Fossilman's Account Hacked?

[Greg (FossilMan)]

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Is the WPT release and the WSOP release very close in nature, as DN says it is? If so, why are you not making the same lawsuit against HET?

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The WSOP release is far from perfect. However, there is nothing in the WSOP release that says they can use your name and image for any purpose they want. While the way they word things is somewhat ambiguous, a proper interpretation would limit the WSOP to purposes related to the TV shows and promotion of the WSOP itself, but not products sold with the WSOP logo. I do not see how it is proper to judge that the WSOP could use my name and image to sell poker chips, for example. On the other hand, I cannot say the same for the WPT release. If the release were ruled to be valid, then it would likely be ruled to allow such a use by the WPT.

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I do agree with DN when he states that online affiliates will be brought into this by the WPT. It is a tactic they will use, and it may hurt the online gamming community with the state it is in right now.

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I do not see any legal basis by which the WPT can bring any online site into this lawsuit in any manner whatsoever. They will likely ask us during any depositions about the activity of our respective sites that we the Plaintiffs represent, and the answers will be that these sites have nothing to do with the lawsuit. With that being the case, I do not see any way that the judge would rule that the WPT could bring the online sites into the case as either parties or witnesses. You can't drag somebody into an existing lawsuit without some evidence that they are involved. You don't necessarily need a lot of evidence, but you must have something. In this case, there is nothing I know of that would give the WPT the standing to attack the online sites.

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I also hope this thing ends in a cival and quick way.

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I feel the same, as do my fellow Plaintiffs. We don't want to spend a lot of money, nor do we expect to make any money. We just want the WPT to do the right thing.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[greatwhite]

Post deleted by Dids

[NapHead]

Odd that in his latest videoblog rant about Raymer et al, he neglected to mention this snippet he posted yesterday:

QUOTE(DanielNegreanu @ Saturday, August 5th, 2006, 11:13 PM)

Tell Raymer to go breast feed some hungry children in Africa. Goof ball calling me out, who does he think he is, for real.


Yeah DN is a classy guy.

[disco_stu1978]

Thanks for replying to that post so quickly greg, I really appreciate it. I was really curious about that, and it always kinda stuck in the back of my mind.

I understand what you are saying about the online affiliates, and how they cannot be brought into this. It makes a lot of sense. I certainly hope it stays as far away from the online world as possible, we have enough issues as is.

So one last thing with regards to the WSOP contracts vs. the WPT contracts. The WPT has stated that they will happily acknowledge the WSOP contracts as a legitimate substitute for the current contracts they (the WPT) have in place for their own events, so isn't that enough then? If indeed the WSOP contracts are better then the current WPT contracts?

[okterrific]

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Don't let the TV cameras fool you. Raymer writes some of the most classless things from anybody in poker. [ QUOTE ]


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Does he?



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[/ QUOTE ] In fact Stars should fire his ass for what he types.
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Should they?



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[/ QUOTE ] "You're a tool and I'm a loser who has no friends. Hahaha!"

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Are ya?

[palman]

Greg, in your response re: bringing the online sites into it, you are solely thinking about whather the online sites will be brought up in the courtroom. Daniel's point is that it will be brought up in pretty much every media report about the case, and he is right. If the media was as well researched as you, there'd be no problems. Unfortunately, they are not.

Can you comment on his general point which is "anytime the words online poker and lawsuit are mentioned or written together, it is bad for poker." Because to the naked eye, this seems undeniable and something that the 7 is greatly overlooking.

[Punker]

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Look at the case for what it is, not what it might become if they win.


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That's not the point - I don't think Negreanu indicated whether he believes they can win or cannot win, and I certainly don't claim to have any knowledge of it; if Greg believes they can win, his opinion is certainly much more relevant and likely to be correct than mine.

In this case, the point Negreanu is making (that I consider at least somewhat valid) is that yes - the WPT may be forcing players to accept some exploitation, but for the overall greater good. Think of it as getting a punch in the face so that your entire family can be well off. The punch in the face itself is very bad and unfair to you, but maybe you just "take one for the team" because the end result is so good (and I don't think anyone could claim the WPT has been anything but fantastically good for the "family" of the poker world).

I guess Greg's contention (based on subsequent posts) is that what the WPT is doing is much worse than a punch in the face - it's the right to injure you however they want in perpetuity. Fair enough point. Maybe in a year the WPT is busto and they decide it's time to cash in, and now FossilCondoms with Greg's face on each one come out.

Given the people behind the WPT, I would like to believe that won't happen. However, obviously management can change later and who knows what would happen. I'd hope this could have been resolved without litigation.

