Le Reve at Wynn Las Vegas

Roy/SAC Does NOT Automatically Mean SAC

I had once more some email back and forth with a fellow scener about my OSDM stuff, which seems to create an issue for some folks out there. I never understood what the problem is with my fun releases that I only create for the sake of them while enjoying doing it and showing it to other OSDM fans who are able and willing to appreciate it. I then throw the stuff simply out there that anybody who might be interested in it can look at it too. It’s not a secret “hobby” of mine. I am pretty open about it all the time.

I already posted about my thoughts about the issue of using a tool such as OSDM in general, the few at what coding is today and what is today different than it was 10-15 years ago. So I won’t go into that subject again right now, because I think that I understood today what the other issue is what some folks seem to have, which does not seem to be about the use of such tool as I believed it to be, but about who creates it and how it is presented.

(What Appears to Be) The (Real) Issue

It did not occur to me that people would mix my personal OSDM stuff with official SAC productions and releases, something that I also not knowingly encouraged to do.

I avoided to reference to my OSDM stuff within the official SAC content on my Website, which resides in its own section at RoySAC.com/sac and can also be accessed from SuperiorArtCreations.com.

The user always remains in the SAC section while he browses the SAC Packs and official SAC Galleries on the Site. You can tell this by looking at the top navigation on the site. Not only is the tab “Superior Art Creations” highlighted, but also the top header image is different and shows “Superior Art Creations”  instead of the typical “Roy of Superior Art Creations” that is used for all other areas of my web site. Only one page referred to the '”Art Galleries” Section instead of SAC and that was the SAC VGA Logos collection, which I changed today.

roysaccomwebsiteheadersURL to full sized version of this screen shot:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4364417256_48277e4272_o.png

Am I considering my OSDM stuff to be official SAC releases? No, I don’t, certainly not after my chat with Scour this January. In my blog post that followed that conversation, I stated explicitly that my OSDM stuff is NOT appropriate for an official SAC release. I was referring particularly to the SACtro that I prepared for the SAC Pack #36 release.

Can’t Blame

Despite all this are some people still doing the association of my OSDM stuff with official Superior Art Creations business and I cannot really blame them for doing so. They would probably realize their error, if they would take the time to look closely enough and really cared, but I cannot expect doing that from everybody out there who is involved in the scene and sees my OSDM stuff.

The problem is that I use Roy/SAC in the credits of my productions and not simply ROY without the /SAC. Using Roy/SAC is obviously enough for some people to automatically see it as an official SAC production. I am not aware that I ever used in any of my OSDM production the words “official SAC production” or “Superior Art Creations Release” all on their own without the restrictor and refinement “Roy of …” before that.

Also, an intro or demo production is typically defined by its coder(s), or at least that used to be the case. I never claimed that I programmed any of the OSDM intros/demos myself and always gave the appropriate credits to the person who deserved it, in the case of OSDM to Peace/Testaware and Epyx, who wrote the FXLib library for Pure Basic where OSDM is based on. So by this standard, my productions are more like a “Testaware Production” or an “Epyx Release” or something like that, because my parts were “only” the overall design, direction, concepts, choice of music and in many cases the pixel graphics and vector object definitions as well, plus the scripting of the demo maker to control, adjust and blend the individual effects as well as the transitions between them.

Okay, some start with a big “Roy/SAC presents” or “Roy of Superior Art Creations presents” and none with “Testaware presents” or something like that; Granted. Why not drop the /SAC from Roy and why did I use it in the first place? Good question and if you are long enough around then you will probably also already know the answer to this question.

Why, Why, Why, What, What, What?

Roy” and “SAC” became throughout the past 15+ years inseparable from another. The vast majority of my artwork bears the signature “<Roy/SAC>” or “Roy[SAC]”  or “Roy<SAC>” and since 1995 onwards my IRC handle (Internet Relay Chat, specifically the EFNet) always has been “Roy[SAC]” (which does not seem to be allowed to be used anymore, at least by the IRC servers that I used recently) and my fall-back nick-name was “Roy_SAC”. It was never ROY without the SAC. Also the domain for the web site is RoySAC.com and not Roy.com, which is more due to the fact that Roy.com is kind of unavailable and unobtainable these days. I had my shot at SAC.com in 1995 and missed it, which haunts me to this day, but that is a different story.

When got in touch with other oldskool sceners for the first time, it happened that just “Roy” only triggered thinking and digging in old memories, with some being able to make the leap and fill the missing gap themselves and others keeping thinking and thinking unable to make the jump until the needed hint is provided to them… “SAC” …. “ah yes, Roy/SAC, the ASCII artist. The NFO logos for XXX and YYY.”. Now they remember and know. Well most folks have not seen my name very often or not at all just by itself without the descriptor “/SAC”  next to it.

This was a process that took many years and I cannot change that now anymore, even if I wanted to. I did not realize that this would happen and thus were unable to do something to prevent that from happening while there was still a chance. Okay, I cannot change it anymore and won’t even start trying to so today; so what else can I do? This blog post is a start and a good place to refer to in a discussion with anybody who does create the wrong connection and assumption about whether or not something I do is an official SAC release or not.

osdmsectionhp URL to full sized version of this screen shot:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4364430236_f13268752b_o.png

Defusing Attempts

But I cannot stop there. I added also a disclaimer to the OSDM section homepage on my web site stating that none of the productions are official SAC releases. I will also add a similar disclaimer to the individual production pages. Then I will also start slowly updating descriptions of video captures of my OSDM stuff on sites like Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook. Also made a design change to the loader image that I used in virtually all of my OSDM productions since the end of last year. It looks like this and will be used for my future productions.

Roysacny2010-loading2

I also started the re-assignment of all OSDM related pages from “Art Galleries”, which is used for my personal art galleries, but also for generic art galleries with artwork by SAC as well as non-SAC members or even not by somebody from the underground art scene at all. I began assigning those to the “Roy/SAC” section (see, even there it says “Roy/SAC” instead of just “Roy”), to make it even more clear, that this is something that has to be associated with me personally and not with ”SAC” or anything else.

Conclusion

For the folks who hoped that I will abandon having fun with OSDM altogether to avoid all trouble that it causes without having much to do with it to begin with, sorry. I do not intend to do you this favor. Just ignore it, if you cannot stand seeing it. Just use the keyword “OSDM” for any filter that you are using to remove content associated with it. I am pretty sure that I use the word at least once with everything that is associated with it hehe; or you just get over it and see the stuff at what it is and not what you used to make out of it in your own head. Warning: You might even start enjoying them too! :)

I hope this post clarifies things for some and that my other done and still to do actions will also have the desired impact as well. If anybody claims a connection between my personal OSDM releases and official SAC business, point him to this post to correct his false statements.

For the folks who actually like my oldskool OSDM stuff, check out my latest and to this date best releases in my own opinion, but also in the eyes of some who have seen most of my other OSDM releases as well.

or my Cracktros:

The short-cut to most of my past OSDM releases is downloading my 2 Mega-tros intro Packs releases to-date:

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

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Roy/SAC Megatro II Intros Pack Release

I was very productive over the past few months. It was just December last year that I released my “Megatro Vol1” intros pack with 28 Oldskool Demomaker productions of mine. I learned new stuff with the tool and enhanced some of my older intros and also branched out into new territory, the creation of multi-part mini demos with OSDM rather than just simple single part intros/cracktros.

You can find a whopping 7 of such multi-part demos in my new Megatro II release. Then there are also a bunch of new intros/crack intros that I created and even a nostalgic release for the Commodore 64 classic “Giana Sisters”.

The interface was like the one for the first release programmed by myself in Pure Basic. I made a lot of changes to it and enhancements that you will hopefully notice and appreciate. Another difference to my first Megatro release is also the fact that this pack is running in “windowed mode” instead of “full screen”. The main reason for that is that some of my new productions utilize the “Skin Window” feature of OSDM, which creates a custom frame for the intro or demo to run within. I did not want to switch between full screen and windowed mode all the time in an unpredictable manner and instead decided to run all productions in windowed mode this time.

The NFO viewer within the interface was also improved. What I did not do this time, was to create a special intro just for this release. I thought that my enhancements to the interface will compensate for this shortcoming.

Here is the list of all 18 productions that I included in this release. It is total 10.6 MB in size and can be downloaded via a link from this page.

