EDM364's Mod Diary, Page 11

EDIT: I realized I cut off part of the post because @Xtrullor asked to subscribe, as he would be referring users to this page presumably rather than have to explain all of this to the rather ungrateful users that give him hell -- I refuse to call them fans. Subscribers portion appended and links put into place. Blushing a bit.

UPDATE: RobTop has made an official announcement presumably in response to events of late, as well as changes to come, so parts of this post are moot. Not once does he acknowledge that he's been profiting all this time off of our non-commercial CC licensed music, or that he's been incredibly lazy updating until illegally monetizing said music was threatened, however. Suddenly, after Troisnyx's petition, communication with Tom picked up, and we were made aware changes are on the horizon.

What IS confirmed is that the changes we lobbied for ARE going to happen. Artists will have the option to allow and disallow tracks for use in GD, and GD abusers will no longer be able to get ANY new stolen tracks to work in GD. Artists will have to be manually approved by RobTop, which will only happen on a selective basis, to ensure the artists are both legitimate and worth listening to.

Picture a pristine portal. No more daily mass thefts! No more annoying How-To spam! That's a win-win as far as I'm concerned, and the burden will be put squarely on Rob, not us, to review these people. This is what should have been done to begin with, and I will say he's earned brownie points in my eyes for taking that one on the chin. Here's high hopes for the 1% of abusers getting with the program and realizing their days are over, and their attempts are futile, and users like @BlueAlpha14 and @Tebiri luck sniffing out the last GD thefts this portal may ever see -- oh, and that my Audio Flagging Guide becomes obselete.

So, as you undoubtedly all know, shockwaves were felt 'round the web in the advent of Geometry Dash being pulled from Steam to address copyright infringement issues, as well as, we assume, multiple reports of Geometry Dash breaking Creative Commons license, as well as DMCA takedowns. This is what I gather from my daily web stroll. RobTop has responded to hate-mongering players via Twitter.

I've been working with Newgrounds for a long time to improve the music process. They did not have anything to do with the problem on Steam. - RobTop Games, January 31, 2017

Interesting -- since angry GD players have come out of the woodwork with undue threats of bodily harm to @Troisnyx and @RealFaction and Newgrounds as a whole for breaking their toy, and have figured out that Newgrounds and Rob are working on hotfixes to the game. I've even got some choice mails myself, and @Cank has had some assholes plying their vitriol on YT.

Here's some choice words from users on Steam. Trigger warning: cancerous community that doesn't care about music artists insisting things like Troisnyx et. al. should die over a petition to remove a GAME from stores that wasn't even submitted, to my knowledge. Let that sink in a second, then click that link.

@BlueAlpha14 makes an interesting point; thefts have been practically muted in the past two days since GD was removed from stores, at least in comparison to the past 3 years of shit. The portal is the closest to 2007's lean-mean running form as I've seen it since GD 1.9, but I have seen some rule breaking and sticks in the mud, to be fair. Just reminds me how great it'd be if all the GD abusers just made like Nebula and kept their copyright/CC License infringing to themselves rather than passing it onto us. That way, at least Rob wouldn't be the one responsible for our music being trampled on to line his pockets.

Speaking of copyright infringement, @Jackho finds it a bit strange the game was DMCA'ed by Nintendo for copyrighted achievement avatars, not for the rampant abuse of music without artists' consent, and so do I, but if @Troisnyx's petition was never submitted, it can't be the reason either, unlike the GD side of the kitty pool is quick to assume here.

In addition to the copyrighted images and in spite of RobTop's assertion otherwise, it does indeed seem that the game was removed for breaking the various Creative Commons licenses of artists on Newgrounds, and by extension, the law -- YES, Geometry Dash was judiciously removed by Steam staff because RobTop was making money off of music used in custom levels, which violated the intellectual property rights of users such as myself, @Xtrullor, @Troisnyx, and @RealFaction, who require in our CC licenses that any commercial use of our music be discussed with us in EXPLICIT detail before it is used; thus Steam saw this through NG artists' flags and removed the game on the basis of intellectual property rights violation. This is briefly glossed over on Reddit, if anyone wants to go over there and give their side of the story. We've certainly gotten enough hate for it.

Now, @TomFulp himself has stated the removal of Geometry Dash from any stores wasn't the solution he hoped for, and that it should only happen as a last resort. Many others of us have said we never wanted the game removed to begin with -- we just wanted CHANGE, change that now appears to be on the horizon.

On that note, @Troisnyx has updated her petition newspost to reflect our collective hope that this hullaballoo ultimately leads to a better Geometry Dash for everyone involved, content creators included -- that we won't have to alienate our fanbase by disabling downloads and/or host our content elsewhere if we don't want our songs used in a paid app that uses our portal as a hosting service, and that theft can be minimized, if not eliminated entirely. This would be a massive improvement, either way it goes.

The problem as we know it exists in the implementation of the custom levels, through which our communities are intertwined. Our music, the Newgrounds Audio Portal, has been used like a cheap whore. It's not a lot to ask for RobTop to sticky something across Steam, Apple Store, and the Play Store for his players to abide by our TOS, not steal shit, etc., and respect artists -- and more importantly, not to treat the site in general as a tool for Geometry Dash. We've been here since before half the GD playerbase was born, and we certainly don't owe our popularity, success, and longevity to one singular game! We gave birth to the viral internet plague that was Numa Numa, for Christ's sake! The GD community is by and large completely ignorant of this and the rampant abuse; most just come to our site, scan the AP for the most popular songs or upload junk, then disappear, if that. Many don't even know we're being taken for a ride in the process.