If we can assume a non ligitation settlement was tried, was the problem the players not being willing to grant some reasonable use of their images/likeness for WPT promotion or the WPT saying all your likeness are already belong to us, too bad? If the later, fine, I think the lawsuit is justified. If the players are willing to do nothing, then ok, I think the WPT should fight too. I'm curious to know which it was.

[Tornado69]

Just 1 question, you said before you guys are speaking for the players ... where are the rest of the players ? Why is there only 7 of you ?

[yimyammer]

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Let's hit this one issue at a time.

Players popping into and out of empty seats:
While I don't mind this very much, most of the people I'm playing against appear to find it very annoying. Therefore, I do what I can in the chat box to try and get the offending "poppers" to stop. If that doesn't work, I email support. If somebody is acting like a tool, I don't see why it's a bad thing to call them a tool.

Reasons for the lawsuit.
The players are paying all the legal bills, and there is not a single online site that is involved in any way whatsoever. We have publicly stated, and we sincerely mean, that we will not accept any settlement that only serves our personal best interests. We will not settle unless the WPT agrees to change their deleterious and illegal practices with respect to ALL players who enter into WPT events. So, while we are doing this for ourselves, we are also doing it for all of you who do already or might in the future play in WPT events.

Validity of the lawsuit.
It is my personal opinion, as a lawyer who studied antitrust law in Law School, that the WPT is violating the law. Much more importantly, it is the opinion of our attorneys, who are the preeminent sports antitrust lawyers in the world, that the WPT is violating the law.

Daniel's actions re the lawsuit.
Daniel did not go to law school, nor even to college. He knows nothing about the law, and has never studied it. However, he is openly and continually expressing his opinions about the lawsuit to the public. He knows or should know that his doing so will tend to turn at least some of the public opinion against the plaintiffs. And he knows or should know that his legal opinion is worthless, since he has zero training or experience in the area of antitrust law. Therefore, he is either stupid for repeatedly expressing an worthless opinion, or he is acting at the request of the WPT or one of their agents. Hence, I said he is stupid or a sockpuppet. I really don't see how there is a legitimate 3rd option.

I know I sometimes express an opinion on an issue where I'm not an expert, but I pretty much always preface it with a reference to the fact that this is only my opinion, and that I'm not an expert. I have not seen Daniel do this.

So, while there are very good reasons why I should have kept my mouth shut about Daniel and just continued to ignore him, I failed to do so. However, I have no problem with what I said. For some reason Daniel has decided to attack the 7 of us who are trying to help every player in the poker world, and I find that very distasteful. As far as I know, he never came up to any of us and asked us why we were doing this. As far as I know, he immediately decided (on his own or with the prompting of the WPT) that we were wrong, and went after us. I thought Daniel was smart enough to understand that maybe he should educate himself on an issue before jumping to (and publicizing) a conclusion. Maybe I was wrong.

And to those of you who have supported me and our lawsuit in this thread, I express my thanks. As I said above, I am spending my own money, without any expectation of making a profit, let alone getting that money back, to help all of us. The only disappointment in this whole process to date has been those very few poker players who have posted here and on other forums their displeasure with us for our decision to file this lawsuit. I am sad that they don't understand how we are doing this to help them.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

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I will admit that I do not know or understand all the facts related to the issue in question.

However, I do have one general disappointment toward the main principals involved.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the people that started the WPT poker players?

I know the group suing the WPT are (correct me if I'm wrong).

Why couldn't all of you and sit down and try to arrive at a solution speaking man to man to man that is in the best interest of the game of poker for all players?

Surely all parties involved can see that poker rose out of the sewer to be the phenomenon that it is today and its very disappointing to me that all parties involved couldn't reach a compromise that is mutually beneficial without the need for any lawsuits.

Was there no way you could have sat down with Lyle & Co. and said come on bro, let’s work through this without dragging everything through the courts.

That, in my humble opinion, would have been the most beneficial for all. However, it would have required open and honest communication and empathy among all the parties, which I am quite certain you are all capable of.

It’s still not too late, so why don’t you guys have a face to face and reach a reasonable compromise so no one has to spend any more money and unnecessary, negative attention doesn’t have to be cast on a game we all love to play and watch.

[sekrah]

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The WPT is the key reason that poker has become such a big hit. We could argue that fact, but I just don't see how anyone could possibly argue that the WPT was the catalyst for the WSOP, online poker, and the huge fields we play in today.

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I stopped there. Negreanu is a fool. It could of been anybody. WPT were in the right place at the right time.

WPT didn't create any poker boom. The poker boom was there waiting to take place and would of taken place at or around the same time with Late Night Poker being a stormer overseas.


What a lousy organization.