                > Download Roy/SAC Megatro II Intro Pack 2010
                  Release for 32bit & 64bit Windows XP/Vista/Win7

Production Index

Tweaked Intros (Original Version is available in previous Megatro)
01. RoySAC.com Intro #8 Lemmingshdr_osdm[1]
02. TOaO - The One and Only Cracktro #1
03. TRSI - Tristar and Red Sector Inc. Cracktro

New Intros
04. RoySAC.com Intro #16 1st 2010 (Turrican Intro)
05. RoySAC.com Intro #17 Cross
06. RoySAC.com Intro #18 Balls
07. RoySAC.com Intro #19 Starfall
08. Giana Sisters Intro
09. New Year 2010 Megademo - My Part

New Intros (continued...)
10. SACtro Intro Design
11. TOaO - The One and Only Cracktro #2

Multi-Part Demos
12. Oldskool
13. Skull and Bones
14. Smoke and Mirrors
15. Scheissfreundlich
16. Megademo
17. I Want Your Money
18. Dragon Fire

Here is a screen shot of the new interface.

megatro2scr[2]

Note: I also did not make the same mistake as last time, where I released at first the pack only with an executable for 64Bit operating systems. Users that are still running on 32 Bit Windows OS could not run it until I released another 32 bit version of the pack. This pack was compiled for 32 Bit from the start and also runs on 64 Bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

“Novus Okdo Seclorum” Release

The latest production of mine, which I just finished did not make it into the pack. It’s the biggest production of mine so far, using features that I never used before until now, such as multiple Vector Objects and 3D Balls.

It is call NEW WORLD ORDER and runs for about 4 minutes.

The video capture is not the best quality. It’s not very smooth, which is a consequence of my issues with video capturing since I upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit a few weeks ago. Some of my tools work only partially and some not at all, so I apologize for the sub-par video quality in advance already. I suggest downloading the ca. 1 MB Windows executable and run the production on your own PC.

More details and download links are available at the main page for my New World Order Demo production.

I hope you will like it. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun to make.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

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SAC Misunderstandings Cleared and Differences Settled

I drafted this blog post on January 13th already, but wanted Scour to review it first. He did not respond to my emails and I wasn’t able to catch him on IRC either. He got the text though. A chat with Barium on IRC on January 14th indicated that Scour got the draft. Communication is definitively something we need to improve on a lot, but then this post is about the lack of it anyway. :) Today is January 23, 2010 and I decided to publish the post and assume that Scours silence is to be understood as an approval of my write-up. It’s something positive after all. I was more concerned that I missed something from out long conversation, but I am now getting ahead of things. Let’s start from the beginning:

W0-SAC_HASDFFFFF Flashback

The year 2009 finished good and bad. It saw the release of the first Superior Art Creations art package in over 2.5 years, show-casing high quality art by talented artists. Unfortunately this great event was overshadowed by things that happened in the background and dragged intro the open by writing things into the release NFO file of the pack that probably should never be written. Written words can all to easy be misinterpreted entirely. I know this very well from personal experience through my blogging. The things stated in the NFO were bad, but most of it was written under false or incomplete assumptions. I wasn’t innocent either, because I also assumed things that did not happen or were not true. This chain of misunderstandings and false assumptions leads to disaster and Scour und myself did seek each other out to talk with each other before things get really bad und won’t be of any help to anybody of us.

On January 12, 2010 I installed a trial version of MIRC and connected for the first time in several years to the IRC. I think that I mentioned in other occasions already why I am avoiding IRC on purpose. It has nothing to do with the people, but the amount of time that I used to spend and for a large part wasted many years ago on EFNet. I should have pay a visit once in a while though, because this could have prevented things like the ones that just happened.

Voice Chat

Anyhow; Scour was online and I told him that a chat will not do it and probably lead to more misunderstandings. Text does not transmit emotions very well and smileys are also a poor substitute for the real deal. So we hooked up via Skype and had a very long conversation about the past, present, SAC, our life’s, the scene in general etc.

What became clear quickly was the fact that we shared the same fundamental goals and also cared deeply about the group Superior Art Creations. Once this was realized, it became clear that any petty differences that might stand between us must and can be overcome in order to accomplish our higher common goal.

False assumptions and incorrect facts also became apparent quickly and events were viewed differently by both of us, once we got all the relevant facts straight. All the false assumptions combined with a bad day and the last minute stress to rush out the release on time as promised resulted in the choice of words that were regret afterwards, but cannot be retracted unfortunately. But apologies were made, by both of us actually.

Where Communication Went Wrong Badly

we_will_be_the_bomb

When it came to the present and future of SAC, things also became clear. The assumed conflict was not there. I, Roy have neither interest nor the time to run an active art group, but are strongly interested in the preservation of it’s past and legacy. I believed that the Pack #36 was supposed to be “retro” or “remembrance” pack to celebrate the old times and allow former and retired SAC members to release the little bit of artwork that most produced over the years even though they were retired, like I did myself. The text in my intro design for the pack, using the hated OSDM attests to that. Shocking as it may sound to some, for the SAC Pack #36 that I believed it to be, using an OSDM intro to go along with it would have been perfectly fine. But SAC Pack #36 was not supposed to be a “remembrance” pack to whine after the long gone glory days of the past.

Scour worked behind the scenes (from my point of view) to revive the group entirely and actively. No reunion of old men, but the coming together of a young and motivated crowd to take SAC once more a notch higher in the scene and fight for the top position in today’s art scene. BIG DIFFERENCE! Would an OSDM intro okay under such circumstances? Heck no! Also some of my work that only reached Scour on the last day before the pack release through several detours and not directly from my email as I had assumed, would not have been appropriate of the pack that Scour had in mind. We talked about how to incorporate retro stuff in new SAC Pack releases to pay tribute to the past and also to allow retired SAC members who get requests for specific art today, namely old fashioned art that they did when they were active, to release under the SAC label und not anywhere else. Many long time members and also I were always SAC and only SAC. I don’t want or need a new group to publish once in a while the little bit of stuff that I do, when it itches me. Details how this will be accomplished are still debated, but a solution will be found, because we want to.

SAC Web Site

Since I did and are also still willing to do more work on a Superior Art Creations official web site, I will continue with those efforts and now also get some help from active SAC members. Next to the history also some new stuff could be added to such a web site where it makes sense. The location at RoySAC.com was never meant to be the “Home” for the group. I stated that already multiple times on the site itself and elsewhere. Where the home will finally be, is not decided yet, but SuperiorArtCreations.com seems to be a good and logical choice, since we have already everything in place to rebuild the SAC Homepage under this URL, domain ownership etc.

To make it more clear, although I said it already. I, Roy am not interested in running the affairs and the group today. Scour is eager to do this job and I don’t envy him, because I know how hard and time consuming this task is (not to mention “nerve wrecking” hehe).

The Outlook

We are now looking forward to work together on our joined goals. We also know how to reach each other now and I hope that we will be able to meet each other in person when Scour is able to make it to California for some other reason in February, which is next month. That would be really nice and definitely worth for me to make this trip down to the greater L.A. area to see each other face to face.

I am posting this in collaboration with Scour to make sure that nothing was missed or maybe written in a way that could be misinterpreted and cause new problems again.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC (Former Leader, Retired) and Scour/SAC (Active Leader)  - 1994-2010+

Quick Update Note by Roy:

I added SAC Art Pack #36 to the Superior Art Creations Art Packs Releases page, where you can also find a link to download the release ZIP file from a server that I control  (to make sure that the link does not go bad any day soon). Its content can like the previous pack releases be browsed online. Browse SAC Pack #36 now! I also added the new artists to make sure that they appear properly on the artists browse page. Enjoy!

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McAfee Security Center and Issues with AntiVirus Solutions in General

I am using McAfee Security Suite and are very unhappy with it. I was contacting support and also expressed my issues at their user support forums. I got responses back from other users and learned that there are currently no real solutions for the fundamental issues that I encountered.

See my McAfee Support Forum Posts:

I could not believe this and started to get really frustrated. I am looking for a long time for proper Anti virus and anti spyware solutions for my personal and professional use in my home network, but got disappointed with everything I tried so far. That the anti-virus software industry is in such a bad shape, which got only worse over the last years, I refused to believe at first. But then people contacted me privately and we exchanged some tips and experiences and it seemed that there was no other way around than facing reality.

mcafee-unsecure-logoLast years final issue of the German computer magazine CT (Magazin Computer Technik Issue 26/2009) by publisher Heise included a review of the 2010 versions of the Anti-Virus software solutions AVG Anti-Virus Professional 9.0, Bitdefender Antivirus 2010, Bullguard Internet Security 8.7, F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010, McAfee AntiVirus plus 2010, Microsoft Security Essentials, Norton AntiVirus 2010 and PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus and ThreadFire.

I am still a subscriber to the magazine (the print version), even here in California, because nothing I have seen here in English comes even close to the quality and depth of CT. It would be like comparing Notepad with MS Word or MS Paint with Adobe Photoshop. There is unfortunately no English version of the magazine, which I feel very sorry about and for you, if you don’t speak German.

