ther IAM’s where vanquished to, then suddenly shannon gos of the radar for a bit, then is back….posting on Modbloggs, so whats that about??????? Is he really posting?? is it racheal posting on his account?? has he regained controll of the sites?? why has bodytwo gone down??? ther are so many questions and i think everyone in the community desurves some answers!!
13:12 Wednesday 9 Jan 08
27
sorry forgot to post the link to the forum i was talkin about above
http://verkhovensky.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/modblogs-coup-detat/
please read all comments, not just shannon’s. see what you make of it!!!
13:15 Wednesday 9 Jan 08
28
Okay, this is going to put off allot of people, but for quite some time I have kept my mouth shut simply because I naively believed that the truth will out faster than is occurring. I sat back and watched a thief and a pathetic liar steal something from a friend that he created and then attack every aspect of his life. Rachel has been trying to destroy him bit by bit because of the most piteous reason imaginable. She is a bitter jealous little girl. A woman scorned hell-bent on destroying Shannon because he moved on and is happy without her. Her frail little ego cannot and will not tolerate rejection. To save face she tries to systematically take his life apart piece by piece.
Many of you may know me by my iam name Stigmata, I was recently TOSed by Rachel from Shannon’s site because she says I copy and pasted private forum material and sent it to more than one outside source. The truth is, I did do it, and proudly so with the exception of how many I sent it to, it was only sent directly to Shannon to give to his lawyers. The private forum she is referring to was a hidden forum on iam of less than 10 moms; we used the forum to do many childish things, to make fun of the moms in the other forums such as the pregnancy forum, the postpartum forum, the breastfeeding forum as well as a few others. If any of you were in those forums and saw a very select group seem to all attack the same person at once for what we would deem their stupidity or “bad parenting choices” then you can easily figure out which other women were also members of this secret forum. We talked openly about many private issues that none of us would ever want to see the light of day. I am ashamed to say I was as much a part of the attacks, malicious gossip and high school antics as the rest of them.
I was a friend of Rachel’s; however there were many occasions in the past that she said things in the secret forum that as a mom concerned me, such as locking Ari in a bathroom when she needed a break from her, or having to smoke a joint to deal with her. In all honesty I probably never would have involved myself in the fight between Shannon and Rachel if it had stayed a business fight, because I never believed that a person could really highjack a site that everyone knows he created and ran many years before ever having met her, but I obviously was wrong. The thing that made me feel the need to take action and choose to do what Rachel sees as a betrayal was a few things, first, when she accused Shannon of abuse, of throwing her down a flight of steps, I knew she was a liar. I have known Shannon for over 14 years, I even lived with him for awhile and I know he is the most non-violent person out there. I would trust him with my life and the safety of my own child. Even when we had arguments as all friends do at one point or another, Shannon never got angry or showed a temper, the most infuriating aspect of arguing with him was the fact he never got mad, even when I would try to push his buttons. The second thing that set me off was when Rachel had the police come to Shannon’s home and take Ari after having an exparte hearing where she made many false accusations about him in order to gain temporary custody. What mother would snatch her child away from the only real home she knows in the middle of the night, traumatizing her? If Shannon is or was such a danger, then why did she easily dump Ari with him while she traveled, did her racing and was out having fun? And why when ever she had Ari for a visit does she always bring her back early? Many times in the secret forum all she would complain about was how when Ari would visit she would never sleep, she would stay awake all night screaming and crying, weird when she goes to bed so easily at Shannon’s.
This is not meant to sound cruel but Rachel is not a mother, yes she gave birth and yes she loves Ari in her own way, but she is not maternal, never has been and never will be. It’s not a crime, some women just aren’t cut out to be moms, it doesn’t make her a bad person, but using her daughter as a pawn to hurt Shannon does make her a horrid person.
Why do you ask would Rachel suddenly decide that Shannon’s creation’s BME and IAM are hers, and why does she suddenly decide after 4 years of not wanting to be a mom does she decide she must save Ari from the clutches of her evil father??? Does the name Caitlin ring any bells anyone?? Yup, it’s true, pathetic misdirected rage bubbling out of silly old jealousy. Not that Rachel wants Shannon to be with her, just that she is incapable of seeing him want someone else, to not want her; because lets face it, she is the most textbook case of narcissism.
