So it appears JMS has taken down B5 scrolls

[JonFrain]

Whoever is in charge of posting stuff on the facebook page picked a fight with JMS. A public argument ensued to the point where Joe said they were violating copyright and he wasn't going to respond anymore. I guess WB legal sent a cease and desist as the Facebook and the following page no longer exist:

themadgoner.com/​B5/​B5Scrolls/​B5Scrolls.htm

I'm not sure why Joe got so upset with their baiting, and I'm not sure why the B5 scrolls admin felt the need to argue or pick a fight with JMS. But in the end the fans lose. I doubt they made any money off of the content.

The comment that started it was regarding the "myth of the Great Maker", making it sound like JMS either took credit for everything or his fans did. When in fact the artists had a great deal of freedom to do their thing.

I feel like both sides were very petty in their arguing and Joe should have learned to ignore trolls a long time ago. It's his right to ask WB to get the site taken down though, I just think it's unfortunate he had to get in a public pissing contest with them.

 

[Raw Shark]

When did all this happen? I looked at JMS Facebook page and didn't find it. Too bad, I really liked the b5scrolls page. I'm not sure what harm it was causing, or capable of causing. One gets the impression that Warners would prefer to have B5 disappear from the face of the Earth. Pity.

Raw Shark

"Out, damned spot!"
MacBeth

 

[JonFrain]

When did all this happen? I looked at JMS Facebook page and didn't find it. Too bad, I really liked the b5scrolls page. I'm not sure what harm it was causing, or capable of causing. One gets the impression that Warners would prefer to have B5 disappear from the face of the Earth. Pity.

Raw Shark

"Out, damned spot!"
MacBeth

It happened on the B5 scrolls facebook page in the comments to a post of theirs. It was all within the last 24 hours.

 

[Jan]

Just for the record, JMS has been ignoring Tom/Triple F for over 5 years now. He put up with him editing his Wiki page with false information about the Emmys; he put up with what Tom suspected were JMS' personal IP addresses being posted on the Scrolls page. And he put up with Tom constantly taking quotes out of context and making memes that would cast him in a less than favorable light. I think the 'thousand papercuts' just finally reached a boiling point and it was exacerbated when amateur lawyers tried to explain copyright law to him.

For full disclosure, I've had words with Triple F on many occasions over the years because I disliked the tone of his site despite the great content from day one. The other night he also chose to try to speculate wildly on my financial arrangement with JMS' publisher, Publishing 180. Just one more example of how out of line he was.

Jan

 

[JonFrain]

I never really looked at his posts. Just the photos. But if that's the case then it makes sense. I hope JMS allows someone else to fill that void

My issues with JMS never even got close to the idea of him taking sole credit for B5. He's always given due credit to Netter, Copeland, Franke and the cast. I don't remember a lot regarding the special FX. I have no idea how much was scripted and how much was created by the artists. The only area where he might have gone out of his way to take credit was in regards to Directors, but only in that he sometimes explained that camera shots were written in the script and not designed by the director.

The only areas in which I feel JMS didn't offer enough credit was with respect to the influence of LOTR on the show. I also found it hard to believe that he had never seen Starblazers before creating Crusade as it was the only strongly arc oriented cartoon I remember from the late 70's. But it's certainly possible as it was hard to get a channel with that show in certain areas.

 

[KoshN]

I imagine that there a lot of people who never heard of Starblazers before watching Crusade and hearing Starblazers brought up online after that. I'm just shy of JMS' age, and before Crusade, I never knew Starblazers existed. To date, I've never seen Starblazers and have no interest in trying to find it and watch any of it. I'm not into animated/cartoons, but might make an exception if Crusade or The Dresden Files could be continued in that form, if that's the best I could get.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

Just for the record, JMS has been ignoring Tom/Triple F for over 5 years now. He put up with him editing his Wiki page with false information about the Emmys; he put up with what Tom suspected were JMS' personal IP addresses being posted on the Scrolls page. And he put up with Tom constantly taking quotes out of context and making memes that would cast him in a less than favorable light. I think the 'thousand papercuts' just finally reached a boiling point and it was exacerbated when amateur lawyers tried to explain copyright law to him.

