Dispute between QuadJacks and SrslySirius takes ugly turn

Yesterday the recent departure of Thomas “SrslySirius” Keeling from QuadJacks.com took an ugly turn as the two sides each issued statements showing that their original statements that the parting had been amicable may not have been an accurate reflection of the entire story.

Keeling left QuadJacks roughly a month ago and all seemed to be going well as the creator of a number of musical poker parodies went off to do his own thing and QuadJacks went about their business. However, recent suspicions that Keeling may have used “viewbots” to artificially inflate the popularity of his latest musical creation “Nightmare on my Street” sent the 2+2 poker forum into a frenzy (because the only thing better than building someone up is tearing them down) and was the launching point for some harsh words and accusations between QuadJacks and Keeling.

As it turns out, there was a dispute between QuadJacks and Keeling over who held the rights to several songs, with both parties filing DMCA takedown requests with YouTube. “AgentMarco” from QuadJacks released a video, basically denouncing Keeling, and stating that QuadJacks would be removing all of his content from the site. [You can watch the video or read the transcript at the QuadJacks website].

Keeling then responded with his own statement on his personal website, explaining the actions he took, admitting to making a few mistakes during the process (most notably not contacting the QuadJacks guys beforehand), and firing off his own salvo against his former company. [You can read Keeling's entire response at Keeling's website]

The core issue of “viewbotting” was never addressed by Keeling, either on 2+2 or in his response to QuadJacks. Admittedly, I never heard of “viewbotting” before this ordeal, and the ethics of “viewbotting” is still an unsettled matter in the court of public opinion from what my research has turned up, and is entirely legal. That said, it seems to be considered bad form by most of the 2+2 community.

“Viewbotting” is basically using an Internet bot to inflate the number of views and likes a YouTube video has -giving it a far better chance of “going viral”. It should also be pointed out that Keeling is not the only person who would be able to “viewbot” his work; bots are fairly cheap, and a number of cases of “viewbotting” happen without the knowledge of the person who uploaded the video to YouTube -The most famous (infamous) incident being someone “viewbotting” an anti-viewbotting video on YouTube.

We’ll have to wait and see how all this plays out, but as is usually case in these matters; at this point everyone’s reputation is taking a hit.