As with all of this ignorance of our community as a whole, there are those that will say our reaction to all of the problems associated with GD is extreme, that it shouldn't have been taken down, that our petition was disrespectful, that we owe RobTop, that not ALL GD players are the problem and they don't deserve this.

Let me just say that, for one, anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows the broad abuse of this platform is what lead to our collective outrage, not the law abiding garden variety players, who don't leave a large footprint on the site. For two, it's one thing for all this to happen as a result of a free app, but a paid app that also breaks our non-commercial use Creative Commons licenses, which exist to protect our rights as artists, and this has been happening for 3 years, combined with all the vitriolic sludge defecated all over our community in the process? We've been more than kind, patient, courteous, and accommodating. I think I'll leave it right there.

Regarding the GD takedown and his own reasonings, @RealFaction is expected to release his own statement later, but these newsposts, this diary, this is mine. I don't give a damn whether the game comes back or not; it probably will, and I hope for the thousands of innocent players that enjoy the game that it does, but I will not side idly by so long as it enables -- no, encourages degenerates to abuse our music for pay. My hope is that @Zhenmuron, @BrenTheMan, and @TomFulp are able to put their heads together and make a better, more thoughtful, more legal Geometry Dash for all involved, not just the few featured in the official levels and RobTop himself profiting.

So yes, I did sign the petition and flag all the versions of Geometry Dash which violate my non-commercial Creative Commons Licenses. No, I'm not sorry something got done about it. The game isn't gone forever unless RobTop decides to take the money, run, and prove all the people that think he doesn't care about NG or the GD community right. I just hope something good comes of this, and the idiots making @Troisnyx, @Cank, @Xtrullor, @RealFaction, and anyone else feel bad for standing up, speaking truth, and doing the right thing get their comeuppance.

/end rant

SLICE OF LIFE:
The past few days have been mind numbingly busy. Sunday night, we heard that my friend was getting kicked off of campus the following day by 2 o'clock (thankfully a friend's family got him out of that jam), so @littlemisfortune and I packed up and headed for Scooba. Once there, we hung out with him and a couple friends for what we thought was going to be the last time, sitting on the stage on campus. It was freezing, but an otherwise decent night. Later, we drove out down a country road and made a faltering campfire that would last a good 30 minutes before we'd have to gather up leaves and sticks again. Would have had a party with sparse alcohol if Scooba sold it past 10 PM on a Sunday; however, with the coyote howls that sent us scampering into our vehicles later, it's probably a good thing none of us drank..

Creator's Club met 7 PM the next day in the library and @littlemisfortune had classes, so we did have to turn in pretty early. Ended up sleeping in a car parked in front of a friend's house overnight because her parents were asleep amid notable protest (not from the sleeping parents lol). Ivy, a friend, left us a blanket and some "I wish you would listen to me" facial expressions. Regret not just ponying up 5 bucks to stay in either Women's Honors or G.A. for the night.

Monday morning, woke up feeling like my spine was falling out of my body, lotioned up ye olde psoriasis issues, ate an orange for breakfast which toothpaste made me regret instantly, and headed off to the library wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Other than that, felt like a commuter. I couldn't find an outlet for a bit, so I logged onto NG on one of the school computers, which I still had my login for -- and which surprisingly worked. I figured. My wifi key still did as well on the laptop.

Did my moderating for the day until @littlemisfortune came out of piano lab and gave me some coffee, still hot. No idea where the fuck it came from but it was good, and sweeter than saccharine. Had me wired, so I started on a new song. Last one I worked on in the same vein is embedded below. It's, er, well, about my dad, who passed May 14, 2016, on my also deceased step-dad's birthday. Funny how all that shit works out.

Pretty much the rest of the day was consumed with hanging out with friends on campus, getting bum rushed with people hugging me, eating oranges and nasty protein bars, and awkwardly chatting with old acquaintances, some of which I don't even remember names because that's just an issue with me. After I graduated, things just sort of faded around the edges apart from band. Always remember faces though.

Did the whole Creator's Club jive at 7:05. Most everyone who hadn't quit came. Really a shame the old "friend group" feel and drama cut down on our size. I played my 7 minute magnum opus of a song, 2 other songs were shared, a couple drawings were shown, and 3 or 4 stories were read. Discussed Valentines day stuff, like commission poems, etc. Still have to finalize things to become an official club because our last president left some things off the list, or we can't do any funky trips. I'm hoping the club gets bigger, and I may make a website for it on something like Weebly or Wix. Weebly allows you to edit the html of the page, which I'm decent at, although I might need someone more intelligent like @Mich to borrow for advice, hahah.

Came home late last night. Woke up late today, missed a couple deposits, and here we are.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
Stolens: 97
Non-remix: 8
Total: 105
Bans: 42
Per capita: 2.5

BREAKDOWN:
97 stolen submissions and 8 non-remixes were unpublished for a total of 105 offenses on my paper logs. 42 bans were recorded. This amounts to a 2.5 infraction rate per capita.

