eBaum's World
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| File:EBaums World Screenshot.png | |
Type of site | Entertainment website |
|---|---|
| Owner | Eric Bauman |
| Created by | eBaum's World Inc |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
eBaum's World (subtitled "Media for The Masses") is a popular website based in Buffalo, New York featuring entertainment media such as videos, Flash cartoons and web games. The site, which is owned by Rochester, New York, native Eric "eBaum" Bauman ranks in the top 1000 [1] sites on the Internet according to Alexa. It is co-owned by Eric's secretary and father Neil Bauman.
Features
The site features individual celebrity soundboards, where users can click buttons to hear notable words or phrases spoken by that celebrity. By pressing certain buttons in an organized order, users can simulate the celebrities saying unusual things. In this way, the soundboards are commonly used in prank phone calls. These calls are often recorded and subsequently re-submitted to the site.
eBaum's World has a very large forum community, with thousands of members and over one million posts that often include pictures, videos, etc. There are also games and animations as well as a chatroom and a store which sells eBaum merchandise. There is also a section called "Moron Mail" which features humorous feedback sent in by users.
eBaum's World has a Daily News section that displays a new video every few hours.
Neil Bauman
Neil J. Bauman assisted his son Eric in founding eBaum's World and he is currently the is the Executive Vice President of the company. His duties include managing finances for the company. Neil Bauman's reputation became further known after initiated correspondence with Max Goldberg, owner of YTMND.com, in the days following distributed denial-of-service attacks against the eBaum's World website. Bauman's crude language, widely misperceived anti-semitism (the infamous 'Obviously you have lost possession of your Yiddish cup' remark, although note that "Yiddish cup/kup/kop/kopf" means intelligence or acumen, not yarmulke, as was widely assumed, and that the remark only makes sense if both parties are Jewish) and unprofessional conduct (such as saying "LOL" in a cease-and-desist letter and daring Goldberg to post the letters "if he had the gonads") all sparked the creation of various YTMND sites, such as a "dramatic reading" of the letters and a remix of Liam Lynch's "United States of Whatever".
Bauman appeared on the WCMF (Rochester, NY) program "Radio Free Wease" on the morning of January 11, 2006 to explain the company's stance regarding the January 7 and January 8 attacks, and later posted a message on the front of eBaum's World describing the attacks. [2] During the "invasion", the Alexa ranking of ebaumsworld.com dropped significantly [3], which may have led to a severe loss of advertising revenue in the month of January.
Controversy
eBaum's World has garnered significant controversy in many Internet communities over the years due to numerous cases of content being taken from other sites; such as YTMND, Something Awful, Albino Blacksheep, 4chan and Newgrounds; without attribution. Companies such as Viacom [4] [5], 20th Century Fox [6], and Sega have all claimed that Eric and Neil Bauman have infringed on their copyrights as well. Eric Bauman denies critics' claims that the site's content is stolen, citing research done by site editors and the consent form that must accompany uploads of material. He claims to honor all requests to remove unauthorized material [7], but this is contested by some content creators. In particular, web artist and animator Jonti Picking was only able to have his animations removed at the beginning of 2006. [8] Bauman has claimed that he formerly worked with Picking, though Picking has stated that this is false. [9] [10]
Due to the unpopularity of the website in various communities, links to eBaum's World have been filtered on various forums. In response to an "ebaumsworld.com" link being posted, users may respond by posting a link to www.ebaumsworldsucks.com. Often, this results in the original poster being flamed by other users or even banned.
A web site, eBaumsWorldSucks.com, has been set up by Newgrounds/Something Awful supporters Neil Cicierega (Lemon Demon), Shawn Vulliez (AltF4), and Abi Rendon (LegalCondom, a former eBaum's World employee) to document the ongoing eBaum's World controversy. The site hosts a page containing statements from content creators claiming that some of their works appear on eBaum's World without permission.
Timeline of controversies
- Since November 2005, several arguments between eBaum's World forum members and Something Awful forum members have occured concerning the posting of "Photoshop Phriday" images on eBaum's World without permission.
- On January 6 2006, eBaum's World hosted and watermarked a Lindsay Lohan montage created by YTMND user SpliceVW without crediting either SpliceVW or YTMND. In response, users from YTMND joined users from other internet communities, namely Something Awful, LUElinks, Newgrounds, 4chan, FARK, Ugoplayer (Flashplayer.com), Weebls-Stuff, and IGN. These groups disrupted the eBaum's World forums with spam posts and DDoS attacks. On January 10, eBaum's World alleged the attacks were a form of cyber-terrorism, and on January 11, Neil Bauman stated publicly that arrests were being made in relation to the attacks. Max Goldberg, the owner of YTMND, and Neil Bauman eventually came to an agreement, with Bauman agreeing to remove the montage from his website, and in return, for Goldberg removing any reference to "eBaum" from his website. Despite the resolution, both sites experienced DDoS attacks on the morning of January 12, 2006.