Just the same: Damn!

That was an awesome site.

I got a full download of it (Up to its status about 2 years ago) and permission to re-post it on Republibot. We were looking at doing it a page a week, since it's great stuff, but my IT guys informed me that the formatting was entirely foreign to Republibot, and would require a major rewrite of code to make it fit.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

I imagine that there a lot of people who never heard of Starblazers before watching Crusade and hearing Starblazers brought up online after that. I'm just shy of JMS' age, and before Crusade, I never knew Starblazers existed. To date, I've never seen Starblazers and have no interest in trying to find it and watch any of it. I'm not into animated/cartoons, but might make an exception if Crusade or The Dresden Files could be continued in that form, if that's the best I could get.

"Star Blazers" was a HUGE deal in the late '70s/early '80s. It wasn't a particularly great show, but it was honeslty the first arc-driven SF show most people of my generation had ever seen, and it paved the way for more serious anime.

While it's *possible* JMS hadn't heard of Star Blazers prior to Crusade (But unlikely. He worked in cartoons for how long?), I think it's pretty definitely impossible that nobodoy working on Crusade had ever heard of it. It *had* to have come up. (Hell, for all I know, it was where TNT got the idea of the plague from!)

I would never accuse JMS of lying because I honestly don't believe he does. I do believe he plays his cards close to the vest, and doesn't volunteer information easily, and is perhpas sometimes clinical in how he approaches 'the truth.' for instance "I never heard of Star Blazers before I started Crusade" could be interpreted as "I never heard of it, but lots of people did, and they mentioned it to me afterwards and then I rolled my eyes, and tried to make my show as different from that as possible" or "I never heard of it, but some damn fool at TNT had and insisted on the timeline, and even wanted a countdown clock at the end of the episodes, but I put my foot down over that" or whatever.

Not even remotely a lie, but not full disclosure, either.

 

[Jan]

From what JMS wrote in the first Crusade: What the Hell Happened book, the original idea was to be along the lines of the Knights of the Round Table going out and building the Interstellar Alliance's empire. TNT wanted the quest to be about *finding* something and so the idea of finding a cure was born.

All of the above is IIRC as it's been a while since I read it.

Jan

 

[KoshN]

I imagine that there a lot of people who never heard of Starblazers before watching Crusade and hearing Starblazers brought up online after that. I'm just shy of JMS' age, and before Crusade, I never knew Starblazers existed. To date, I've never seen Starblazers and have no interest in trying to find it and watch any of it. I'm not into animated/cartoons, but might make an exception if Crusade or The Dresden Files could be continued in that form, if that's the best I could get.

"Star Blazers" was a HUGE deal in the late '70s/early '80s. It wasn't a particularly great show, but it was honeslty the first arc-driven SF show most people of my generation had ever seen, and it paved the way for more serious anime.

While it's *possible* JMS hadn't heard of Star Blazers prior to Crusade (But unlikely. He worked in cartoons for how long?), I think it's pretty definitely impossible that nobodoy working on Crusade had ever heard of it. It *had* to have come up. (Hell, for all I know, it was where TNT got the idea of the plague from!)

I would never accuse JMS of lying because I honestly don't believe he does. I do believe he plays his cards close to the vest, and doesn't volunteer information easily, and is perhpas sometimes clinical in how he approaches 'the truth.' for instance "I never heard of Star Blazers before I started Crusade" could be interpreted as "I never heard of it, but lots of people did, and they mentioned it to me afterwards and then I rolled my eyes, and tried to make my show as different from that as possible" or "I never heard of it, but some damn fool at TNT had and insisted on the timeline, and even wanted a countdown clock at the end of the episodes, but I put my foot down over that" or whatever.

Not even remotely a lie, but not full disclosure, either.

Regarding the 5 year countdown clock, I thought was just JMS' way of making it a five year/five season series JUST LIKE B5.