CONCLUSION:
My record keeping is a bit of an abysmal underestimate for the past 3 days. This isn't counting a large portion of what I handled on mobile. Considering I had virtually nothing to do but moderate for the past few days, that's a lot of stolen and rule-breaking shit. Infraction rate was higher due to several users submitting large catalogs. So, the infraction rate would have been somewhat lower had I been able to record every infraction, but not because there were less infractions, certainly.

Hoping to keep a more active and accurate record next time I take a trip, for sure.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction @Xtrullor

Thank you!

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Okay, right now I'm still on EMCC campus, so my mod diary is gonna be a little delayed. Probably getting home super late because of Creator's Club. Good news, the friend I was talking about isn't getting kicked out of school so though my voyage is rendered moderately pointless, it's really fantastic news and I'm happy I came. Chilling in the library. Also updated that list of VSTs and will link that here when I've got @Mich's updates in.

<3

EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 10

Having some issues with blood pressure today, slept 24 hours. Still entirely hacked about the Geo Dash situation but have some news to cover. Herein this long ass section will be an overview of @Troisnyx's petition, why it was made, my own thoughts, and word from Tom regarding the future handling of the relationship between Geometry Dash and our Audio Portal to come, as well as how the game itself is a catastrophe of intellectual property rights' violation in its present state. Also some advice for those of you who choose to disable downloads on your tracks until this is all dealt with appropriately.

Last time you heard from me I linked @Troisnyx's petition to remove Geometry Dash from app stores, which netted an absolutely explosive response from Newgrounders, Geometry Dash players, mods, and staff alike. It probably could have directed its ire better, since it's not just the community that's the problem; it's the shitty mangled tether that hitches us together, the custom song feature, the abuse of which endangers our site, and the profiting from which also violates a lot of CC licenses in the process -- but it said quite a few things which needed to be said, imo.

I've made my position clear: I don't care whether GD gets removed or not so long as something gets done, which has since been promised. The jury is out whether Rob will hold up his end of the bargain, but no one can deny that Newgrounds staff has been exceedingly cooperative and accomodating in spite of everything and this has been a long time coming.

Since I signed the petition, an additional 60 some odd signatures have accrued ranging from reluctant to enthusiastic to vehemently angry yet all very much disillusioned with the 3 years of shit the Newgrounds community has put up with. There are now 100+ comments on @Troisnyx's post, ranging from full support to vehement opposition and offense. I don't speak for @Troisnyx or anyone else, but I figure I should clarify the actual purpose of that petition -- to actually get a response, which it did -- and why I myself signed.

No, it wasn't because I think the entire GD community is represented by the thousand flecks of shit that wreck our site and endanger our future. I signed that petition because I can't stand the idea that RobTop gets to take advantage of musicians like me every time someone puts up a level, and most GD players I've encountered seem to think we all should be grateful for the strain @Zhenmuron's irresponsible implementation of these levels has put on us, as if all of our popularity and prestige is owed to this stupid game and we should be happy to see our art treated like dollar store cologne. Someone tried to tell me today that @Dimrain47 owed his popularity to GD, too. Bullshit.

Now, ad revenue from the free version might go to one or two musicians partnered with the ad companies, but you know as well as I do, Rob is making bank after GD 2.0+, and the musicians by and large are not making jack shit. NG isn't even getting compensation for the broad use and abuse of the entire Audio Portal as a hosting service -- and certainly not the users working on custom levels so he can keep selling the game indefinitely as is, without having to make any additional levels.

Let me explain how and why this is a problem. All music on NG is released under a CC license, meaning all songs on NG are licensed property of the submitter. Stolen content of course voids this license entirely, i.e. copyrighted music or NCS music submitted by someone other than the creator, but this isn't what I'm getting at. There are all types of CC licenses on Newgrounds, many of which are NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY. Use in Geometry Dash completely violates the terms of these licenses, since RobTop is making money off of Geometry Dash, meaning USE IN GD IS NOT FAIR USE!

So, Rob is making MONEY off of misery, violation of intellectual property rights, as well as his players' collective naivete about the mechanics of music and $$$. Until now, most of us were under the impression that next to nothing was being done about this. Fortunately, we were wrong; it's just that it's happening VERY slowly.

The NG staff and purportedly Rob are working together to fix the current theft issues, as well as the annoying need to disable downloads entirely if you don't want your hard work used to line someone else's pocket or worry about broken licenses you'll never see compensation for -- many of our users have been forced into this, such as @Xtrullor, as an extreme example. He has faced ridiculous abuse from the GD community.

For some like @Dj-Nate, however, it's not as much an issue; they don't mind their having their music featured in a paid game pro-bono, or haven't had the misfortune to find out about it. On this note I'd like to clarify that if GD were totally free, with no ads, I'd have no problem having my music featured, same as I don't mind having my music featured in works on NG because Newgrounds benefits from the ad revenue. I'm NOT okay with Rob getting ad revenue from levels using my work without flipping NG or myself a single penny, especially with all the damage his community is doing to us, and the disrespect that has been shown to our site's artists, all while I'm not making a dime, myself!

