File-Sharing Place and File-Sharing Downloads Domains Allegedly Stolen by Server Host

Apparently the owner of ExtremeIS, Ryan Porter, decided to register the domains he hosted on the servers he rented out in his own name rather than in the names of the people who he rented servers to.

I was recently handed an e-mail telling me of a pretty disturbing turn of events that have occurred over at Filesharingplace.com and Filesharingdownloads.com.

Mavol, who now runs the sites filesharingplace.be, showip.be, imgboot.com, and torrentscan.com, was totally unaware of any of this wrongdoing until about a year ago it seems. He started renting 2 servers from ExtremeIS in 2003, and it was just last year when he tried to switch hosts that he discovered just what Porter had done. He had in effect hijacked Mavol’s domains for his own greedy and selfish needs and refused to relinquish control over them.

With all the paperwork apparently in Porter’s name, and Mavol being a Belgian citizen, he has been unable to remedy the situation and take back what is rightfully his. Financial constraints have only compounded the problem and made any hope of recourse a distant hope.

I had an opportunity to catch up with Mavol and get his side of the story to find out exactly what happened. What he has to say only makes me angrier at Ryan Porter’s ability to thus far get away with this, and should serve as a warning to all those out there who may also be conducting business with ExteremIS.com

The Interview

ZP: Good afternoon, my name is Jared, aka “soulxtc,” and I’m the Chief Editor here at ZeroPaid.com. I’m writing to you in regards to the recent events at your former sites filesharingplace.com and filesharingdownloads.com.

Run me through the course of events as they happened.

Your old host and ad provider ExtremeIS.com has taken full control over the filesharingplace.com and filesharingdownloads.com domains and servers?

M: Yes, that is correct. Late 2003 I started renting filesharingplace.com, filesharingdownloads.com and two servers at ExtremeIS.com. The owner of the business, Ryan Porter, registered everything in his own personal name (not his companies). I was never aware of this as the domains came with so called ‘free’ WHOIS protection. About a year or so ago I wanted to switch hosts, which led to a series of problematic events. In short: Ryan refused to transfer the domains to me and forced me to put his advertisement on the sites. This includes a popup on the KLR start page (obviously much to my disliking). Greed is what lies at the base of this.
About a week ago I was kicked out of both servers.

ZP: How was this possible and what legal recourse, if any, are you going to pursue?

M: I am a Belgian citizen, my legal options are limited and way above my budget. Furthermore, as Ryan registered the domains in his name, my legal evidence is limited.

ZP: Where was the old server based, and where have u now based the new one?

Quite ironically, the new servers are at the same datacenter, in Dallas.

ZP: Oddly enough, the site’s “About Us” reads: “File Sharing Place was formed in late 2003, domains were purchased in early 2004 and is operated by a group of dedicated individuals.” What individuals were previously involved with the site and who is now in control over it?

M: The new owner of FileSharingPlace.com put that message there recently.
I founded FileSharingPlace by myself and I have run it since then by myself (worth mentioning though is my Forum staff, without them I wouldn’t be able to manage).
FileSharingPlace.com is now in control and operated by one individual: Ryan Porter. There is no group, in fact there isn’t even a single forum moderator.

ZP: To note, you can tell the lights are on but, nobody’s home at the old site, for in the forums there’s a spam thread that’s been up since yesterday, http://filesharingplace.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=62230.

M: The forum at Filesharingplace.com is using the license I bought; this actually classifies as piracy. The company selling the forum software has already confirmed that they will be contacting FileSharingPlace.com.

ZP: To close, is there anything else you’d like to mention or discuss?

M: I just want everyone to be aware of the change of address to http://filesharingplace.be. My other sites; the ShowIP site http://showip.be, the free image hosting site http://imgboot.com and my TorrentScan http://torrentscan.com , have not been compromised so there’s no need to worry or contact me about those. http://extremeis.com is a hosting business scam, do not sign up for hosting there!!!

ZP: Sorry to hear about what happened, it’s pretty messed up and totally unethical. I plan on trying to interview the people or persons at the old site to see what they have to say as well. Either way, I’m sure that if you put as much hard work and effort into the new site as you put into the old you should have no problem getting back on your feet.

M: You may try but it’s pretty obvious what the response will be: either Ryan will claim the site simply has new management or none of above is true. Either way, the most important thing is that news about the change gets out, filesharingplace.com still has the top stop for ‘file sharing place’ in Google and is probably still in everyone’s bookmarks, this can only be a plus for the ad revenue at Filesharingplace.com (which is Ryan’s only goal of course).

Hearing Mavol’s story makes me even angrier at the fact that somebody could just steal years of somebody elses blood, sweat, and tears with seemingly little remorse or repercussions.

If any of you out there who read this can help Mavol out with advice on how to get his domains back or some other means of settling the situation, please contact myself, jared@zeropaid.com, or Mavol and let one of us know. Your help is appreciated.

In the meantime I urge all of you to no longer patronize filesharingplace.com or filesharingdownloads.com until the situation is resolved, and also to help spread the word throughout the P2P community.

File-Sharing Place and File-Sharing Downloads Domains Allegedly Stolen by Server Host

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