....and by that, I DON'T mean that JMS would've strung out finding the cure to the plague for five seasons. The false cure, and then the REAL cure were to be found before Season 2 was completed. After that, it probably would've got into the things like Galen's pursuit and destruction of leftover Shadowtech, maybe Galen teaching the other Technomages how to eliminate the Shadow programming in their internal Shadowtech and how to live in harmony with their Shadowtech, and possibly the return of the Technomages.

 

[Springer]

I really liked all the creative stuff he had on the B5 Scrolls website, the interviews and drawings and behind the scenes stuff. But brimming underneath there seemed to be some bitterness, which I never quite understood. Back in the day when B5 was first showing, any fan that paid attention didn't just think it was all JMS - just reading the official magazine or mags like TV Zone all the crew got mentions, the directors, the ADs, Optic Nerve, Foundation Imaging, John Iacovelli, wardrobe, the other producers, etc all had articles and interviews and their chance in the limelight. I knew the names of all the writers and directors for each episode. Yes, JMS was in control but it was always emphasised as a collaborative effort. Maybe in the years since everyone has just forgotten about that, the way people only remember Gene Roddenberry and forget Bob Justman. But being there at the beginning it seems strange to me that people would argue that JMS was taking all the credit when that clearly wasn't the case.

That said, there was an interview recently with JMS that JMS linked to on his Facebook page that in the introduction said he'd won the two Emmys for B5, when of course it was Optic Nerve and Foundation Imaging that won the Emmys. So for someone coming late to B5 I can see how they might think it was all JMS from reading things like that.

 

[JonFrain]

From what JMS wrote in the first Crusade: What the Hell Happened book, the original idea was to be along the lines of the Knights of the Round Table going out and building the Interstellar Alliance's empire.

That sounds more like a Star Trek series of individual episodes. Empire building isn't that interesting to me so ...

I thought the premise of Crusade was much more than finding a cure. Maybe he just told them that was the main premise to keep them happy. The focus seemed to be more around shadow tech and Earths connection to it that would continue long after the cure was found.

 

[Jan]

That said, there was an interview recently with JMS that JMS linked to on his Facebook page that in the introduction said he'd won the two Emmys for B5, when of course it was Optic Nerve and Foundation Imaging that won the Emmys. So for someone coming late to B5 I can see how they might think it was all JMS from reading things like that.

Except that as creator/showrunner, JMS gets full credit from the Academy for any of the technical Emmys. At some point I think there was a post in one of the magazines where his certificates (not statues) were displayed.

I thought the premise of Crusade was much more than finding a cure. Maybe he just told them that was the main premise to keep them happy. The focus seemed to be more around shadow tech and Earths connection to it that would continue long after the cure was found.

It's no secret that the cure would have been found by the middle of the second season. And yeah, it seemed that Shadow tech was going to be a big part of it, particularly given what we learned in the Technomage trilogy.

BTW, the Facebook page is back up and apparently he'll be putting the website back after removing infringing images. The conversation is rife with inaccuracies but I'm not allowed to post anymore because Tom says:

As you can probably guess from Jan’s comments that whole idea of me making up a straw man argument has haunted the website ever since it started (assuming you saw what she said before I finally banned her ass after 6, or so, years of her following me round the net saying I’m making stuff up).

...even though of the three sites I usually see him, I *long* predate him.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to let y'all know that the FB page was back up and the website interviews at least will be coming back.

Jan

 

[Triple F]

Just for the record, JMS has been ignoring Tom/Triple F for over 5 years now. He put up with him editing his Wiki page with false information about the Emmys; he put up with what Tom suspected were JMS' personal IP addresses being posted on the Scrolls page. And he put up with Tom constantly taking quotes out of context and making memes that would cast him in a less than favorable light. I think the 'thousand papercuts' just finally reached a boiling point and it was exacerbated when amateur lawyers tried to explain copyright law to him.

For full disclosure, I've had words with Triple F on many occasions over the years because I disliked the tone of his site despite the great content from day one. The other night he also chose to try to speculate wildly on my financial arrangement with JMS' publisher, Publishing 180. Just one more example of how out of line he was.

Jan

What the fuck are you talking about.

Your accusations over the years have always amused me but this is getting out of order in a BIG way. Back this up Jan. Wikipedia keeps a record of all edits. So you can do it REAL easy, if it’s true.