The tests revealed already what I had feared, but more so did the editorial of that issue, which was about the state of Anti-Virus software, written in a narrative and funny way to cope with the actual sadness of things in this industry. It is titled “Protection for Others” and was written by Gerald Himmelein. I am posting a translation of this editorial here. The original German version can be accessed online and in PDF format from this page at the Heise.de web site. This editorial sums up my own experiences and frustrations perfectly.

ctmag Protection for Others

by Gerald Himmelein - Editorial for CT Magazin 26/2009 from December 2009

On an IT conference somebody invited me to check out the beta version of a program, accompanied by a nice female opinion researcher. Basically, i found the application okay although for me personally it lacked some features. Immediately several people came into my mind, who would get along with it pretty well.

When I said that the smile in the opinion researcher’s face briefly froze. After we were done, she explained somewhat frustrated that she was hearing this phrase over and over. At the end, the program never hit the market: nobody wanted to use it, all wanted it simply press it on to somebody.

This incident came intro my mind during the Anti-Virus Scanner tests (from page 98). For each test object I instantly knew somebody who would be a perfect fit for the solution. For some of the programs people came to mind that I did not like very much. Certain providers seem to want to punish their users for the legitimate purchase of their product.

Seen several times: The scanner locks away a harmless program without asking into the quarantine.
Just when you fought back its freedom (Do you really don't want to abort?"), the background guard hits and kicks the just restored file back into its prison cell. Even the best performance can not make up for this.

Also nice: a few scanners make a big fuss if they find the tracking cookies that were swallowed by the web browser as if they had just detected extreme dangerous malware. If one day a real threat comes along, the user probably only responds shrugging one's shoulders: Can't be so bad. Desensitization through Hysteria.

Every single or last one of the virus-protectors cares a great deal that the user will notice how super-active he is being protected because of them. Details are held back, such as the age of the virus definition. If the scanner gives an alert, he disguises the true nature of the threat with cryptic abbreviations, which remain unexplained for the most part. "Trojan" is used as generic classification, for malicious key-loggers as also for completely harmless PC-Demos.

After finishing the tests of the current generation of scanners, I remain hesitant towards the decision, on which of those "horses" I should bet on privately. Without a "condom" into the Internet isn't a solution either.

If we should bump into each other one day, you rather don't ask me which virus scanner you should use. If I am in a good mood, I will only look at you unhappy. If I am in a bad mood, I might get myself to actually make a (poor) recommendation. I might suggest to get a Mac instead.

The Editorial depicts exactly the behavior of McAfee’s AntiVirus solution, but I also used other software solutions in the past myself and encountered similar issues, just not as bad yet ad with McAfee. With McAfee several tools that I frequently use ended up in the quarantine without a white-list option.  

Still no news from McAfee. I am still completely irritated at this lack of fundamental features and could not believe that I am dealing here with the same company whose products were the first anti-virus software I knew about and used for year (1991-2000). I then used various corporate versions of other anti-virus software, including Kaspersky, through my former Employers. I got self employed in 2007 and looking for a good anti-virus/spyware solution for my personal/business home network ever since.

malware I wasted money any several solutions and stopped shopping around for the moment. I won't touch Norton Anti-Virus by Symantec unless they turned around to become as good as McAfee appears to have gone bad.

I used to be happy with Spybot S&D in combination with the old Microsoft Defender (while it was still in beta and not a "full product package"), but both of those products turned sour a couple years ago.

I had Avira, which sucked. The default settings of their full protection suite basically removed the machine from the network, including the home network, not to mention the internet and impossible to configure properly, even for somebody who actually knows more about computers than the average user. It also sucked the life out of the machine while it was running in the background.

PC Tools Anti Spyware + Anti Virus was okay and did not eat up too much resources. You could also exclude stuff, like video files (based on extensions) or even specific files by path and file name.

However, I don't trust it to be as up to date as it could and should be. It can also be rendered disabled by an attacker too easily. I experienced this first hand, when I literally saw how a Trojan infected the machine and finished it off in no-time. It saw the attack, wasn't able to block it. Claimed that it caught and removed it and then kept silence ever after, even when I knew that the machine was not cleaned properly. Super Antispyware together with Spybot S&D and some help finished it off eventually.

I still use Super Antispyware (free Version) as a once in a while full system scanner/double checker, but don't use the real-time protection of it.

LavaSoft Pro used to be the king of the Anti-Spyware/AdWare removers and blockers, but their once slim and efficient shareware tool also turned big-business and that was the end of it.

Who is left to check? Sophos? Trend Micro and Kaspersky I guess. Kaspersky has a good reputation, but I have not checked out their offers yet. I have seen too much good turn bad that I am reluctant to waste time and money once more on things that have little to do with what I do to make a living (using a computer).

Poorly designed user interfaces that are hard to use, too little transparency and information given to the user to be able to make a conscious and educated decision, combined with varying results regarding detecting threats that miss as much real threats entirely as they have false positives. Things went from bad to worse with little improvements by some providers in a few areas, but too little. In the article with the tests itself, CT also could not make a honest recommendation for any product that they tested (so the joking in the Editorial was not a joke after all). Finding the right combination is currently the only way to go at the moment; nothing easy to do.   

Things got harder for the protection and scanner tools, certainly. They know that they are currently losing a war, so they should be a bit more helpful with providing users with as much and specific information, options and suggestions and also tools that the user himself can make the final calls at the end of the day. They go into the complete opposite direction instead and play the "risk management" game by numbers and odds calculated against the cost of development versus possible loss in revenue. I don't gamble and don't want to gamble.

I am always open to hear new ideas, recommendations and options, if you have any, let me know in the comments below. I’d appreciate it.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Note on the Side: I uninstalled McAfee from my computer a few days ago, because I had it with them. I had it more OFF than on to prevent that it quarantines programs that are not infected that I happen to use every now and then. It didn’t learn to do better and I also could not white list. Add to that all the other short-comings and it became clear that one had to go.

Well,  McAfee does not help me to do my work and earn a living, but some of the tools it removed from my HD do. I reinstalled PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus for the time being. My subscription there is still good for another 2 1/2 months. But I am not really happy with them either, but it is better than using nothing at all :(.

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A Tale About A Group Called Superior Art Creations

The recent unfortunate events surrounding SAC were not only a surprise for me and a disappointment, but also caused me to stand back for a little and reflect on what happened over the past 16 years when a friend of mine and me started the group 16+ years ago. I did not plan to write as much in detail about stuff as I ended up eventually, but what is new? Hehe. Yes, this tale is written in a personal narrative and describes things the way I experienced them and remember today. This means that it is probably full of errors and bias’ that I might or might not was aware of.

I already wrote about how I got started with creating art. You can read all about it here.

How it Started

I co-founded SAC in December 1994 together with Hetero, whom I had just met in person for the first time a couple weeks earlier. I discussed with him the lack of a German art group and also the lack of an art group that has closer ties to the Warez scene. At that time the requests that I received just for NFO file logos and designs increased significantly. Instead of sitting around and just whining about those facts, we decided to start something. He and I knew some other local artists who were “independent” at the time. We asked them if they would join a local art group and that’s how it all started. The name for the group was my idea. I wanted a name that can be abbreviated to 3 letters that also sound cool. 3 Letters, because of the possible use as a file extension (EG. ICE used to do it for their ANSIS)

 


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Members of the First Hour, First Pack


The first members were Toxic Trancer, a musician, Dream Design, a gifted pixel artist active primarily on the Commodore Amiga for a group called Remedy at the time, Kaethe, a local female ANSI artist and Wife of the sysop of a local pirate board called “Mystery”, Hetero as Coder and ASCII/ANSI/Pixel Artist and me, as ANSI/ASCII/VGA Artist and Sysop of the World HQ for the group. I had started my own BBS in Spring that year.

Almost the entire crew planned to go together to The Party 1994 demo party in Herning, Denmark, so we thought that this is a good place and time to  release our very first art pack and introduce us to the world.

It was clear pretty early on that I was taking on the main responsibilities for managing the group. This made not just sense, because I also happened to run the WHQ of the group, but also because I seemed to have the required skills for this kind of job, which I performed for other groups beyond SAC also throughout my active scene years.

What SAC Was Not


We did not want to be German or European answer to the major US art groups like ACiD, iCE and the countless others which emulated the leading groups pretty much. We were focused on the pirate scene, which means that our recruitment efforts happened naturally among folks who were also active in Warez release groups. We also did not want to pressure ourselves to crank out an art pack release every month. We did not intend to compete with all those other groups. However, without some plan or goals, you won’t get anything done. So we decided to release quarterly packs with a fix release date, to have always the next goal in sight, but at the same time don’t pressure any of us too much to produce stuff for the packs. It should be possible for anybody who is even only somewhat active to get something done within 3 months, right? That was the thought.

Artists were working pretty much independent and took requests by themselves and also decided if they want to take a job or not. Only some projects required closer collaboration between multiple members, such as crack intro productions for the various release groups where somebody of us was a member of or had some buddies who called in a favor. There were attempts to establish some sort of centralized “requests” taking and distribution system that passes down art requests to available artists with the required skills, but they never went anywhere.