In the secret forum we were in she constantly was saying Shannon was begging her to come back to him, that he pleaded even swearing he would dump Caitlin if she would only come back to him, thing is, I knew this was a lie because I knew how happy Shannon was to be back with his true love, but I didn’t see the harm in her sad little ego stroking fantasy world until I realized that even she seems to start to believe her own lies. Once she realized he really had no desire to be back with her ever again all the attacks started, all her lies, all her propaganda.
Now many of you are saying “it can’t be true, Rachel is such a good person and respects the iam community too much to lie” to this all I have to say is this, why then is it then that the servers that she owns that host the friends of BME sites like Jerome and some suspension sites have a very insulting name? Go check for yourself friends, see the respect she has for you, do a trace route on the servers and you will see she names it “OUR STUPID FRIENDS” nice respect there I got to say.
Another little lie that infuriated me was when she went on her page saying she TOSed certain “trouble makers” for trying to supply Shannon with drugs since she was now claiming he is a junky. Two things, she neglected to mention that she herself wrote to me and spoke to me on the phone begging me to take Shannon percocets because he was in so much pain from his surgery on his leg and she was worried, pills that when I offered to Shannon he did not want. Also she neglected to mention that Shannon passed the drug test she had the court force him to take. Woops.
Now let’s have a lookie at her self serving backstabbing ways. BMEShop has an exclusive contract with BME to sell merchandise and be the only company on the site, yet that little girl goes on her page and advertises her pathetic excuse for a company Canvas Los Angeles and even goes so far as to even ask Iam members to submit design ideas. Wow, sounds like a nasty breach of contact to me. I also found it amusing that she went on in her Happy New Years post to thank all the BME staff, yet left out BMEShop owners Ryan and Corrie (iam Badseeds); maybe it’s easier to stab people in the back if you first cut them out of the picture bit by bit. Take your pick kids, you can buy quality product from BME or crappy Walmartesque t-shirts and overpriced photocopies from Rachel’s bastardized Bmeshop knockoff.
And my where on earth did Body Two go? I find it odd that now the Body Two posts are being put up on Modblog. It just shows me that Shannon is a much bigger person than certain people out to destroy his work. Rather than sit back and allow the site to languish as it has been under Rachel’s obvious impeccable business skills, he instead is submitting what would have been posts to his *ahem* mysteriously vanishing Body Two site. It just shows me that he is willing to set aside his anger and hurt for the betterment and happiness of the community.
Also I got to say, another nasty little point in this war, I had invited Shannon to bring Ari to my little girls fourth birthday party shortly before Rachel had Ari grabbed from him, for Ari I extended the invitation to Rachel. She came and brought Jon. Now, I had a friend that doesn’t know anyone involved also at the party. To set the stage for you, at the party I had pony rides for the kids, a jumpy castle and lots of food, burgers, hotdogs, chips, juice, cake and candy, of which both Ari and my little girl Anika partook of, allot. Now when the party ended Rachel asked me if I would like to grab dinner with them at a really great Indian restaurant in my town. So Rachel, Jon, Ari, Anika, I and my friend Amanda all met for dinner less than 1 hour after the party. On one side of the table was Rachel, then me, then Anika, on the other side was Ari, Jon then Amanda. Jon filled Ari’s plate with a lot of food, more than I had on mine, she kept saying she was full, yet every time that little girl tried to speak she was told “rude little girls should learn not to speak unless spoken to” by Jon, I noticed throughout the dinner Ari looked upset and kept looking down, I also noticed my friend Amanda also kept looking down towards Ari and looking very upset. Ari kept saying she was full and didn’t want to eat, yet Jon forced her to finish every bite on her plate as she looked like she was going to cry. Not 5 minutes after her last forced down bite she turned white as a sheet and said she had to go to the bathroom, as she got up to walk there, she threw up all over the dining room floor, then again in the hallway leading to the bathroom. Now as a mom I panicked, it was my friend Amanda that cleaned it all up, and Ari’s dear mom Rachel’s reaction? First she said “how fucking embarrassing” then when Jon took her to the bathroom and my friend Amanda cleaned up the vomit she sat down and said “well at least now I can finish my food in peace”. Now when we all left and Amanda and I were in the car with Anika, Amanda began to cry and told me “that poor little girl, that guy Jon was pinching her leg the entire time he was forcing her to eat and she was obviously so used to him doing that she barely reacted like a normal little girl”. My friend Amanda wrote an affidavit for Shannon to take to his lawyers because it upset her so much. Great mothering skills to allow that to go on and even try to name that abusive piece of crap as her child’s caregiver, a caregiver Shannon fired for continually trying to use corporal punishment on his child against his will. I myself have been at Shannon’s for play dates and heard Jon use the threat of spankings to get Ari to do anything.