As for picking a fight with jms. Sorry, not true. Some people who visited the page started pointing out he was acting like a bully and a bit of a pie fight broke out about copyrighted material and the law. Had nothing to do with that.

Here’s a link to the thread.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...28430204.70587.178490865572648&type=1&theater

And if any reads that, please read the post, and the quote from mojo, before reading jms’s response.

The amazing bit is, jms’s original comment reads like a prepared statement as it doesn’t actually relate to well with what was ACTUALLY said on the original post which he was responding to. I compliment him, point out the great sutff he does, then basically says the same thing I do but words it like it’s a rebuttal!? Found that kinda strange.

As for the “Strawman” argument that I’ve been making stuff up when I say some fans give jms undue credit because they don’t know any better, I’m apparently morally bankrupt for suggesting stuff like that…….. Well, there’s B5 fans here, any you guys ever got the impression some folks (especially newbies and the not so knowledgeable) give a lot of credit to jms which really belongs elsewhere.

And just one more BTW. I’ve NEVER said jms said it was a one man show.

Going back the original point. Show your evidence Jan, or show yourself to be am opportunist liar.

 

[JonFrain]

Just for the record, JMS has been ignoring Tom/Triple F for over 5 years now. He put up with him editing his Wiki page with false information about the Emmys; he put up with what Tom suspected were JMS' personal IP addresses being posted on the Scrolls page. And he put up with Tom constantly taking quotes out of context and making memes that would cast him in a less than favorable light. I think the 'thousand papercuts' just finally reached a boiling point and it was exacerbated when amateur lawyers tried to explain copyright law to him.

For full disclosure, I've had words with Triple F on many occasions over the years because I disliked the tone of his site despite the great content from day one. The other night he also chose to try to speculate wildly on my financial arrangement with JMS' publisher, Publishing 180. Just one more example of how out of line he was.

Jan

What the fuck are you talking about.

Your accusations over the years have always amused me but this is getting out of order in a BIG way. Back this up Jan. Wikipedia keeps a record of all edits. So you can do it REAL easy, if it’s true.

As for picking a fight with jms. Sorry, not true. Some people who visited the page started pointing out he was acting like a bully and a bit of a pie fight broke out about copyrighted material and the law. Had nothing to do with that.

Here’s a link to the thread.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...28430204.70587.178490865572648&type=1&theater

And if any reads that, please read the post, and the quote from mojo, before reading jms’s response.

The amazing bit is, jms’s original comment reads like a prepared statement as it doesn’t actually relate to well with what was ACTUALLY said on the original post which he was responding to. I compliment him, point out the great sutff he does, then basically says the same thing I do but words it like it’s a rebuttal!? Found that kinda strange.

As for the “Strawman” argument that I’ve been making stuff up when I say some fans give jms undue credit because they don’t know any better, I’m apparently morally bankrupt for suggesting stuff like that…….. Well, there’s B5 fans here, any you guys ever got the impression some folks (especially newbies and the not so knowledgeable) give a lot of credit to jms which really belongs elsewhere.

And just one more BTW. I’ve NEVER said jms said it was a one man show.

Going back the original point. Show your evidence Jan, or show yourself to be am opportunist liar.

Aren't you a charming, mature and well adjusted person.

 

[Triple F]

This is unbelievable. So how should I respond to being accused of stuff like that. Bearing in mind this is only the latest in years of this nonsense. How would you? You do realise that Jan believes jms is a multi emmy award winner, and I’m some kind of evil nasty person for pointing out otherwise.

You didn’t answer the question either. Am I making it up when I say some fans give jms too much credit for stuff because they don’t know otherwise. Or is this going to turn into another one of these shoot the messenger because I don’t like his attitude jobs.

 

[JonFrain]

This is unbelievable. So how should I respond to being accused of stuff like that. Bearing in mind this is only the latest in years of this nonsense. How would you? You do realise that Jan believes jms is a multi emmy award winner, and I’m some kind of evil nasty person for pointing out otherwise.