Global Expansion


SAC remained a relative democratic structured group that provided an outlet for pirate sceners with artistic talents to publish and promote their art work produced. This was especially beneficial for young and still unknown artists as an efficient method to get their name out. With the increasing popularity and fame of SAC as an art group in its own right, applications increased. Even more so once we did the jump into the internet and opened the #SAC IRC channel on the EFNet. The move into the Internet also transformed the group from a mainly local group with its largest member base in Berlin, Germany with some artists here and there in Germany to become a truly international group. The artwork produced before that was already international, but the members in the group itself were not.

Dealing with Applications to Join the Group


In the past most SAC members became part of the group, because somebody in the group noticed them and their work and asked them, if they would like to join. Nobody was doing this all on his own of course. Typically mails were sent on my BBS to the other members and sample artwork was uploaded to show the rest of the clique what they think. That was not a problem while we were only a few guys. It became one, when the group suddenly expanded quickly and at the same time applications of artists seeking us out exploded.

Not every new member was really that much interested in things like thinking about another artist and if he would be a good fit for the group. So decisions about some applications were not made for a long time, because we were waiting for the opinion of several l SAC members about a particular artist, which they never expressed. So a voting system was establish, where every member in SAC was able to cast his vote, his YAH or NAY to any artist application, if the member chooses to make use of this right. If nobody voted for a new applicant for some weeks anymore, the polls were closed and counted. Every vote counted equal, including mine and Hetero’s.

This system also became increasingly difficult, because it required members to call my BBS in Berlin frequently or some member had to try to catch a member of the group on IRC and send him the latest applications to cast votes. Blue Boxing and Calling Cards were pretty much dead and long distance calls by members to the WHQ an unacceptable burden. And with all things that grow bigger beyond a certain point, keeping everybody together becomes also impossible. It also becomes the time when parasites take advantage of the group, trying to join making promises and coming up with grandiose ideas, but never actually doing something, including not producing any art work. For the first time members had to be kicked out of the group, rather than leave it, almost always because the member left the scene or got into other projects that SAC wasn’t able to support at the time (e.g. Some of the musicians left to produce “real music” when MP3s just appeared but not wide spread and okay to include in an art package. Any pack over 2 MB was considered “large” back then.

Membership Levels in a Democracy?!


It became somewhat the rule that somebody who wants to explore other things for any reason, knowing that he cannot contribute to the group with it at the same time, would come forward and “retire'” from the active membership in SAC. Nobody saw any benefit of having a bloated up membership list, if only a fraction of those members would actually be represented by at least one piece of art in SAC pack release every quarter. Several of the members who retired, decided one day that they want to become active again and joined the group with full member status restored. I do not remember any case where somebody was rejected who retired himself from the group previously. To deal with those flaky kind of members who joined and then stopped doing anything without retiring on their own, something had to be done. The answer was to introduce some sort of hierarchy to the group, which was not a chain of command like hierarchy, but a way to express seniority and amount of contribution to the group. New members joined as “trial members”. After a pack or two, the trial was over, if the artist contributed to the art packs during this time. After even longer active membership, the status changed to “senior member”. Trial members saw a much larger fluctuation and were in many cases also just the type of members that were kicked out versus left by themselves.

The Scene Changed


At the end of 1997 things changed. The Internet changed the scene a lot, for the better and unfortunately also for the worse. A lot of idiots and jerks seemed to got access to what used to be a relatively small and easy to keep track of bunch of folks who were bound by common motivations, interests and goals and for the most part also similar ethics and universally accepted rules of conduct.

I was not so happy anymore and did not like the direction where things seemed to be heading at that time. Towards the end of 1997 and beginning of 1998, I started to quit member and even leader ship and senior positions in various release groups, some of which I helped founding and growing myself. I left Dynasty, Backlash and Razor 1911. I still continued with SAC and also Peanuts (the former SAC PPE section), focusing more on the demo scene and the development of free tools for other sysops. A slow retreat from the pirate scene was underway and plans were made to move my pirate BBS from the underground to the light of day. I had already purchased licenses for the BBS software months earlier when suddenly in 1997, the Berlin State Police raided my place and I got busted. I was trying to find the paperwork from this, but it must be buried somewhere and I don’t remember when exactly the bust happened. Sorry. I will update this post when I figure it out. I wrote about the experience of the bust itself on my web site, if you would like to learn more about it.

I got eventually fined in 1998, but already got my personal PC back since it had virtually no pirated software on it and was also not used for the BBS, which was the reason for my bust. Since I already bought a new PC shortly after my other ones were seized, I had two computers again, also ISDN cards and a modem, licensed BBS software and OS/2 Warp operating system to re-launch my BBS now as public demo scene board right from the get go. But it was already late 1998. I was drafted into the German army in January 1998, out of  a full paid job, on only of a fraction of my jobs income and not covering any of my expenses to run the BBS. Every day I was in the army to serve my mandatory military service, I lost money. At the same time callers dried up for any BBS anywhere in the world. The Internet had already won, even if some sysops did not want it to be true and tried hard to keep their BBS alive. I shut it down one day and cannot even remember on what day that actually happened.

Meanwhile I was fighting a “cold war” with the German Army. I also got my court appointment because of my BBS while I was in the army. I got a fine and the BBS hardware that the police seized was kept as punishment for what I did. It wasn’t illegal when I started with this stuff, became somewhat not okay, but ignored later, to become illegal eventually with the BSA and other entities trying to fight back and make examples of as many of the pirates as they could. German laws shielded me from this at that time, fortunately. The court noticed the complete lack of selfish and financial motives for what I was doing and decided that it would not be of the states interest to make me to a criminal with all its far reaching consequences. I ended up with the equivalent of a very expensive speeding ticket and community work in form of a monetary donation to a charity of my own choosing.

This also meant that the software companies could not come after me because of it. Something that some of my American buddies were not so lucky with, unfortunately.

I was working after I finished military service for a couple months as a business consultant in a different city and living in hotels 5 out of 7 days of the week. I knew already when I started with this project that I would leave the company and Germany altogether when my current assignment will be over. I made that a condition for taking the offer of the foreign company, that I will not abandon a limited term project where it would be very hard to replace me, if I just leave them behind. In March 1999 the project was done and I flew in April 1999, one day after my 25th birthday to Switzerland.

On the Road


There I lived only for a year. I knew that from the start, because the position they hired me originally for was in the United States. The time in Switzerland was primarily for the company to test me and to check if I am the right guy for the job and also gave them time to get the required work visa for me to move to the United States. The main office in Switzerland was in St. Gallen. I only rented a studio there, nothing big and put most of my stuff that I did not want and could take to Switzerland into storage in Germany. I also ended up living 5 days out of 7 in a hotel at the other end of Switzerland in Basel to work on a lucrative assignment for the Pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann La Roche. It became increasingly hard for me to do any serious management of Superior Art Creations. That things did not work too well is clearly visible at the release dates of SAC packs at the time. The quarterly release date was missed ever more frequent.

Organizing and “Leading” a group is a lot of work. More work than most folks can imagine. Anybody who tried it will agree with me on this one. It is funny, I always got the feeling as if nothing would get done if it would not be for a few stupid idiots who try to get their buddies on track with a goal and focused, holding their hands, yell or grow gray hair until the next goal was finally reached, just to be replaced by the next one (e.g. next release). Taking on responsibilities on their own, planning and focusing on something specific, short term, but part of a larger picture, seems to be a trait that the majority of people apparently lack.  

Handing Over Responsibility for the Group


I decided to do the only right thing that I could think of, which was handling over responsibility to somebody else. I did that while I was in Switzerland. The person I chose was Ferrex. I remained in the NFO file for a bit longer and also contributed to a pack with a few things once in a while. But in 2001 I asked to be removed from the active member list and officially retire. I had moved to the United States a year earlier. My company was in the Internet Business and we know what happened in 2001, starting already at the end of 2000. The DOT.COM crash of course. I was mentally prepared to pack up again to return to Germany because of another round of lay-offs that shock many businesses in the industry, including the company I worked for via a work-visa bound to my employment contract with this company.

The company had to think fast and act even faster to change focus and strategy in order to survive.

A Lot of Changes With Lasting Impact


The few people left to do the work had to put in over time, a lot. I learned a lot during this time, which also lead to me becoming self employed in 2007, leaving my former visa and green card sponsor in good terms, still maintaining personal contacts with its owners and management. The company is doing good today, which is good. I also got the time to do something else for myself again and was for the first time thinking about the old days of bulletin boards and text art again. windows 95 was replaced by Windows 98, which were both pretty much compatible still with the old fashioned MS DOS operating system. By the time I looked back again, Windows 2000 came and went and Windows XP and Windows 2003 Servers were the OS that dominated the PC market. Many of the old stuff did not even run on the machines anymore. MS DOS was virtually gone with some fragments of it left here and there. At was at this time when I started to worry about the legacy of SAC and my own work as ASCII/ANSI artist. Displaying an ANSI required already special software that did not come with the OS anymore.