And another little point although more amusing to me, awhile back Rachel had visited my home, showed me some nude pictures of a guy she had slept with, not too respectful to him, but then went on telling me how much he adored her, too bad he was too stupid to date seriously, yet I hear they just took a little trip together. Poor John, poor wild Zero, wonder if Rachel is trying to snag another unwary Canadian into marriage..lol
Now as to money matters, I find it sadly amusing that Shannon, the creator of BME barely has enough money to pay his rent, yet Rachel is partnered in her new company that she had to sink a lot of money into to launch (how expensive is it to open a company like that in LA), not to mention the trips to Hawaii, the Rolexes for two, the Name dropping shopping trips, don’t you dare forget her Juicy couture, Prada and Fendi, and of course her brand spanking new set of boobs, don’t you wonder where that money came from. Do I smell embezzlement?
To all of you that have sat back and watched it all happen and said nothing, done nothing, shame on you. Shannon has done so much for this community as a whole, supported all of us, and created a home for many who felt different and alone. He created a family, yet many of you sit back and say nothing, afraid to be TOSed, is that the iam you remember? As sick as many of you doing nothing makes me, I am even more sickened by the ones who sold their loyalty for next to nothing, for bullshit job offers and Prada bags, you know who you are. And Phil, I am calling you out. You are a lying piece of crap. You went on record saying Shannon was skipping his shrink appointments and not taking his anti-psychotics when you know he is not on and meds and never had any appointments to miss. Yet you stick close to Rachel, being her lapdog in the hopes that she will keep you as an employee after you are finished lying on the stand for her. Are you really that stupid? I cannot wait until she throws you away like one of her dogs she gets bored with. Especially after she always told me how she didn’t trust you and never liked you. You reap what you sow kids.
Yes, I stabbed Rachel in the back, yes I helped Shannon, not because he is cool or for fucking scene points, but because he is my friend. He is a friend that has never lied to me, has always been there when needed. I can sleep well at night with what I have done, can all of you, or better yet, can you sleep well with all that you have not done?
14:30 Friday 11 Jan 08
29
that is an open letter from joan larsen aka iam: stigmata.
14:32 Friday 11 Jan 08
30
feel free to repost it wherever you see fit.
14:33 Friday 11 Jan 08
31
WELLLLL, thats a fuckin intresting letter,
thank you to stigmata for that helpfull insite, i am being presumptious now buy saying i belive that to be true, to many personal refrences in that letter not to be in my opnion,
PLEASE any one reading this, help shannon, copy and paste, thats all it takes, get it pasted onto modblogs 100 times each person, if we all do it ther gunna get pritty damn sic of trying to moderate each persons spamed letter,
so whats the worste they can do, bump you off iam, who cares, if it works and shannon gets bme back, im sure all those who where bumped will be re-enstated,
i duno,
i think fight, not butt fuck some one who provides nothing to the mods comunity!
Much love
T
12:15 Wednesday 16 Jan 08
32
Rachel Larratt now calling police on Shannon’s personal friends and supporters, trying to have them incarcerated?
False claims with police, again?
21:22 Friday 18 Jan 08
33
[…] and (2) modblog will go to sh*t like it did before. I said that I thought before in an entry on T2 I just re-published but my money says that IAM will be opened up to search engines or advertisers happy with the […]
22:40 Wednesday 14 May 08
34
I have spoken with shannon since this whole mess and as it would turn out the ownership of bme has been awarded to rachel larratt after a lengthy trial. I do not know the specifics and shannon didn’t seem to want to explain (I really can’t blame him for not wanting to talk about it)
12:29 Wednesday 25 Jun 08
35
I deleted my page (after 4 years of membership) as soon as I heard the awful news. Without Shannon, BME will undoubtedly tank.
20:02 Saturday 28 Jun 08
36
No, she just bankrupted him. She didn’t win any lengthy trial.
00:29 Sunday 29 Jun 08
37
You’re wrong.
Shannon did not lose- he allowed her to buy him out for a hefty sum to AVOID a lengthy trial. He could have won- if he were to spend a fortune on lawyer and court costs and wait two years. He definitely went the right way about things.
He wants nothing to do with her and gaining his daughter and being able to move forward is best.
13:34 Sunday 29 Jun 08