And let's not dismiss that if Rob were profiting off of music from some big wig like Skrillex, the lawsuits would be quick, and GD would be dead.

That, or the Big 3 would seize the rights to it like they did to Grooveshark. Go ahead and Google that if you didn't already hear. It's pretty spooky, especially if you recall that Grooveshark's creator ended up myseriously dying not long after he pledged to keep fighting the record labels' monopoly on music, after plenty of lawsuits which held him liable for offenses committed by his users. Don't think Rob wouldn't get treated the same.

We at NG don't have the kind of money to pursue lawsuits or fight them. If we did, it would be put to use funding the artists we have on site instead. However, with GD players uploading Skrillex songs to our portal by the day and the fact just a couple DMCA's and some follow-up lawsuits could put us under, it becomes abundantly clear GD has not been and probably will not ever be a good thing for us if things don't change. We will be the ones that get sued to death for hosting the content Rob is making bank off of!

That's why I signed the petition, not because I hate GD players or RobTop himself, but I hate the way in which custom songs were implemented so thoughtlessly as to not only completely take advantage of our site without any consideration to how our CC licenses work -- rather than just "oh, music I won't have to shell out a penny for monetizing!" -- but also without explaining beforehand to his community, who knows nothing about us or our contributions to the net as a whole, that their disregard for our rules and regulations could break not only our banks and the site as a whole but also the cash cow he's been riding for the past 3 years in the process. They don't know the legal implications of what's happening here!

Now, in regards to the petition, we all know full-well it's unlikely the game actually gets taken down, and that might actually be a good thing, but if threatening that cash cow was the only way to get change, fast, before it kicks us in the ass for good, it's worth the trouble. Better than sitting idle with our thumbs stuck up our asses complaining.

Now, all being said, some changes @TomFulp and @BrentheMan been thinking aloud about on our end to help users like @Xtrullor and @RealFaction, who have had to disable downloads on their own tracks rather than have them used/abused, is an in-built option for AP submitters to enable or disable tracks for use in GD, sort of how our CC licenses work, since notably, disabling certain IDs in GD alone has not stopped the theft and reupload of tracks, and shady users seem to just steal whatever they can get their hands on anyway. Unfortunately currently, that change is not possible without entirely disabling downloads until future updates from RobTop's end.

This has apparently been in the works for quite a while but atm we're in the dark. @TomFulp has said on the issue, "However if GD updated to use a JSON call we set up for it a few months back, then we can use that to control access - waiting to hear if it is using that currently or not, otherwise it's something that could go into future updates." He also mentioned a bulk feature to work for our compositions, so we don't have to go one by one and disable or re-enable. This should be handy for users like me who have a pretty big body of work.

Others have mentioned that NG is going to face a lot of backlash from ungrateful twits over on the GD side of the kitty pool, so with that in mind, I have a little something to say... I mean, other than that those users can go fuck themselves into a less entitled state, realize we have a right to do whatever we want with our content, that NG is not a file-dump for GD, and before dropping that scathing 0 star review, they should probably read this.

USERS WHO DISABLE DOWNLOADS ON YOUR TRACKS: Please be aware that if you're getting reviews from GD players giving you shit for it, you CAN and SHOULD flag them abusive. Users are supposed to be reviewing your track, not your CC license or advertising that some site, game, or app exists, and reviews like "FUCK YOU FOR DISABLING USE IN GD GAEEM!1!1!" are all kinds of rule breaking!

Back to GD, we're also hoping RobTop will implement some banners and questionaires on his end in English AND Spanish to let his users know that it isn't cool to steal songs just because they aren't already here, how to properly use the Portal, etc. I'm not sure how the hell anyone could miss this one here, but who knows.

I'm slightly less optimistic about more banners and popups users can click through since most users, even the Spanish speakers (most of whom are taught English in primary school), seem to be just trying to disguise their theft rather than not knowing it's against the rules. HOWEVER, getting them to understand that they aren't going to just magically GET AWAY WITH IT BY BEING SCOUTED might help.

Ultimately, my hope is that some power is given to the Portal. It's our songs being used and often abused, and we deserve a say in how that happens just as much with third-party apps as we have here. If something as simple as this can happen, maybe I'll start thinking that we don't need that petition. As long as we don't have that option and Rob is still turning our hard work into his $$$, not only is the community wrecking our site, but the game is also robbing us and breaking the law (in the case of non-commercial CC licenses). That's not acceptable.

Now, moving onto my day.

SLICE OF LIFE:
Not much doing. Have spent most of the past couple of days sleeping. Losing appetite. Did however get some video editing done. Went to bed yesterday around 8 PM. Woke up today at 4:47 PM.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 44
Music Maker Jam: 3
Ear-Rape: 2
Total: 49
Bans: 36
Per capita: 1.361

BREAKDOWN:
Of 44 thefts, 43 were for GD. 3 Music Maker Jam tracks were also for GD and used the same dubstep bassline sample. 2 submissions were ear rape "How-To" songs. Most users were one-off, fire and forget offenders, with most giving incriminating or gibberish descriptions. A few obscured names. 49 offenses per 36 offenders equates to 1.361 offenses per capita, which would seem like a marked decrease in theft but in actuality is about the same judging off of what I've seen @Exedor go through.