Here are some posts and comments from the Time before I became involved with SAC again, starting with nice story that describes how the old stuff (scene, BBS, ANSI art) was ultimately responsible for other things that became relevant for my life, but had nothing to do with my scene past per se.

Feb, 11 2006 - How things happen such as this Blog

Launch of RoySAC.com


The old version of Cumbrowski.com had multiple subjects and content for each of those subjects grew, the family part, the professional part and the oldskool scene part. So I decided in 2006 to create three web sites out of the one to keep things separated. The result was the move from Cumbrowski.com to its own domain, just for the old scene stuff.  May 21, 2006 - Site Cleanup and Re-Structure and a New Site launch
Aug 19, 2006 Move to RoySAC.com - Official Re-Launch of RoySAC.com


Meanwhile


I had contact with “Idiana” (the girlfriend of Ferrex, not an active artist, but keeping things together and do Ferrex job) and was able to gather some more information. I even had a Wiki up for a short period of time to gather more information, but I remained the only contributor despite the promises that were made by others
to do something as well.

May 2007 - I got contacted by “Xeek” regarding the domain “SuperiorArtCreations.com”, which was just about to expire. Transferred the domain. He also sent me a ZIP with some Site Layout Ideas in a early stage

Expansion of SAC Section at RoySAC.com Began


To see how things progressed, check out the Web Archive (Unfortunately it only has data  since 11-2007, but you can see the difference between the site in November compared to the expanded version a month later.

Aug 01, 2007 - Major Site Expansion and New SAC Section with Art Packs Page
Aug 31, 2007 - Welcome to the ASCII Art Videos

I started Capturing SAC Cracktros and Intros and made them available on YouTube mainly and some also at other video sharing web sites. I created a special account on YouTube called “sacreleases”. The account started out with SAC related content only, but was then expanded, since I only made little progress on the few remaining SAC productions that I was unable to capture on video.

I created special play lists for the SAC stuff though, to keep it separate from the other videos


Oct 15, 2007 - It Was Time Again For A Clean-Up


Dec 3, 2007 - Web Archive After Phase 1 - SAC Updates and Site Content Additions

Getting the SAC Pack Content Online


Major Work began in December 2008. Multiple Posts 12-2008 and 01-2009

Dec 29, 2008 - Interesting SAC Art Packs Statistics, Figures and Downloads
Dec 39, 2008 - Interesting SAC Art Packs Statistics, Figures and Downloads - Part II
Jan 18, 2009 - First ASCII Art Piece of Mine in Ages

Before I had the stuff up on my website I already put up many of it on sites like Flickr, YouTube and others.
I did that with stuff that I processed throughout the year. I created Flickr Sets with converted ANSI/ASCII and VGA art from the packs as early as January 2009. I also uploaded converted content to my file share account at Mediafire.com where people could download the content in packages and collection format.

My Flickr.com Collection for SAC artwork

Side Project - The SAC All Time Member List. Decision Made to post what I had so far publicly in the hope that SAC members would respond and provide info on outstanding and open questions. I maintained the list via Google Docs and Spreadsheets  and even gave several SAC members with whom I was able to get in touch with access to the document for collaborative editing. Nobody ever did a single edit.

Apr 27, 2009 - The SAC – Superior Art Creations All-Time Member List Project Update

Almost One Year of Work Bears Finally Fruits


1. Begin Oct 2009, Cracktro Browse
    Oct 2, 2009 - SAC Crack Intros and BBS’tros Collection Finally Live on RoySAC.com

2. End Oct 2009 SAC Pack Browse (Some Long Weekends for the last stretch and get the packs finally up)
    Oct 15, 2009 - SAC Art Packs Now Accessible Via Web Browser Online

Final Words


I knew that a SAC channel was kept up on IRC and also spend a little bit time there now and then. Never for extended periods of time, because I wasted too much time on IRC already in the many years before. There was not much going on there, but somebody was always there, not a SAC member but somebody who was not a bot. That's also the reason why I referred people time and again to the channel and also others like #ACID to try to find an active artist who is willing to take requests for artwork.

At the same time, i made myself accessible and reachable. A simple search in any of the major search engines for “Superior Art Creations”, “Roy/SAC” or even “ANSI Art” would have lead anybody who was looking for me or information about SAC right here and to all the stuff that I did over the years. I expanded my outreach beyond the steadily growing web site here at RoySAC.com even further with creating a MySpace page for Roy and a MySpace group dedicated to ANSI Art. I started a text art group on Google Groups, started a Facebook group for Superior Art Creations, a YouTube channel, Flickr collection and sets, Picasa Albums. I updated content at Pouet and made content available for backup at my file share account at Mediafire.com and on my web site.

The only place where I did not publish was on Warez FTP Servers and on IRC. While the FTP option was a problem due to the lack of access, it had just like IRC one major flaw, it only lasts for a very short period of time and is  then gone for ever into oblivion and camping out there like a bum was out of the question, but I did not feel it necessary. Even the most reactionary scener from the old days could not forever ignore the developments and changes around him and stuck to only use the Internet Services FTP, IRC and EMAIL, ignoring the WEB entirely. One search in Google and everything would be right in their face. What they decide to do with it is a quite different story, but ignoring it was virtually impossible.

Whenever I encountered another former SAC member at any of those places or got contacted via my email address at GMX.DE, which was my scener email address since 1995 already and was continuously working with only a couple months interruption in 2009, I pointed to what I did and what I wanted to do, asking for their help and opinions. I also noted contact information in the non-public version of the SAC member list. Emails, Web Sites, Facebook Profiles, Phone Numbers, Real Names etc. Nothing happened suddenly and certainly not secretly either. At stake was the legacy of a group that I helped founding and growing for 7 years and a scene I was part of for 9 years of my life. I could not allow this to slip away into the darkness and become lost forever. I was not just talking about doing something, but went ahead and did it. How good of a job I did might be debatable, but out of the question should be the fact that doing something is indefinitely better than doing nothing at all.

During all this time I stated over and over again, that I consider the stuff I did for SAC on the Web to be only “preliminary” until a better solution is found, involving other SAC members to build a final and official legacy for the group together. It’s not about me, it’s about us. SAC is a result of a joint effort by over 100 individuals over a period of more than a decade of work and dedication and only another joined effort can secure the legacy of it eventually. I hope my efforts contribute to this effort, but they should not be the end of it.

I appreciate the work of others who are driven by very similar motives like Lord Scarlet of Sixteen Colors, Ben Garret of Defacto2.net, Jason Scott of Textfiles.com (and director of the BBS Documentary DVD), RaD Man of ACiD (Dark Domain DVD and public speaker about the subject), the folks at Blocktronics and the many others like them or supporting those efforts. See my links section for more scene preservation efforts and more.

I will continue with my efforts regardless of what happened and hope that others will also start helping to preserve a legacy that became part of the history for all of us and should be worth remembering, even after our deaths long time in the future.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC in 2010

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YouTube Account CirqueDuSoleilGuru Suspended

 

ObituaryNoteCDSGuru
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Obituary Note for YouTube’s “CirqueDuSoleilGuru

Born: July 2008, Died: December 18, 2009

200+ Videos, Total video views: 3,244,071, Total ratings 5,240, Total comments posted to videos by users: 3,152, Almost 2,000 subscribers and hundreds of friends.

CirqueDuSoleilGuru (aka YouTube.com/CirqueDuSoleilGuru) was a well respected and loved member of the YouTube community, not only because of the valuable content that he provided, but also because of his support and engagement beyond YouTube and the videos in the cause to support and promote the works of Cirque du Soleil. But the content was one important factor also. The average rating of all the videos uploaded to the account was a whopping “4.46” out of “5”. The sudden death was not only tragic, but also unexpected.  What’s now lost also with the death of CirqueDuSoleilGuru, represents hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work by me and other YouTube community members. All of which was destroyed and killed in cold blooded murder because of corporate greed, ignorance and disrespect of the average people, like me and you.


The YouTube Publisher Account (Type: Guru) “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” was suspended on December 18, 2009 by Google without notice or stating any reasons for taking such dramatic actions.

Two users and former subscribers to my channel already contacted me via other communication channels, like another YouTube account of mine or via private email and asked me what happened and how unhappy they are about this happening.

I honestly don't know what happened and why they suspended my YouTube account. I can only make wild speculations, but that is beyond the point.

What makes me mad is the fact that the account was in good standing, no warnings, had almost 2000 subscribers, 3.2 Mio video views, over 3,000 video comments and close to 300 videos and gets suspended without giving any reason or anything. No email, nothing. Support generally does ignore things like that. I know that from past experience, which made me a lot more careful, without success obviously.

