We got some drama over at ASS here, PLEASE help.
 

Long post, sorry folks, interesting though. :)

Here's the deal. I reviewed Petter Hegre's site PetterHegreArchives a while back because I was pretty amazed with the site. I had a seroiusly hard time cutting points out of their rating, I thought it was really well done.

Also a few months back, one of our in-house reviewers gave MET-Art a very high rating of 94, and it was very well deserving now that I've also been inside their members area.

Everything was running smoothly, and one day I get an e-mail from Met-Art saying a bunch of shit, that Petter used to work with them years ago, and that he stole all of their ideas, tried to steal photographers, stole entire portions of text, etc. Now I don't just jump to conclusions, but it was backed up with a few URL references, e-mail quotations from a photographer, things like that. It was clear and apparent that one thing between the sites was undeniably the same - the covers idea. They both use magazine-style covers to introduce new picture sets, they both look really great. The other thing was the content - both are very artistic, erotic photographs.

Due to our error (it was hard for me to tell because I didn't initially review Met-Art) I appologized, made note in our review so that our users could make up their own minds about the situation, and gave Met-art top spot after taking a good look myself. I mean if I loved Hegre's site so much, and Met-art did it first, it seemed clear what was to be done. I also lowered the score for Hegre's site, and made note in that review.

A few weeks pass, and now I'm getting e-mails from Hegre saying in a nutshell, disappointed, not sure why, what's up? So I explained what had happened, and asked for proof on his side. He says that Met-art is lying through their teeth, it's all bullshit, and a scam to help him and fuck over Hegre.

I should have seen this coming perhaps, but now I'm not sure what to do. The first thing that came to mind was to ask the community here if anyone has insight into this situation.

The facts are this. They did work together, MET was around since 1999 while Hegre's site opened in January of 2002. The covers idea was definitely copied, but it's a great idea and it fits on both sites. He doesn't deny borrowing this idea.

MET claims Petter changed his style from sado/fetish/bondage to soft erotica after dealings with each other. Petter says his style has been similar for the past 12 years, and has never done any bondage. Also that some of the work he licensed to MET while they worked together was taken a number of years before they had ever made contact with each other. Whose in the wrong here? It's hard to tell

I just need to know who the fuck is lying to me. :helpme

are you insane getting caught up in this drama between two artistic nude sites Socks?

Hegre fucking rules! Whoever this Met Art guy is believe me the concept of designing a fine art nude erotic site to look like a classy magazine ain't his original concept either, in fact it's EXACTLY like the world of porn paysite design, and TGP design,
one type of layout/design becomes sort of accepted and expected.

I'll look at Met Art today and see how original his design is, I'm with Hegre on this.

And another thing about photographers, especially in the artistic nude field - drama queens, jealousy, backbiting, etc etc

You've never heard of MET, Most Erotic Teens?

yeah i have, i just hadn't heard 'Met-Art' .

They're full of shit too. Hegre's site is NOTHING like their site, it's nicer and as far as I know Hegre shoots most of his own content, Most Erotic Teens looks like they just feature photosets from contributors.

ridiculous. the magazine covers idea is what MET is all pissed off over i suspect because the two sites look nothing like each other. Hegre's is far superior.

so FTVGirls has magazine covers too, it's not an idea that can be trademarked and i will guarantee you that MET wasn't the first.
Blue Nudes from Day One went with a magazine format, each month a new cover with new content.

I'll have to go with hegre-archives too, a much more professional looking site. I did notice that hegre shares some similar or identical text with metgirls.com, plus they also share some models, and both do the popup window with the "HIGH RES" and "LOW RES" series.

I figured that they were working together rather than one copying the other.

The one thing that bothered me about metgirls was a couple of videos showing obviously underage nudist camp girls. Artistically legal perhaps, but I didn't feel comfortable seeing that bundled in with the erotic 18+ model content. I did not renew my membership.

I like ASS as much as the next guy. But I really think you should steer way clear of their little intrigue.

The two sites have been reviewed, and scores given based on how good the sites are.

The average joe pornsurfer doesn't give a rats ass about their petty dispute. He only cares how good a given site is.

Therefore I don't think changing scores, just because some site owners bitching a little, follows the ASS ideology of being objective and honest.

