Antoni Norman, developer of Pinguy OS used trademark censorship against Youtube Show host.
The following images show the Youtube takedown complaint as well as PROOF that Cup of Linux had the approval of Antoni Norman to post videos about Pinguy OS on Youtube. http://imgur.com/a/8QEFS The items are tagged with an explanation of what they are.
Pinguy was banned by moderators at cupoflinux.com for several counts of misconduct while impaired on the Mumble server. A ban on one cup of linux service means a ban from ALL services. By his own admission in a pinguyos forum post he stated he was impaired when he has appreared on one of our live podcasts, this is nothing new to us. Pinguy is a great source of information and we have been more lenient with him than anyone else. I was going to consider lifting his ban after a 3 month period to send a strong message to him that we will not tolerate bad behavior from anyone. This act of acrimony makes his ban permanent and is treated as a “trademark troll” attack.
The GNU general public license grants us the freedom to use GPL software in any way we see fit with the inclusion modifying, sharing and providing tutorials under FAIR USE.
I have alerted other show hosts who are affiliated with cupoflinux.com to remove all Pinguy OS videos from their Youtube channels to avoid any future attacks. At present, I am trying to figure out a way to warn others about this without a further attack on my Youtube channel. I fear that even saying the words “Pinguy OS” (without showing any trademark logos) may entice Mr Norman to file additional strikes against my Youtube channel. Ben, my co-administrator has contacted the EFF and we await response from them before making any videos public regarding this issue.
Cup of Linux is committed to helping newcomers to Linux make an easy transition from other proprietary operating systems. We had several videos showing that PinguyOS is an excellent choice for beginners. This trademark censorship does not hurt my channel (this was not a copyright or DCMA takedown order which would restrict my Youtube access), more-so, it harms the members of the community who benefit from the tutorials. Most of the videos cover older software, but they were still referenced by members until the take-down. 6 videos were targeted by the attack, 29 were removed to avoid future retaliation.
As a community leader, I feel that I would be doing a major dis-service by keeping silent. If Antoni Norman wants to censor the community, maybe he should consider removing GPL licensing and applications from his operating system because this goes against everything the Free and Open software community stands for.
If you do a Google search for ” linuxspatry site:pinguyos.com ” you will see that the document screen-shots I have supplied are genuine. Pinguy neglected to remove my account and posts from his forum at the time of this writing. If by chance those links have been removed you can still view the links by using google’s cached page search. Nothing has been falsified.
We invite all GNU/Linux enthusiasts to visit us at cupoflinux.com We have a vibrant community meant to educate, entertain and inspire. We have several features which help newcomers transition over to Linux. We have a Forum, Chatroom, Mumble voice server, WIKI and we have a BRAND NEW listing service called Distro Hunt (http://Distrohunt.org) where ANYONE may openly share their free and open projects; we even have a section where developers can list their incomplete projects on our Developer’s Guild.
If the Linux community has any advice for people who are victims of trademark censorship and trolling, I would be grateful for your assistance and I will be more than happy to respond in kind by mentioning your services on my Youtube channel. Spatry can be contacted at cupoflinux.com
I affirm under the penalty or perjury that everything in this statement is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Warm regards,
Spatry
Archived forum posts in case originals are removed from the pinguyos website.
https://web.archive.org/web/20111023224610/http://forum.pinguyos.com/Thread-Pinguy-OS-11-04-How-TO-Video-Series
https://web.archive.org/web/20121123005230/http://forum.pinguyos.com/Thread-Zoo-Crew-17-Desktop-Wars-Discussion-with-Pinguy