It could be something that happened recently or something that happened months or longer ago. You simply don't know. Considering the status and activity (content) of the account, you would expect that they would at least tell you what the problem is that you get at least a chance to do something about it. Nope, hundreds of hours of my time and time of YouTube's users who commented on my videos gone. Not even worth a single email to them to let me know. The last email that I got was about a new subscriber to the channel.

The last Email that I sent to YouTube just a few days before my account was suspended was an alert to make them aware of a scam that was abusing their system to trick users into installing some malware on their computers. This was happening on December 14, 2009. I also blogged about that at my personal blog. Well, you can  see how grateful they are and how much they appreciate their users and how much they value the time that their users spend on producing and publishing videos on their web site.

Moving Forward

I have 3 other YouTube accounts, one has even more videos that my Cirque du Soleil channel had (but much less viewers and subscribers). I don't know if I will start a new Cirque related channel on YouTube. The videos are still up on my File-share for download. Many are also available on other Video sharing sites. I have not yet decided what to do. I am also thinking about not to do much with video sharing sites directly anymore, but host the videos myself on Amazon S3 and put them on a new web site that I would have to create for this stuff. Video sharing sites would then only be used to promote that new site (teasers etc.) and not depend on them for the actual content distribution that much anymore.

It would take a lot of time and eventually money as well. Things I don't have plenty of at the moment. To take the time, I would need to monetize it early on to cover my expenses and pay at least for some of my time. I know quite a bit about this kind of stuff and thus know that it is not so easy in this particular niche.

Regardless of this blog post, I have little hope that it will be resolved in a positive way, because YouTube/Google simply gives a crap about you. The traditional media outlet dinosaurs care even less about anything but how they can milk the consumer cow for hard cash as much as possible. With them is any discussion about the value of content and alternative options to come to terms with them a waste of time for everybody involved. For them is content, media and art nothing more (or less) than a bag of wheat, a commodity with a price label attached to it.

Appealing to their responsibilities in society falls on dumb ears, because they are not in business to do anything good for society, but to maximize profits for their share holders and for themselves.

I just watched yesterday a video about the history of YouTube (on YouTube) and had to laugh when they talked about the value and importance of "community" and the users who are active in it. Well, the video was not created by YouTube themselves, but some students. They obviously did not know better.

The thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that I finished 10 or so videos, branded with "YouTube's CirqueDuSoleilGuru" that I wanted to upload when I learned that my account was suspended. A "nice" Christmas present.

You could try to help and contact YouTube to ask them about my account as a caring and appreciative user, who liked the content of my channel. I have no idea, if that might trigger that they take a second look at it, but it is not hard to do, does not take too much of your time and who knows, might works. You are now the second user who contacted me because of that. Maybe others will start wondering too and could join in too. You don't have to do it of course, but I'd appreciate it really.

Doing What I Dared to Do

PS. I just used YouTube’s web form to request more information about the account suspension, which I also just found out about today, but have little hope to get anything back from there that would help in this situation, if I hear back anything from YouTube at all. So far YouTube/Google tends to follow the strategy of complete silence and ignorance when it is about unpleasant things they don’t want to cope with.

I did not want to speculate about why the account was suspended, but I found this post in Google Groups, which is interesting and says it all. There somebody stated it cold and clear that YouTube has the right to suspend any account at any time for any reason without any notice and that you are at their mercy from the moment when you created your YouTube account and agreed to their terms of services while doing so.

It also states that a typical reason for an account suspension is their “3-Strikes” rule, where a strike is ONE video where somebody complained about and it was removed without you fighting against it on the legal battlefront.

I had more than 3 movies that were removed from the account over the months and I stopped arguing with them in those cases, if there could be the possibility that the fair-use clause does apply. I did not involve a lawyer, heck no. I did all this stuff in my spare time as a hobby and to support Cirque du Soleil and the artists and not for profit. In some cases YouTube simply slammed additional ads over the video and shared the revenue from those ads with the alleged owner (or partial owner) of the content.

I also got contacted by companies and individuals about the content of some videos. A few even were unhappy at first, but then realized that what I was doing was not to do them any bad, but the exact opposite. Anger tended to turn into appreciation and acknowledgement of the work that I had done for them without them asking or compensating me.

Also Cirque officials contacted me through YouTube to send me information etc. in the hope that I would help them with the voluntary promotion of their stuff, if I liked it. This said, I doubt that Cirque du Soleil had any hand in this issue. You might would think otherwise, considering that the vast majority of the content at my CIrqueDuSoleilGuru channel was about or from Cirque du Soleil itself.

It’s all such a pain and waste.

Regards,

Carsten aka Roy/SAC aka Ex-CirqueDuSoleilGuru

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Roy OSDM Megatro Intros Pack 2009 Release

I created a bunch of Intros via the OSDM – Oldskool Demomaker by Peace of Testaware, which is based on the FX Lib for Pure Basic by Epyx. You can enjoy and even download every individual production that I did in my OSDM section of the site, but that can get very tedious. 

So I decided to release a pack with most of my intros that I created in the year 2009, where you get them all at once in a single package. I wanted to use the “Megademo” tool that comes with OSDM by default, which works, but had some short-comings that I was not happy with. All intros were executed in the same resolution in Full Screen and in the order that I specified. You cannot jump to a specific one, worse, you have to jump through all of them first in order to be able to exit the collection. With 28 intros in my collection, that was not an option.

My First Pure Basic Program

So I programmed something myself, using Pure Basic. Details and links to download my Megatro 2009 here.

It is nothing fancy, but it shows a logo, plays some tracker music by DAC/SAC in the background and lets you select, which intro you would like to watch via cursor keys in an interactive menu. I also included a NFO viewer for my release NFO file, which I plan to extend on.

The Menu stays active when you select an Intro to run, but the menu music is stopped. Once you exit an intro via pressing the ESC key, you are taken back to my menu where you left off. Press ESC once more or select “Quit” via your cursor keys and it exists the menu as well.

It was my very first program written in Pure Basic so please forgive me, if it has any bugs and may not work properly on every Windows computer.

Screen Shot of the Megatro 2009 Menu

Roy-Megatro2009-menuscr

As an extra bonus I created a special intro just for this release, which I hope you will like too. Here is the video capture of this special intro.

Not Included

Not included are two versions of the first ROoRS cracktro that I created in Spring 2009. I have video captures of those and also executables to download, but the problem is that those intros, compiled with an older version of OSDM cannot be exited via ESC key or any other key or mouse click at all. It must be terminated via Task Manager what sucks. I also cannot recompile the intros with the current version of OSDM anymore, because they are using the Vector Direct effect, which does not work for me under Windows Vista nor Windows 7 64bit. Also missing is one older version of my first Roy/SAC intro. There I have the same problem as with the ROoRS intros.

I thought that I won’t make any more intros this year, but I was wrong. I created already 2 more intros this year, which were finished after I released my Megatro 2009 pack. One intro is the RoySAC.com Intro called “Starfall” and the other is the TOaO – The One and Only Cracktro Version 2.

OSDM Section Revamp and OSDM Resources

I also revamped the OSDM Section of my site where I showcase all my creations. It used to be one page only, which grew and grew and probably started to cause some problems to load for some due to the massive amount of embed video players on a single page. The section now has a homepage with general information and individual sub-pages for each production. Jumping from one production to the next is easy via the menu navigation tree, which is on every page hidden by default (except for the homepage)  and made visible via a click on a button when needed.

I also added a resources section that is useful for anybody who already uses the Oldskool Demomaker himself or plans on using it. You can find there links to collections of fonts, logos, music and more, which are great raw material for your very own OSDM production.

Enjoy the Show and Have a happy new Year

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

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Malware Threat Warning! Scam via Online Video!

This is not a prank! I Just stumbled across this when videos by the YouTube user  Kaleigh421112Trang suddenly showed up in my subscriptions (based on Keywords) for my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account.

I made the URLs that are not hyperlinked this way on purpose, to prevent any accidental harm to the readers. You can copy and paste the URLs into your browsers address bar, if you know what you are doing at your own risk. Don’t say that I did not warn you!

The user account in question was just created on 12/13/2009

By now this user has already 190 virtually identical videos uploaded that don't show much, except a message that the video cannot be watched on YouTube due to length limitation. See description for link to full video. etc. Here is a screen shot of it.