CONCLUSION:
Same shit, different day, just hoping to bring light to the situation.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 9

The fires of revolution burn today. @Troisnyx wrote a petition, and if you're not a Google spider crawling this page for indexing purposes, you owe it to yourself and your Newgrounds account to check this out. Other happenings, 2 slow days with an insanely weird sleep schedule that keeps turning around on me.

While I'm on business though, let me talk about that petition real quick, which I'll be putting on blast any way I can over the coming weeks. I encourage you to do the same: check out @Troisnyx's page, @ any users you know who would want to help, share on social media, and sign that bloody petition like your life depends on it. Your Newgrounds life and the lives of every submission ever to grace the past, present, and future portals do, after all.

Geometry Dash is destroying our site, one cancerous comment, stolen file, and/or multi-account at a time, yet RobTop is doing nothing to stop it. On the contrary, he's profiting from the rampant theft and abuse we suffer, not to mention the hard work of countless content creators who never see a cent in return for their toil; meanwhile we're all at risk of getting sued to oblivion because the idiot farm he's cobbled together thinks "no copyright infringement intended" or "fair use" means they can to steal whatever the fuck they want for their 5 seconds of "Gimme toy, gimme toy!" without us or them both feeling the consequences. It's out of control, and it's clear no one else but Newgrounds is going to watch Newgrounds' back, so let's do that. We owe it to ourselves.

SLICE OF LIFE:
Not much doing except some serious stress and floundering. Was not able to attend Creator's Club on Monday due to my ride having more pressing obligations, and Tuesday I slept virtually all day after having been up for 33 hours of absolute manic episode. I had been unable to sleep between chores, moderating, and writing on a horror movie script about two lesbians who are attacked by a poltergeist over the course of a couple weeks. Said poltergeist has an intense hatred for closet gays, women, and Christian dogma.

I don't really remember much else about Monday and early Tuesday, although I do recall being fed up with my family, especially my very domineering grandmother, who I live with. She constantly nags and berates, and orders me around. I've gotten to where I just ignore her until she realizes that I'm not going to do a damn thing until she asks, not tells. She's also taken to eating near me purposefully, which sounds like a mix of slopping hog and horse-teeth on salt-block, give or take some slurp.

I suffer from misophonia, and at times I have to run out of the room before I flip a damn table or retaliate. I cannot stand the fucking loud, barbaric mouth noises unless I have my own bowl of chow to tune into instead of the constant irritation and anxiety being near these sounds creates, which is 100x worse if the sound is isolated (meaning an entire lunch table is fine but someone eating in front of me is a problem) or I can't get on a pair of headphones to blast white noise until the stimulus is gone. It can wake me up from a dead sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I'm still up from yesterday, so technically this is a same-day post for me. After my 33 hour wake cycle, I passed out on the couch around 1 PM after grudgingly making my grandmother a pot of coffee. She's so lazy, she won't do it herself even if she's less than a foot from the coffee pot and I'm sitting in the living room or downstairs. Same thing if I make food. She expects to have some of it, or me to make her some, or to be able to mess with whatever I put up for myself, which usually results in unwanted shit poured in on top of whatever I might have wanted to eat. Anyway, I went to bed. Uncle tried to wake me up for dinner at six because I was on the couch, and my mom called at 9 to tell me someone else had been trying to reach me, one of her friends from work when I was a wee tot, who now plays PoGo with my group of friends.

So, apparently, that lady had called another lady to come pick me up, and we were gonna go smash down a gym with two other friends. Valor is pretty much the number one team in Meridian. We're Mystic, so it's always great being able to take some buds and bash a gym from 10 to zero in nothing flat. Naturally I accepted, washed the sleep off of my face, and was rearing to go. Was a little sad mom seemed to otherwise ignore me though and shift our conversation to her new terminally ill boyfriend but I'm used to it pretty much by now.

Long story short, went out for about an hour, trolled Valor with some weak sauce 'mons, got an Omanyte and 5 Growlithes, hatched 6 eggs, and levelled up to 24. Was a much needed outing, and I got some social interaction. I still haven't checked all my messages, so that, signal boosting @Troisnyx's petition -- possibly even taking time out to record a YouTube video and podcast "Why Geometry Dash Must Die" -- and penciling in a good dose of moderating today is on the to-do list. I've got my desk set up and I'm good and pissed off. First I'm gonna nap though. I've been utterly wiped for about the past 2 hours and just deposited -- sadly missed yesterday, I think. 31 days til level up.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 50
Copyrighted Source: 4
Total: 54
Bans: 17
Per capita: 3

BREAKDOWN:
Of 50 thefts, 47 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 non-descript. The remaining submissions were covers or remixes of copyrighted songs, one including an older rap over Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" instrumental, which really pained me to remove; it was just that good, and it occurs to me that if not for GD, I probably never would have had to -- NG was getting to the point we could have copyrighted samples with the proper attribution, but GD put the nail in the coffin on that debate, and so did the old-school copyright pushing, dough rolling trend setters up in the big 3. The music industry of course is pretty much known for expecting to make bank off of non-profit usage, to paraphrase @TomFulp, so none of this is surprising (dear self, remember to reply to his response in forums today -- thanks). Back on topic, however, this totals 54 infractions from 18 users for a rate of 3 per capita. Outrageous!