- On February 23 2006, Michael Parker, an eBaum's World representative, appeared on G4's Attack of the Show to try and clear up the recent controversy with YTMND. Kevin Pereira, co-host of the show, asked Parker explicit questions about the alleged infringing. [11] Parker claimed:
There aren't any written rules or regulations. We're trying to do our due diligence and do the things that we feel are right by not taking other people's material without crediting them or contacting them first. We try to...we contact all these people. Like if we something we like, like a game, we don't just put it on our site [sic]. We contact these people. And if you notice with all our new Flash games, we have our own intro in them, and it's done by the creators and we pay them for that.
- On May 26 2006, several images from the Something Awful forums were displayed on the eBaum's World website. [12] The images on eBaum's World were cropped to remove the Something Awful watermark. The page was removed later in the day following multiple complaints being expressed on the eBaum's World forums. As a result, Something Awful switched to a more invasive watermark template.
- On June 12 2006, Steven Lerner of Albino Blacksheep explained that eBaum's World took the animation "Animator vs. Animation," and the creator of the Flash animation, Alan Becker, would take legal action against eBaum's World. Albino Blacksheep has also threatened legal action and claims that other websites have also asserted difficulties with Eric Bauman. Lerner and Becker used the MochiBot Flash tracking tool to track who used the animation on their web sites. Lerner also explained that the Flash animation is legally protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Furthermore, when the flash was posted on eBaum's World, it had been decompiled and the line "Hosted on albinoblacksheep.com" was removed. On June 9, Bauman sent Becker a $250 check as well as entering him into a monthly "contest" (Becker was the de facto winner) in hopes of having any legal charges dropped. eBaum's World also forced him to submit a pre-scripted quote stating that none of the site's content was stolen and that Bauman had contacted him previous to his content being posted on the site. Alan accepted this proposal, and later submitted this letter of apology to the flash community of Albino Blacksheep:
Hello, I am the author of Animator vs. Animation...
I feel so ashamed, and the world is ashamed of me.
I fell into eBaum's trap. I gave them fuel to fight back.
With their constant persuasion and offers for money, they made me write a quote saying that everything was fine. Of course everything was fine for me, because I had the money they had given me. What can you expect, I was dead poor before, I have no experience with business. The quote says they contacted me before they posted my animation on their website, however I did not give them permission to put it on. [13]
- On July 9 2006, eBaum's World hosted an animation about a temporary tattoo of a dinosaur that looked dumb, originally found on Albino Blacksheep and Spinnerdisc.com. They subsequently removed the animation, and issued this apologetic statement to Drew Mokris, creator of the Flash:
Mr. Mokris,
We were recently contacted by a fan of yours in regards to the July 9th post on your website declaring that you did not give us permission to feature your flash animation. First off, I apologize for the mixup, your flash was submitted to us via our upload form (http://upload.ebaumsworld.com) and our clearance dept's initial review led us to believe it was submitted by the original author. I have removed the animation from the system, although it may take a few hours for the changes to be reflected for all users. Once again, my apologies for the mixup, and keep up the good work, we are big fans of
your animations!
- It went on to issue him a draft notice to join Eric's program for flash animators to put eBaum's World logos in all their animations.
- On July 26, 2006, tricolor of the Newgrounds BBS started a Google Bomb on eBaum's World, making eBaumsworld.com appear when you search for "thief". They haven't accomplished much currently, someone with that sems to be taking this bit down when I put it up.
eBaum's World on television
On January 24, 2006, USA Network made a deal with the Fox Television Studios to create a television program based on eBaum's World. Producers intend it to be a late-night companion special to air with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Monday Night RAW featuring clips from the website as well as new and exclusive content including interviews with former and current eBaum's World subjects. The Show is to feature former TechTV Host Martin Sargent of Unscrewed. The show is being executive produced by Simon Andreae through his production company, The Incubator, in association with Fox Television Studios. The cease and desist letters from this company were removed when this show was announced. [14]
On February 27, 2006, a researcher named Bradley Scott from eBaum's World TV show contacted the webmaster of Albino Blacksheep, asking the webmaster to sign over the site's content while refusing to admit what show it was for. The producer of eBaum's World television show finally admitted who he was but did not directly acknowledge the content that appears on eBaum's World, including Albino Blacksheep's. The webmaster recorded samples of these calls for their message boards. [15]
The show's pilot is expected to air in August 2006.
Trivia
- The website was started as a project in Bauman's junior year of high school.[citation needed]
External links
- eBaum's World - Official Website
- eBaum's World Sucks - Site critical of eBaumsWorld.com.
- Albino Blacksheep - Animator vs. Animation Controversy