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eBaum's World (subtitled "Media for the Masses") is a popular website based in Buffalo, New York featuring entertainment media such as videos, Flash cartoons and web games. It is highly controversial for many reasons, primarily due to allegations that content on the website is taken from other sources without permission and rebranded with the eBaum's World logo. The site, which is owned by Rochester, New York, native Eric "eBaum" Bauman ranks in the top 500 sites on the Internet according to Alexa. It is co-owned by Eric's secretary and father Neil Bauman.

Features

The site features individual celebrity soundboards, where users can click buttons to hear notable words or phrases spoken by that celebrity. By pressing certain buttons in an organized order, users can simulate the celebrities saying unusual things. In this way, the soundboards are commonly used in prank phone calls. These calls are often recorded and subsequently re-submitted to the site.

eBaum's World has a very large forum community, with thousands of members and over one million posts that often include pictures, videos, etc. There are also games and animations as well as a chatroom and a store which sells eBaum merchandise. Since the site receives many emails suggesting content to add, there is a section called "Moron Mail."

eBaum's World now had a Daily News section that displays a new video every few hours.

Controversy

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eBaum's World has garnered significant controversy in many Internet communities over the years due to numerous accusations of content being taken from other sites without attribution, especially from websites such as YTMND, Something Awful, Albino Blacksheep and Newgrounds. Companies such as Viacom , 20th Century Fox , and Sega have all claimed that Eric and Neil Bauman have infringed on their copyrights. Eric Bauman denies critics' claims that the site's content is stolen, citing research done by site editors and the consent form that must accompany uploads of material. He claims to honor all requests to remove unauthorized material , but this is contested by some content creators, In particular, web artist and animator Jonti Picking, ("Weebl", creator of the Badger Badger Badger animations) was only able to have his animations removed at the beginning of 2006. Bauman has claimed that he formerly worked with Picking, though Picking has stated that this is false.

Due to the unpopularity of the website in various communities, links to eBaum's have been filtered on various forums that have yet to come into conflict with eBaum's. On some forums instead of the members commenting on the link that has been posted they post ebaumsworldsucks.com link or insult Eric Bauman. Users can end up being flamed by users or even banned.

A web site, eBaumsWorldSucks.com, has been set up by Newgrounds/Something Awful supporters Neil Cicierega (Lemon Demon), Shawn Vulliez (AltF4), and Abi Rendon (LegalCondom, a former eBaum's World employee) to document the ongoing controversy between content creators and eBaum's World. The site hosts a page containing statements from content creators claiming that some of their works appear on eBaum's World without permission. The site also details cases in which eBaum's World has allegedly taken bandwidth and launched denial of service attacks on other sites. There are allegations that eBaum's World's Funbar toolbar may install adware.

In January 2006, eBaum's World hosted and watermarked a Lindsay Lohan montage created by YTMND user SpliceVW without crediting either SpliceVW or YTMND. In response, users from YTMND joined users from other internet communities, namely Something Awful, LUElinks, Newgrounds, 4chan, FARK, Ugoplayer (Flashplayer.com), Weebls-Stuff, and IGN. These groups disrupted the eBaum's World forums with spam posts and DDoS attacks. On January 10, eBaum's World alleged the attacks were a form of cyber-terrorism, and on January 11, Neil Bauman, the executive vice president of eBaum's World, stated publicly that arrests were being made in relation to the attacks. Eventually Goldberg and Bauman came to an agreement, with Bauman removing the montage from his website, in return for Goldberg removing any reference to "eBaum" from his website. Despite the resolution of the conflict, both sites experienced DDoS attacks on the morning of January 12, 2006. As of 2006, there have not been any updates on the conflict.

On February 23, 2006, Michael Parker, an eBaum's World representative, appeared on G4's Attack of the Show to try and clear up the recent controversy with YTMND. Kevin Pereira, co-host of the show, asked Parker explicit questions about the alleged infringing. Parker claimed:

There aren't any written rules or regulations. We're trying to do our due diligence and do the things that we feel are right by not taking other people's material without crediting them or contacting them first. We try to...we contact all these people. Like if we something we like, like a game, we don't just put it on our site . We contact these people. And if you notice with all our new Flash games, we have our own intro in them, and it's done by the creators and we pay them for that.

On May 26, 2006, several images from the Something Awful forums were displayed on the eBaum's World website. The images on eBaum's World were cropped to remove the Something Awful watermark. The page was removed later in the day following multiple complaints being expressed on the eBaum's World forums.

Critics affirm that infringing content continues to appear on the website. Albino Blacksheep has threatened legal action and claims that other websites have also asserted difficulties with Eric Bauman. On June 12, 2006, Steven Lerner of Albino Blacksheep explained that eBaum's World took the animation "Animator vs. Animation," and the creator of the Flash animation, Alan, would take legal action against eBaum's World. Steven Lerner and Alan used the MochiBot Flash tracking tool to track who used the animation on their web sites. Lerner also explained that the Flash animation is legally protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. On June 9, Bauman sent Alan a $250 check as well as entering him into a $1000 "contest" in hopes of having any legal charges dropped. As well as dropping the legal charges, eBaum's World forced him to submit a pre-scripted quote stating that none of the site's content was stolen and that Bauman had contacted him previous to his content being posted on the site. Alan accepted this proposal, and later submitted this letter of apology to the flash community of Albino Blacksheep:

Hello, I am the author of Animator vs. Animation...

I feel so ashamed, and the world is ashamed of me.

I fell into eBaum's trap. I gave them fuel to fight back.

With their constant persuasion and offers for money, they made me write a quote saying that everything was fine. Of course everything was fine for me, because I had the money they had given me. What can you expect, I was dead poor before, I have no experience with business. The quote says they contacted me before they posted my animation on their website, however I did not give them permission to put it on.

On June 26 2006, eBaum's World removed the animation and the apology from Alan from their web site.

eBaum's World on television

On January 24, 2006, USA Network made a deal with the Fox Television Studios to create a television program based on eBaum's World. Producers intend it to be a late-night companion special to air with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Monday Night RAW featuring clips from the website as well as new and exclusive content including interviews with former and current eBaum's World subjects. The show is being executive produced by Simon Andreae through his production company, The Incubator, in association with Fox Television Studios. The cease and desist letters from this company were removed when this show was announced.

On February 27, 2006, a researcher named Bradley Scott from eBaum's World TV show contacted the webmaster of Albino Blacksheep, asking the webmaster to sign over the site's content while refusing to admit what show it was for. The producer of eBaum's World television show finally admitted who he was but did not directly acknowledge the content that appears on eBaum's World, including Albino Blacksheep's. The webmaster recorded samples of these calls for their message boards.

As of June 2006, the show has not yet aired.

Trivia

• The website was started as a project in Bauman\'s junior year of high school.
• In 2005, Bauman had gained enough money from his website to sponsor a professional boxer. He has also purchased an $850,000 office building and a $150,000 home.
• Eric Bauman is a member of NAMBLA

External links

• eBaum's World - Official Website
  • USA Network Announces eBaum's World Reality Series
• eBaum's World Sucks - Site critical of eBaumsWorld.com.
• Albino Blacksheep - Animator vs. Animation Controversy

• Current events
• Comedy websites
• Entertainment websites
• Intellectual property