CONCLUSION:
Same shit, different day. Most users I encountered had between 4-7 thefts under their belts, the blatant @Rukkus impersonator, @sukkuR, being one of the worst offenders of the bunch. This user brazenly gloated about stealing Rukkus' tracks to get scouted after having several other accounts banned for passing off others' work as their own. Stuff like this is a prime example of why we need @Troisnyx's petition. @Zhenmuron has been reached out to, and reached out to, and reached out to, and still hasn't done much of anything at all to curb the abuse fostered in his cash cow cult of entitled little sheep. Troisnyx is a better wordsmith today than I, so do check out her post and spread the word. This shit has gone on too long.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 8

Steadily improving! Headaches are getting less frequent. Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern. I appreciate knowing people care!

SLICE OF LIFE:
Much less interesting stuff today. Woke up at 8:30 PM after sleeping inordinately long. Rounded off some moderating and deposited. Migraine struck so I went back to bed and took a headache pill. Konked out. Woke up and played some FO4, then went out and played some PoGo. Caught another Magmar and got into some gyms but ended up getting scared of some loose dogs (didn't have a weapon atm and absolutely no one was out because it was a Sunday at approx 11 PM, so there was some serious safety concern for me and @littlemisfortune), so I went home. Went to bed early (for me) and woke up 12:20 next day, fighting sleeping in. Now, 1:40 PM, here I am, typing this message. I really didn't do much yesterday, well, except eat 2 types of nasty canned chicken with 2 equally nasty cans of beans, salt and garlic it, and pretend it was good, hahah.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 32
GD Spam: 1
Total: 33
Bans: 18
Per capita: 1.833

BREAKDOWN:
Of 32 thefts, 30 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 2 non-descript. Additionally, there was a "How To" submission today with the song playing in the background, which is illegal. This totals 33 infractions from 18 users for a rate of 1.833 per capita, slightly above the normal 1.8.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick calculation of 31/33 and determined 93.93% of infractions were Geometry Dash related.

CONCLUSION:
Larger sample size and fewer large catalogs resulted in a mostly normal infraction rate, however, as noted above, 94% of infractions were GD related today. Few others have been people just uploading the songs they like or advertising off-site, and this has been a trend since GD ver 1.9. Virtually every infraction I see is GD related theft or nondescript items commonly stolen by GD thieves, which upon listening turn out to be stuff like KDrew - Circles, Skrillex - Bangarang, Desmeon - Hellcat, etc.

In all cases, 90% of the time, the users seem to be blatantly ignoring the rules rather than not understanding/knowing them at all. I mean, Christ's sake, I've seen people say "I don't own this song, but I'm not uploading it for Geometry Dash. I'm just sharing it because I think it's cool. Please don't remove it. No copyright infringement intended,", in response to that giant blue banner that should be common sense; we ban users for stealing -- not for playing GD -- so don't do what the GD dummies do if you don't want to get treated like one! Fair use does not apply on Newgrounds; we are a user-generated content site.

Considering doing a parody of @ThisisTheFatRat's "Unity" aimed at the people who steal his works as commonly as they praise him to his face and pester him to upload his tracks here, then flag them if they can't download them. I've already got the lyrics roughed out.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 7

Catching up more. Migraines seem to be subsiding somewhat, but I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/21/17, frought with tornado warnings all across the south. 4 dead in Hattiesburg, and I think 12 in Georgia. Something like that. I didn't worry much about the storms. I just went and laid down after depositing and running through flags. Short day, but I feel myself opening back up a bit more.

I did record a few clips of some new FO4 mods I got such as below, featuring lots of head-splosions, gore and dismemberment overhauls, etc. -- because, I mean, if you shoot someone's hand off, they don't die instantly, contrary to popular belief, and exploding body parts are just cool. Then I just sort of floffed around, did some settlement building, etc.; FO4 and Skyrim relax me to hell and back, js. I left the embeds small but you can full screen.

Find more of my gameplay videos here, and let me know if you'd like to see more stuff like this. I do certainly enjoy blowing off people's limbs and murdering supermutants! I might also make a compilation of just goresplosions in FO4 and just sneak attacks in Skyrim. Also, pretty sure I have a video of a slow-mo headsplosion if you're into that.

You may also use any of my clips for your videos, provided you credit me with a little text watermark in the corner of the screen or something -- EDM364, ArbitraryWall, idgaf, as long as someone can look me up.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 24
Off-site Advert: 3
Total: 24 Bans: 6
Per capita: 4

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 24 thefts, 19 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 were offsite adverts. No, I'm not going crazy. The adverts were also thefts, and there were 2 I couldn't place left over. This totals 24 infractions from 6 users for a rate of 4 per capita, a 100% increase from yesterday.

CONCLUSION:
Small sample size and a couple wackos uploading a bunch of stuff just about totally invalidates today's infraction rate, however one interesting discovery was a guy uploading other people's music as an advertisement for SoundCloud. That actually made me mad. We face enough bs from legitimate artists using our portal as a SoundCloud advert, but fake assholes hoping we're gullible enough to let them pass? *head wall*

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

@littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 6

Short day. Sleep cycle is getting out of control. Going to see a doctor if it doesn't improve.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/19/2017 - 1/20/2017, again frought with crippling migraines and trouble with sleep schedule. Woke up very late in the day, too late to really get anything done. The other day I did go out and play PoGo with some of my mom's work friends from the 80's and @littlemisfortune. That seemed to help depression a lot. Mostly I think I just need more company. Texting doesn't really get it, but calling seems to help as well. Called mom.