You didn’t answer the question either. Am I making it up when I say some fans give jms too much credit for stuff because they don’t know otherwise. Or is this going to turn into another one of these shoot the messenger because I don’t like his attitude jobs.

I don't like JMS the person either. And I don't really put much stock into rabid fanboy/fangirl praise of JMS and never had. But I also didn't like the newsgroup before they created the moderated one as JMS was trolled non stop.

There's no need to swear at her in front of the entire forum. And I think the way you worded things on that Facebook post was absolutely a dig at JMS more than misguided fans.

I personally have never felt that JMS took too much credit for the show. But if he stated that "he" won emmies for B5 and not "we" when referring to just special effects then yeah that's misleading. When a show wins an emmy for say best drama, it's absolutely an award for the showrunner, writers, producers, directors, cast ....

When a show wins an emmy for best directing, best wardrobe or best special effects. Then the showrunner and writers really didn't win them in my opinion. Those strike me as specific honors for the individuals or teams responsible for making them.

Nu-BSG had great special effects, but I wouldn't credit Ron Moore for them just as I wouldn't credit Peter Jackson for WETA special effects or Lucas for individual ILM creations.

It's definitely petty for JMS to force you to take down copyrighted images if you aren't actually making any money of of them and he and WB have no plans to present that material themselves. But you've obviously picked a fight with him and egged him on enough to try to punish you for it.

 

[Jan]

But if he stated that "he" won emmies for B5 and not "we" when referring to just special effects then yeah that's misleading.

Easiest thing in the world to check what JMS's actually said, mostly (not every single post was archived but most were). Here's a simple search on the JMSnews.com archives for posts including the word 'emmy'. http://jmsnews.com/search.aspx?Start=1&query=Emmy&sort=1 I find it interesting to see some of the inter-WB politics they had to deal with just to put the show in the running for the awards.

It's definitely petty for JMS to force you to take down copyrighted images if you aren't actually making any money of of them and he and WB have no plans to present that material themselves.

Whether WB plans to use it or not doesn't matter and making money from it isn't material in infringement cases. They own it, that's all there is to it. But years ago JMS went to bat for fan sites and they came to a pretty reasonable (albeit informal) arrangement:

When this came to our attention, we (acting sort of as fan
advocates) sat down with WB legal and discussed ways of doing it short
of sending out these exact sort of letters to BABYLON 5 sites. What we
came to was the following understanding: that WB would not actively go
after sites which used B5 photos and other material PROVIDED THAT the
proper copyright information was appended to the material utilized.
They are currently in the process of verifying and evaluating sites
before sending letters telling them to append this information.

The entire post may be of interest. I told Tom more than once that he needed to include the WB copyright notice on his site.

Both 'Tom Smith' and the B5 Scrolls Facebook pages are down again this morning as of shortly after Triple F/Tom's outburst here and on one of the B5 pages. I imagine it'll be back. But I'm not planning on engaging him any further. Sorry you've all been subjected to the unpleasantness.

Jan

 

[JonFrain]

Whether WB plans to use it or not doesn't matter and making money from it isn't material in infringement cases. They own it, that's all there is to it. But years ago JMS went to bat for fan sites and they came to a pretty reasonable (albeit informal) arrangement:

Jan

The point was that WB didn't care until JMS informed them. So JMS went out of his way to get them taken down after an argument.

If they go back up as long as there is proper copyright credit then no harm no foul.

 

[Republibot 3.0]

From what JMS wrote in the first Crusade: What the Hell Happened book, the original idea was to be along the lines of the Knights of the Round Table going out and building the Interstellar Alliance's empire. TNT wanted the quest to be about *finding* something and so the idea of finding a cure was born.

All of the above is IIRC as it's been a while since I read it.

Jan

Which doesn't really contradict anything I said. JMS goes in saying "I wanna' do the Knights of the Round Table in space and call it 'Crusade'" and then they say "We wanna' do 'Star Blazers' and you can call it 'Crusade'" "I've never heard of it. What is it?" (TNT execs all pull thier shirts off, start smoking cigars and slapping themselves on their extrordinarily hairy backs while singing the Star Blazers theme.) "Ok, yeah, I guess I could make that work...."