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Composer identity fraud

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timelord:
I think I need a little help from the community.  There is another person named Jared Cravens over at AMP trying to take credit for the 23 mods and s3ms that I have composed between 1993 and 1996.  What he probably doesn't realize is that my real name was included in the official release of Impulse which is still preserved at the Hornet FTP archive mirrors, here:

ftp://ftp.scene.org/mirrors/hornet/music/songs/1996/t/tl-impul.zip

Within that zip archive, the sample data in IMPULSE.S3M says to refer to IMPULSE.TXT.  At the bottom of that file, it says:

(c) 1996 Robert Gergely
not to be modified or used in any fashion without express written
permission.

That's me. The admin over at AMP is trying to stay neutral on this matter, so I would like to open a discussion here in order to resolve this permanently.

Besides this, I have other evidence, if the discussion can be opened.  I am only interested in the correct information being preserved for history.

Thanks,
Rob


Edit by moderator: Fixed FTP link (forum bug)

Saga Musix:
Wait, are we seriously talking about something claiming credit for your modules (aren't we past these times by now?), or just something having the same handle by accident?

Axxy:
I'm trying to find why I asked the original question in the first place. I must have come across a mod with Timelord (Jared Craven)  and must have asked if the 2 Timelords were the same person or someone else, maybe because no one had your real name or something, I dunno?

Having had a look around at various sites, most have Timelord modules but not really the real name for the alias. AMP didn't, Nectarine doesn't and Modland has no entry in the spreadsheet for Timelord (unless thats been updated or something)...  I see your profile has been updated here at MA...

Also, looking around at whats left of the oldskool sites and looking at old zipfiles, plus the Internet in general, all the Timelord modules are yours, some of those files have been online for 20 years....

Again, I can't find the module that I found that might have been credited to another Timelord (you haven't re-generated have you?)  ;) which I asked the original question for.

Can you confirm that the 23 modules over at AMP are correctly credited to you?  I think the same as here, but MA only has 21 of them.

And, did you compose any more modules apart from those available here or at AMP?

timelord:
My music was used in a commercial video game called Uplink by Introversion software.  This game wasn't really very successful until its release on the Steam Platform in mid 2006.

I was browsing the uplink forums when I came across something kind of shocking, a user name timelord was thanking people for enjoying his music and re-directing people to the AMP site, which contained my tracks and a fake interview filled out by a Jared Cravens who was trying to claim credit for my work.

Here is the forum post:  http://forums.introversion.co.uk/uplink/viewtopic.php?t=34729&highlight=
(it's near the bottom)

Upon discovering this I have contacted Crown at AMP and asked him to take down the false information.  There was a lot of back and forth and vehement opposition from Jared, including "evidence" in the form of "vouchers" from people in the scene.

The truth is, I never met people from the scene, while maybe he did.  It's entirely possible that he went by the same handle of Timelord.  That is fine, it's not an original name at all, but what is utterly despicable is claiming credit for the music I made in my teenage years.

Eventually, Crown took down the interview and reset the profile to list "blank" information, but it took a lot of pleading to get that done.  It was very difficult for me to "prove" my real name due to the fact that most of the songs were released only as Timelord.  This Jared Cravens person obviously made note of this and is trying to opportunistically take advantage of it.

Last month, I decided that after about seven years later I would submit an interview form to AMP with my legitimate information contained in it, just to have the record correct for history.  A different admin (Asle) is on duty now and accepted the information.  Amazingly enough, the impersonator found out about this and protested for its removal, and for about a week the fake Jared Cravens information was again displayed.  I contacted Asle again to try and explain the situation, they took down the form again and it's his official position that they do not want to get involved to arbitrate this and want to stay neutral.

I can understand that, however AMP and this site are probably the only remaining authorities for demoscene music and I strongly feel that there should be some sort of arbitration process, which is why I am reaching out to the community for help.

Now, the best piece of evidence that proves my identity is contained within the 1996 hornet zip file that I brought up earlier:  ftp://ftp.scene.org/mirrors/hornet/music/songs/1996/t/tl-impul.zip

I forgot about this the first time around in 2006, but it's still there.  I also have kept my working tracker directory for all of these years.  I have backup versions of two of my official releases which are less-developed and work-in-progress versions.  If someone is willing to listen, I can demonstrate exactly how they are different, one of which has a complex piano melody that was scrapped and "scaled down" - a portion of this melody still remains in the final release.

I also did a lot of CD and tape sampling of commercial music in those days.  I can point out exactly what was sampled and from where, this is verifiable through youtube links.  I'm not talking about vocal samples, but things like pads, snare drums, beat loops and effects.  This kind of obscure knowledge is something that only the composer would know.

In addition to that, there is an active capture from 1998 of the last official timelord music collection website preserved on the internet way back machine:  

http://web.archive.org/web/19981202074419/http://evillive.insync.net/%7Etl/

The bottom of that contains my email address, which still works and comes to me.

As you said however, it's been 20 years, but having this correct for history and for the con artist to finally go away is very important to me.

I need to convince the AMP people to change their minds and accept my information.  I don't know what Jared has told them but I have a feeling that he has been very persuasive and that they are siding with him at this point, it's going to be an uphill battle.

At present, I have shown Asle the link to the file in the hornet archive, but he is ignoring it.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for your support.

Rob

timelord:

--- Quote from: Axxy on June 01, 2013, 16:30:43 ---Can you confirm that the 23 modules over at AMP are correctly credited to you?  I think the same as here, but MA only has 21 of them.

And, did you compose any more modules apart from those available here or at AMP?


--- End quote ---

To answer your questions Axxy, yes the 23 at AMP are official and correct.  They were missing one which I recently submitted.  I haven't yet filled in the blanks here but will do so shortly.

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