I'm suffering from migraines, acute irritability, insomnia followed by 18-20 hour sleep cycles that alarms won't cut it. I also notice anything goal oriented gets me in this manic obsessive mode, like songwriting, gaming, PoGo, modding. I haven't had much time for the latter the past couple of days between sleeping and migraines though.

One good thing did happen today. Finally got my mod load order stable for FO4.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 28
Non remixes: 2
Total: 30
Bans: 15
Per capita: 2

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 28 thefts, 26 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 2 non-remixes. This totals 30 infractions from 15 users for a rate of 2 per capita, a .2 increase from yesterday. I encountered less material today than usual.

CONCLUSION:
Not a very busy day but the infraction rate seems to have jumped up a bit. Most knew they were breaking the rules but naively thought they wouldn't get caught. Got a mail from one MAGIX user who did not know that we could not host MAGIX music despite the rules quite blatantly disallowing duplo music and MAGIX/MMJ due to the licensing. Had to take exerpts from the rules.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 5

Again, another super short day. Doing this one same day as somewhat of a make-up post.

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/17/2017 - 1/18/2017, frought with crippling migraines and trouble with sleep schedule. When I wake up, first thing is to check NG, deposit, and try to manage some mod duty. Lately I've been sleeping about 18 hours, which is not normal. Unsure if I should seek some medical help on that note. I'm gonna get some sleep. I'm going out later today and do some Poke Hunting. I think it may be depression causing my sleep issues, and getting out seems to help with that. Right now, I'm exhausted. I've got one good run of tracking and then I'm out -- and I'll tack that onto tomorrow's count, since it quite literally is tomorrow and I should have gone to bed hours ago.

On positive notes, I've been having some very interesting and entertaining dreams, at least, most of which involve my Dad at varying ages and stages of life. I look forward to these. It's the only way I get to see him anymore. I wrote a poem in the middle of the night upon waking, which I do intend to turn into a full song... Actually, that goes for all my poetry, lol. If I can't hear it sung, it doesn't make the cut. I can't write good free verse, just novels. Anyway, here, have a shitty somewhat folk-styled chanty poem that I haven't quite hit Quality Assurance on yet.

The sun and the rain
Blot the sky, not your face
What's haunting my mem'ry
Each eternal day

My soul is rapt with entropy
breath is trapped between heartbeats
captivated by dreams
I sleep only to see

The sun and the rain
My mind can't erase
age passing in mem'ry
ephemeral scenes

How the lightest breeze
whips at your long shadow
You follow me as if
you could bring me home

But yours is the darkness
and that's all that I know
yet I can't glimpse the heavens
for fear of the unknown

So I sleep...
And I dream
that we meet
In a realm only I can reach where

The sun and the rain
Blot the sky, not your face
What's haunting my mem'ry
each eternal day

My soul is wracked with entropy
mind is rapt with what I see
captivated by dreams
Death by sleep

I walk this lonely road
With no light but my own
And wish you were here
though that's impossible

Resigned to life all alone
I still hold onto hope
that when my time pass
I see you at last

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 24
Non remixes: 3
Total: 27
Bans: 15
Per capita: 1.8

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing. Of 24 thefts, 22 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and 3 non-remixes. A couple of which were minecraft songs mashed up or stitched together. This totals 27 infractions from 15 users for a rate of 1.8 per capita, same as yesterday. I encountered less alts today than usual, also.

CONCLUSION:
The infraction rate seems stable across samples over the past 3 days, despite small sample sizes. Worst offender today was someone uploading parts of CoD Zombies' OST. Most knew they were breaking the rules but naively thought they wouldn't get caught. One or two seemed just not to have a clue about the rules.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's AP Mod Diary, Page 4

Super short day today because I got up at 8 PM yesterday and then had writer's club today, so I had to go back to bed and be up in time for club. However I did get some work in, and may have interesting stuff tomorrow. No slice of life for yesterday because I literally did nothing yesterday except play Skyrim and mod while I was awake -- oh, and get distracted by my phone and write some half-serious folk-style poetry about Xena, as well as future songs.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Thefts: 42
Ear-rape: 2
Copyrighted Remix: 1
Total: 45
Bans: 25
Per capita: 1.8

BREAKDOWN:
Not much doing today. Of 42 thefts, 41 were blatantly for Geometry Dash, and there were two ear-rapes that were one "How To" and one NCS song turned up to 11. I was half tempted to just lump them into thefts. The remaining infraction was a remix of a copyrighted song by a user who was warned not to post it due to new policies. This totals 45 infractions from 25 users for a rate of 1.8 per capita. I encountered less alts today than usual.

CONCLUSION:
The bulk of the submissions came from about 5 users with catalogs between 5 and 10 stolen songs, however, the infraction rate remained about the same from yesterday, despite a small sample size. This is largely due to catalogs remaining undiscovered by users/modship from the 1.9 update or so. Hoping to actually get shit done tomorrow.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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EDM364's MOD DIARY, PAGE 3

Subscribers' section is now added to the formatting. If you'd like to subscribe to this series of posts, let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the list!