YouTubeScam01

E.g. Circus Circus Part 1/13 Online*:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5kYgqUX0rE

*This video was actually already taken down by YouTube, maybe because I flagged it as Spam from an established YouTube account with almost 2000 subscribers. But most of the other videos are still up as I am writing this. For example this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJj-PkdLqac  (which I also reported so it is probably being removed shortly as well)

YouTubeScam05

The videos that are still up all include a short description and a obscured link with tracking code embed via the redirection service TinyURL.com. In the example video that I mentioned before and reported to YouTube already the URL was: http://tinyurl.com/ycksuwy&499420166

Here Comes The Scammy Part

That URL redirects to: http://www.onlinemoviedb.info/watch.php?vid=Dreaming_in_Circus

The page states that a plug-in must be downloaded to watch the video. It includes multiple links where you are supposed to download the needed plug-in from, such as this one (Warning! Do not Download and Execute)!

http://preview.licenseacquisition.org/48/1056428137.51143/vlc-1.0.1-win32.exe

The referred to EXE “vlcsetup.exe” is 328,984 bytes in size. The file name is implying that the plug-in is related to the freeware VideoLan Video Player, what it is not.

YouTubeScam02

I downloaded the executable without starting it. I then scanned it with McAfee Viruscan, which did not detect anything yet. So I uploaded it to VirusTotal.com, an online on-demand virus and malware scanner, which scans files using over 50 different scanners such as McAfee, F-Secure, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Panda, PC-Tools, Sophos, TrendMicro and others.

I wasn’t the first one who checked the file obviously, because a report was already available*, which gives it a 37% probability that it is infected. It is probably new and I bet the probability will increase as I write this (as do the uploads of virtually identical videos with the same purpose to YouTube).

Here is the link to the report from VirusTotal.com.

 

* VirusTotal.com knows that it is the same file as somebody else already submit based on the file size and file name, because that could be faked easily. It uses so called checksums that are generated from the entire content of the file. The Checksums for this file are for example:

MD5   : bead2d46d08ff080ac4a6d0908922230
SHA1  : 0697fe4257419efc39921c9da71c8339cde3f463
SHA256: 6e62e219e38c90562a59851b72f2929000b599a6ddd0f2482c7b1acda0a8ce9d

More Hints and Scale of the Problem

YouTubeScam04Here are more accounts on YouTube. Just to name a few (Each with hundreds of videos each):

http://www.youtube.com/user/Moon230377Arletta
http://www.youtube.com/user/Dirk891479Pasty
http://www.youtube.com/user/Kathy664276Dominica

There are most certainly a lot more, but they should be easily be detected. Look for new users that have hundred+ videos of 9:58 minutes length and a TinyURL.com link in the video description.

All of those Users always have video listing disabled (does not show anything on the user’s home page)

The target website itself lists tons of copyrighted movies on its homepage.

Also suspicious, the detail page of every movie has the same comments to give the impression that people watched the movie etc. 

Here are the fake comments

Looploop
3rd link worked perfectly and fast mirror. I liked it. Thanks for the upload! 

Hotjamz
Yep that was a good one 5/5 

Monstersb
didn't think it was all that,but it was good.7/10.great qualit tho 

DazedNConfused
How do I watch this video? 

DazedNConfused
Never mind. I just downloaded the plugin and the video worked flawlessly! 

This Is Just The Beginning

The uploads are done on a large scale and with sophisticated scripts to dynamically create typical titles with matching descriptions in YouTube. YouTube also has a dupe checker that identical videos cannot be uploaded by the same account (at least used to be it that way). But changing a single byte is already enough to get around it. That’s probably all these guys did, because the videos appear to the human viewer identical. They also show all the same Thumbnail, which should raise suspicion by any user of YouTube with some working brain cells left (That is how I got suspicious). The hackers are obviously not sophisticated enough though, because they did not seem to have taken into account the problem with identical thumbnails that will appear in the box with “more videos by …” but also in the “related video box” where I got the other user names from. Because the videos are similar in some fashion, YouTube thinks that they are related.

It is very very hard to produce identical thumbnails for videos that are not identical. In the early days YouTube used frames that could be predicted in advance (and was used for manipulations by users). This isn’t possible today anymore.

I would not be surprised, if similar scams will pop-up in the future more and more, also on other smaller social networks and video sharing sites. Those scams will also get more and more sophisticated and users will be vulnerable until their Antivirus/Antispyware software will be updated to detect those new threats that will emerge and then disappear again quickly.

The only real protection is up to the user himself

NEVER download and install a plug-in where you don’t know and trust the source. Installing a malicious plug-in is like unlocking the door, disabling the alarm and then open it to invite the burglar in to have a look around and take whatever he likes.  Almost all video sharing sites use FLASH for the video playback. The Flash plug-in should only be downloaded from the Adobe.com web site (and not from anywhere else).

http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer

Some apps might use the Shockwave plug-in, also from Adobe, which can be downloaded and installed via

http://www.adobe.com/go/getshockwave

Although I have not seen used with online video yet, web applications might also use JAVA by SUN, which can also be downloaded absolutely free of charge (like the FLASH and SHOCKWAVE plug-ins) from the web site that was created by SUN just for this. The URL is: http://www.java.com/download

Be Careful, without getting paranoid. Use common sense and caution where appropriate. Unfortunately not everybody on the Internet has the safety and happiness of the users in mind.

Be Safe!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

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Berlin Wall Video Copyright Issues

Here is now another great example for the current copyright laws being not only outdated and not fit for today’s world we live in, but also how those archaic laws are actually bad for society as a whole.

Let me start from the beginning…

The Beginning of the Story

new-york-times-logo

I was contacted by Emily B. Hager on Saturday, October 31, 2009 via email and via phone.

Emily B. Hager is a video reporter for the New York Times (yes, THE NY Times). She was working on a last minute video  called “The Man Who Opened the Gate”, which was published on Monday, November 2, 2009, together with the article by Roger Cohen titled “The Hinge of History” with a supporting video.

The article is about Harald Jaeger, the Boarder Guard at the border crossing “Bornholmer Strasse'” who opened the gates on November 9, 1989 to let people pass from East Berlin to West Berlin in violation of a direct order by his superior. Emily came across my video “Moments in History – The Fall of the Berlin Wall

I was contacted regarding this video by many others before that and already had posted an article where I addressed many of the very similar questions that I received regarding my video. Emily found the video of mine at the Internet Archive, where I also posted it, among other sites, like YouTube, Vimeo, my blog and over half a dozen other sites. I told her that I have plenty of video footage that she was looking for, mostly from a German Documentary DVD by Spiegel-TV titled "Spiegel TV - Der Fall der Mauer5" (ISBN #: 3-937901-04-3), which I purchased among other Documentary DVDs about the Berlin Wall and East Germany.

I agreed to send her the footage from the events around checkpoint Bornholmer Strasse in original DVD quality MPEG format and also provided her with the contact information at Spiegel to clarify the legal situation with them regarding her commercial use of the footage for the New York Times website. I stated in my previous post already that I am not sure about the copyright situation regarding the content that I used myself in my own video, not the other general footage about this historic significant event.

I asked her to let me know about Spiegel’s response regarding the legal situation of the content that they used in their documentary  in return for me helping her with her own video. I provided her with the contact information that I found been printed on the back of my original documentary DVD.

Spiegel TV
Brandstwiete 19
D-20457 Hamburg
Telefon: +49 (0)40 - 301 08-0
Fax: +49 (0)40 - 301 08-222

Emily obviously finished her video on time, using some of the footage that I provided to her to be published only 2 days later on the NY Times website. I did not hear from Emily for a while after that, however, two days after the video was published at the Times, on November 4, 2009, I received an Email (in German language) from Stephanie Kröner, from the Legal Department at Spiegel TV GmbH in Hamburg, which was basically a Cease and Desist letter, demanding that I delete my Moments in History video at the Internet Archive. They stated “that they found out to their surprise” about my video, no mention of the New York Times.

Original Email from Spiegel TV

(in German language only, sorry)

From: stephanie_kroener AT spiegel-tv DOT de
ent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 1:37 AM
To: Carsten Cumbrowski
Cc: Ulrich_Meyer AT Spiegel-tv DOT de
Subject: Rechtsverletzung SPIEGEL TV Materialien

Sehr geehrter Herr Cumbrowski,


mit Überraschung mussten wir feststellen, dass Sie unter der Internetadresse http://www.archive.org/details/MomentsInHistory-TheFallOfTheBerlinWall1989
einen Filmbeitrag zum Abruf bereitstellen, ohne über die hierzu erforderlichen Nutzungsrechte zu verfügen. Die Rechte an einem Großteil der dort verwendeten Filmausschnitte stehen ausschließlich der SPIEGEL TV GmbH zu.
Wir weisen Sie hiermit ausdrücklich auf diese Rechtsverletzung hin und fordern Sie zur sofortigen Löschung der betreffenden Filmmaterialien auf. Die Löschung der kompletten Materialien hat bis spätestens zum

        07. November 2009

zu erfolgen. Sollten die betroffenen Materialien bis zur gesetzten Frist nicht vollständig entfernt worden sein, sehen wir uns gezwungen, die notwendigen zivil- und auch strafrechtlichen Schritte einzuleiten.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Stephanie Kröner
Rechtsabteilung
SPIEGEL TV GmbH
Brandstwiete 19
20457 Hamburg
Germany
Telefon 040.30108-0
Fax 040.30108-428
http://www.spiegelgruppe.de/

SPIEGEL TV GmbH
Sitz und Registergericht Hamburg HRB 46 100
Geschaeftsfuehrer: Fried von Bismarck, Dirk Pommer, Cassian von Salomon

Because of the very unusual timing I thought that Emily was able to contact Spiegel TV, that they own the rights for at least some of the content that I used in Video and that they did not like my video very much. I deleted the video at the Internet Archive the same day and responded to Stephanie and Ulrich Meyer at Spiegel TV, who was CC’ed in the Email that was sent to me, telling them that I was doing what they demanded.