Am i wrong?

no doubt Hegre took some of the things he saw on MET and incorporated them into his site when started it. big whoop........this goes on every day in every business. The Tonight Show was the first TV talk show with a desk, they don't get a patent on 'Talk show with a desk'. Maxim has inspired 20 knock off competitors. Maxim isn't whining.

I also noticed the underage girls on MET, but I think they're in the clear legally, it is an artistic nude site, kinda hard not to say it isn't.

If you're a review site, who came up with something first is meaningless. If you were a restaurant critic, you wouldn't give extra credit to an Italian restaurante with a patio bar over another one just like it that opened up 2 years later. You'd review them based on the food, the ambience, the service - not who was first or some restaurant biz gossip about one restaurant trying to hire away the chef from the other one.

urls?

http://www.hegre-archives.com

http://www.mosteroticteens.com


Hegre's design is great, clean, stylish........MET's is amateurish, looks like it was done by somebody who just found Photoshop.

and you gotta be crazy to join MET. I'm not interested in explaining to the police that it's an artistic nude site and therefore the 14 year old girls naked on my computer are legal. Who needs that embarassment and headache in your life not to mention thousands of dollars trying to get a judge or jury to agree with me.

Hegre's wife :Graucho

http://www.met-art.com/covers/082902.jpg

Hey, sorry I never replied earlier, after I posted this we lost our internet connection for a little while, then I was away for a few days.. Thanks for all of your input, and I'll answer why I was dragged into this mess.

After reading the first e-mail from MET I agreed that giving Hegre a 20/20 for originality wasn't very objective. If all of the things he said were true, it seemed to me like it was more of a host/leech situation. The more I think about it though, you're all right. Hegre was a photographer before he started work with MET, and is still a photographer today. How he chooses to design his website, borrowing ideas from here and there, is his choice I suppose. The truth is, both websites have content that goes beyond the means and abilities of most porn sites. Their content stood out to me a lot, and they obviously both put a ton of work into their sites.

I'm still not sure what the "right" thing is to do, I think I'll just give them both 96 until I find something worthy of a 97, and stay the fuck outta this.

No, you're very right. We don't change our reviews because someone bitches unless they can bring up valid points that I wasn't able to cover, or have made their website significantly better since the review was written.

We're not trying to say this one website is the best in existence, but it seems the best way to do it by having a global ranking system. Each person is different, so we try to do as much of the explaining as possible within the review text. I just want our customers to know what they're getting before they pay for it, so they don't feel ripped off and cheated. Happy customers are what this industry needs right now.

My advice is simple. Don't let either of them push you around. Revert to your original ratings for both sites, and tell them you are a reviewer, and not interested in their personal gripes. You should never have let them take you this far.

Unless MET is lying on their 2257 they are legal now.

http://www.met-art.com/disclaimer.htm

remove both reviews.. problem solved

you don't let siteowners dictate what goes on your site and the top ratings etc

(besides there are other reasons why you shouldn't list either of those two)

I get the Fresh emails somehow but I'd never really paid any attention to the Hegre site... wow, I'd buy a membership to that.

You don't have reviews of those sites? What reasons?

Hegre's work is awesome and I love the design of his site.

I'm going to get my guys in his site as 'guest photographer's.

Hi Socks, I own Carnalia.com and was recently in a similar situation. A webmaster was accusing a site that I had reviewed of stealing their content and using underage models. I naively wasted heaps of time attempting to mediate only to have one of them (the site being accused of mischief) turn around and start accusing me of harassing him (ie by asking if the accusations were correct).

So my advice is to either ignore them and keep the reviews as they were before the issues were raised, or delete both sites. Under no circumstances should you get involved in the debate as you'll waste a lot of time and probably end-up caught in the cross fire. :2 cents:

take a look at the girls playing in the grass............. i'd be shocked if they were 18. But I dunno, MET does seem to pass the 'artistic' standard, so it's probably legal even if they aren't 18. Not sure though because he's mixing the content with stuff that isn't art, just plain ol' pornography.

http://www.met-art.com/main/preview/video/bottom.jpg

wassup socks.....login to your icq sometime. I want to holla atcha.