SLICE OF LIFE:
1/15/17 was somewhat of a long day in terms of actually being awake, but I didn't have as much time for NG as I had hoped for. I got up at 10:30 because I had plans with my mom, took a shower, and waited for her to come over. She was supposed to be at my house by 11, but her elderly boyfriend was sick with an ear infection, so she didn't show up for another hour and a half. This set my plans way back, because I only intended to be out a couple hours to run errands, play some PoGo, etc.

Well, we went to Walmart first thing. While she shopped groceries and whatnot, I scored 2 pairs of pants to work out in with some fancy stellar looking designs on them, and a $25 dollar Google Play card to feed my PoGo addiction. Will add pics later if someone wants to see.

Also got some hanging out with my best friends' mom in and ran like hell from my high school principal's daughter, who mysteriously blocked me on FB now that she goes to Uni. If you know the story behind this one, you probably know why. Her mom works for a bank and actually helped solve my mom's boyfriend's fraud issue -- his neighbor knocked him in the head (he's blind) got all his information, and then showed up some months later like he was going to "help" him. Ended up taking advantage of him for several months and defrauding him tens of thousands of dollars on all his credit and debit cards. My mom helped get him arrested, but he's out on bond. Funny how much of a small world it is these days though, and I was interested to see all these people still stuck in the same town.

Back to me and mom, we actually got some time to hang out for the first time in a few months and didn't fight. Talked about how the grandmother and uncle I'm stuck here living with have been conspiring to leave us high and dry because they're not going to inherit the house they've trashed for over a decade when mom passes, and how she finally realizes that they've been mooching off of her since she was a teenager -- even though it's half the reason she always ran from them anyway.

We went out walking so I could get some egg hatching done, and Mom seems to have either a bulging vein in her foot with a faulty valve in it, or a cyst; it gets bigger the more she stands on it, so I think it's a vein. I remember we used to walk for miles, but yesterday we only managed a few blocks before she was in excruciating pain, as much as she tried to hide it. I caught a vileplume (one more off the pokedex!) and bought enough incubators to get all my eggs in at the same time, so we didn't have to walk as much, and she drove me around a bit downtown to get all the stops. Team Valor, of course, had all the gyms sky high, and I didn't have my stronger Mystic buddies near, so fighting them down would have been a ball of ass. I didn't bother past about 30 minutes of battling to help get rid of excess revives and potions. I hate wasting them.

Had some Taco Bell when I got home, the $5 cravings box, and finally got around to moderating by 5 PM, where I stayed on spottily for about 6 hours until the idea to write a song popped up. I worked on a demo on and off for a while and did rough out a WIP. You can listen to it here but I'll also slap a preview in.

Lyrics provided in the full descrip. I'd like to know everyone's thoughts; don't be afraid to be harsh. Go nuts. I actually uploaded it because I figured it'd be inconvenient to write a mail or leave thoughts in a comment.

Other than that, not much doing. Got over 100 songs backlog in AP cleanup while I was writing that because some people don't flag what they report and it's just messy, so I need to go through those. By the time I got back to modding around 5 AM, I was just too tired to do much good. I'm sure I would have found more stolen and illegitimate content were it not for that. I was so bombed, I just got in 20 songs and hit the sack, then slept until 8 PM or so.

MOD PERFORMANCE:
No. Stolen submissions: 60
No. Disallowed DAW Uses: 3
Non-remix: 2
Ear-rape: 2
Total Unpublished: 67
Users Banned: 37
Infractions per Capita: 1.811

BREAKDOWN:
Out of 67 illegitimate submissions, all but 8 were stolen for Geometry Dash. The one remaining theft was someone uploading a song they liked. 3 submissions were made in Music Maker Jam. 2 were cut or flanged versions of common Geometry Dash thefts such as NCS music or Skrillex. 2 were ear-rape, people screaming in the microphone, or turning up input as loud as it would go to create the most distortion possible, also for GD. Some submitters had stolen song catalogs of 15 songs or more, however the vast majority was from fire-and-forget accounts or new users. Still, I did find more users today that had more than one infraction. Of today's round-up, most were uploaded 1/15/17, however about 25 spanned 2015 and 2016, for a total infraction rate of 1.811.

CONCLUSION:
Again, I'd have loved to get a better sample size, as I feel 1.811 is a gross understatement of infraction rate; though to be fair this is counting alts and main accounts as two people, rather than a singular user. The actual rate per capita is probably higher. User @MonsterBoyGD pointed out that these thefts started when Geometry Dash v1.9 came out, which makes sense, given that this is where we see thefts start to creep in. Facepalm.

Additionally I would not have discovered some of these earlier thefts were it not for checking the account of each submitter with a flagged submission, so big thanks go out to those of you blowing that whistle! Looking forward to going through backlog today and slamming into unscouted again. I will be writing a guide on how to properly flag submissions, to add to my masterpost, so looking forward to that. :)

Alright, that about wraps it up. See ya tomorrow!

SUBSCRIPTIONS: @littlemisfortune @maorrichan @RealFaction

Thank you!

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