I did not delete the entire entry at the Internet Archive. I only deleted the video there and updated the video description with some biting remarks regarding the fact why the video is now missing. :)

Since it appears that some of the footage that I used is protected by copyright, I admit that the Public Domain Video section is not the right place for my video, because it does not consist of only Public Domain video footage as I thought.

I included in my response to Spiegel TV more than just the acknowledgement of the fulfillment of their demand, because the story has a little bit more to it than just my video at the Web Archive and I was sure that Spiegel TV had no idea about that.

My Email Response to Spiegel TV

Here is my full Email response (also in German Language, but don’t worry, I also provide the content of my email in English language with additional comments further down below).

From: Carsten Cumbrowski
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 2:47 AM
To: stephanie_kroener AT spiegel-tv DOT de
Cc: Ulrich_Meye AT spiegel-tv DOT de
Subject: Re: Rechtsverletzung SPIEGEL TV Materialien

Sehr geehrter Spiegel TV,

Ich habe das Video vom Internet Archive auf  http://www.archive.org/details/MomentsInHistory-TheFallOfTheBerlinWall1989 entfernt, wie Sie es von mir verlangt haben.

Damit habe ich ihrer Aufforderung Rechnung getragen. Mit dem offiziellen Teil aus dem Weg, moechte ich gerne ein paar persoenliche Kommentare zu Ihrer Email machen.

Kommentare und Fragen

  • Sie mussten feststellen? Bloedsinn. Emily B. Hager von der New York Times (oder ihrer Rechtsabteilung) hat sie kontaktiert, dank mir. Bitteschoen, (nicht mehr) gern geschehen.
  • Da Urheberrecht fuer einen Teil des verwendeten Materials existiert ist das Internet Archive eh der falsche Ort zur Veroeffentlichung.
  • Damit ist das Video aber nicht aus der Welt. Nach Amerikanischem Urheberrecht, was bei mir Anwendung findet, da ich schon lange nicht mehr in Deutschland angemeldet bin, da ich meinen Wohnsitz heute in den USA habe, faellt mein Video sehr wahrscheinlich unter die "Fair use" Klausel, die es erlaubt Teile eines urheberrechtlich geschuetzten Werkes unter bestimmten Bedingungen zu verwenden.
  • Ich finde es enttaeuschend von Ihnen auf diese Art und Weise zu hoeren. Es handelt sich immerhin nicht darum, dass ich Ihre DVD zum Download bereitgestellt habe, sondern nur ca. 5 minuten des Materials (von ungefaehr 2 Stunden) fuer ein persoenliches Video ueber wichtige Ereignisse der deutschen Geschichte benutzt habe. Ich habe auch keinerlei kommerzielle Interessen mit dem Video verfolgt, nicht einmal indirekt.
  • Dieses Material duerfte meiner Meinung nach nicht einmal durch Copyright geschuetzt sein, da es sich hierbei um wichtigen Belege von bedeutende geschichtlichen Ereignissen handelt. Nicht-kommerzielle Nutzung zum Zwecke der Bildung und Aufklaerung sollte nicht durch kommerzielle Interessen unterbunden und zunichte gemacht werden. Da es sich hierbei offentlichtlich um eine Nachlaessigkeit des Gesetzgebers handelt, sollten Sie stattdessen die soziale Verantwortung uebernehmen, falls denn Spiegel TV GmbH ein Interesse daran hat, im Interesse der Gesellschaft als Ganzes zu handeln.
  • Ich wurde von verschiedensten Personen, Publikationen und Gesellschaften kontaktiert wegen meines Videos. Koennten Sie mir wenigstens den Gefallen tun, mir eine Liste zu schicken mit den verwendeten Video Material fuer die DVD "Der Fall der Mauer" (ISBN 3-937901-04-3) und des Bonus Materials und wer dazu Urheberrechte besitzt oder nicht? Ich weiss zum Beispiel das einiges des Materials um 1961 von Universal Studio's Newsreels stammen, die sich seit laengerem in der Public Domain befinden. Ich plane naemlich noch weitere Videos ueber dieses Thema zu erstellen und es ist unheimlich schwer zu ermitteln wer was fuer Rechte oder nicht besitzt.
  • Ausserdem, was waere notwendig, um das verwendete Video Material fuer die nicht-kommerzielle Nutzung durch Andere zu "clearen"? Zum Beispiel einer Regierung, die das Video fuer die Einweihung einer Mauergedenkstaette verwenden moechte, oder einer oeffentlichen non-profit Kulturverantstaltung zum anlaesslichen Jubilaeum des Mauerfalls in Berlin bei der Deutschen Botschaft in einem anderen Land? Das sind nur zwei Beispiele von vielen, die hier nur zur besseren Erklaerung meiner Frage dienen sollen.

Ich hoffe das Sie sich meine Kommentare einmal durch den Kopf gehen lassen und das Sie mir trotz alledem auf meine Fragen antworten werden.

Vielen Dank. Liebe Gruesse aus Kalifornien.

Carsten Cumbrowski

Geboren April 1974 in Ost Berlin

e: MY EMAIL ADDRESS

I was making them aware of the fact that I believe that they only became aware of my video at the Internet Archive because of the inquiry by the New York Times reporter that I was sending to them. I also expressed my disappointment to hear from them like this. If they had send me a friendly letter without legal threats telling me that they own rights to some of the content in my video with the request to remove it from the Internet Archive, which makes it appear to be public domain, that would have done the trick as well.

I also stated that this does not make my video disappear from the face of this world, because of my publication of it elsewhere. However, I believe that my video publication at those other locations should fall under the fair-use clause (or exception) of the U.S. copyright law.

I made them aware that the laws of the United States and not Germany apply to me even though I am a German citizen, because I am living permanently in the United States now and not in Germany anymore. The fair-use clause does basically permit the use of small amounts of copyrighted material under specific circumstances, which I believe to apply to my situation.

I went ahead that I think that the material should not even be protectable under copyright law, because of their historic significance for society, but that was more as FYI because Spiegel TV is obviously not the right place to do anything about this general problem. But they could for this particular content do something about it, for example release it into the public domain or at least stop sending C&D letters to people who use their footage non-commercially for educational purposes. That is, if Spiegel TV would be interested in what is good for society versus what only being good for them and bad for society in general.

Then I made a request. I asked them to send me a list with the legal situation of the content used in their DVD production and where they or somebody else owns any rights for. I also asked them what the requirements are to use their stuff, using real examples from requests that I received regarding my own short video. It is now over 2 weeks since I send them this request and they still owe me a response to it.

Hearing Back from the NY Times

Meanwhile, I was contacted again by Emily from the New York Times on November 12, 2009. There I found out that she had only brief contact with Spiegel TV, but somebody else than Stephanie Kröner or Ulrich Meyer and that this person promised to get back to her regarding the use of material in the New York Times video, but until then also didn’t do.  Well, the New York Times won’t have a problem if and when Spiegel TV gets back to them. They are a commercial publication and deal with those things on a daily basis. However, what I learned from this fact is that there must be some internal Spiegel TV communication going on across multiple departments, acting independent from each other. So the legal department from Spiegel TV may never heard of the New York Times reporter, but got notified about my video somehow else, but triggered by the inquiry that was made my Emily.

Conclusion anarchist_throws_flowers

As you can see, it is a mess. And I still don’t know what is expected of me or anybody else to do in order to use the historic video footage about the Berlin Wall to educate people and raise awareness of what happened and what did not in non commercial projects. The only SAFE thing to do is not do anything at all. That is probably expected and hoped, but we as society would take more than one step backwards in development and at the same time increase the risk of the development of totalitarian states and governments taking control to enslave its people. It happened before, but I will not sit on my hands doing nothing in order to prevent it from happening once more and so should you.

I know that this story did not come to an end yet so there will be another post of mine, if there are new and noteworthy developments in this matter.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

p.s. all this attention to my Berlin Wall video has to do with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which just passed 2 weeks ago on Monday, November 9. 2009.

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