LINDA IKEJI- I'm Innocent Of This Allegations

Amidst allegations of copyright
infringement, and claims that
popular blog, Linda Ikeji Blog
owned by Linda Ikeji may soon be
shut down, the woman at the center
of the storm has spoken out. She
took to her blog to address the
issue.
Read her full post below:

So something has been going on for
the past couple of days that I
haven’t reacted to because I wanted
to see it play out and see how far
these people will go. They have gone
far and it’s now time to react.
The only reason this is happening
to me is because I’m number one…
so I am flattered. I am currently
No.10 on Alexa.com, more read
than all the other news sites in
Nigeria, so I understand why I am
the target. If I were them, I’d hate
me too…lol.
So here’s what’s going on.
Sometime last year, some guys
decided it was time to run me out
of business (duh, like you can…lol).
So they began to spam by blog. And
when your blog gets a lot of spam,
Google (which hosts my site) can
take your blog down. But instead of
taking my blog down, Google took
my Adsense down for a few months
and eventually re-instated it. So
they didn’t succeed. These same
people started sending strange
emails to me…looking for different
ways to have access to my blog. But
I wouldn’t let them. If they could,
they would have hacked it, but they
couldn’t so they continued to look
for different ways to attack my blog.
Please continue…

In April 2014, these guys decided to
close down the blog again. In the
emails they exchanged back and
forth, they said ‘plagiarism is a
good excuse to finish her’. (they
forget that if they succeed in closing
down LIB because I’m on blogger…I
could easily start a website). Now
let me tell you who these guys are.
They are IT people, security experts
who know how the internet works.
They are hackers and cyber-
squatters…and only go after the
biggest internet setups.

Immediately after I shared photos
of my new SUV, these guys re-
connected again and decided it was
finally time to end LIB because
there were quite a few people who
were mad that I bought the car and
they wanted to play on their
emotions. The head of this team is a
guy who goes by the name
@MrAyeDee on twitter. They
decided to use the plagiarism card.

He said it was the strongest claim to
make and easiest way to get
support from other people. And then
the campaign started with him
claiming that I took something from
him without crediting him or
asking for permission. 100% false.

If
he owns a website, I’ve never
visited it. He started by writing all
sorts to get people to notice…and
then he acted. Like I said these guys
are IT experts, they know what to
do to get blogger/Google to come
after you. So he and his team
started filling several reports,
sending links of my blog posts and
making claims to Google.
Outrageous false claims. And
because Google acts first before they
contact the blog owner, they took
down some posts and asked me to
file a counter claim if I felt I had a
right to re-publish those articles.
Now that my blog is under Google
review, these guys have started to
spam it again.

They want Google to shut it down.
That is their aim. Will they succeed?
I sincerely don’t know. I’m not an
IT expert…I know they are
spamming and filing complaints, I
don’t know what else they are doing
behind the scenes but they are
relentless.

Now let me give you guys a bit who
this Aye Dee guy is. He’s
anonymous on Twitter. Nobody
really knows who he is but
according to those investigating
him, his name is Emmanuel
Efremov simply known as EE by his
friends. He’s the owner of
15Past8.com media group. Based in
Manhattan. Gets funding from some
US organization. (His number – 212
9608127). He’s apparently been
stalking me for years now and have
registered quite a number of my
domain names…lindaikeji.net plus 8
others. He also owns 9jalife.com…

yep, he owns a blog. He accuses me
of copyright infringement but when
you go to 9jalife and other websites
he owns…98% of the things he has
on there are other people’s content.
You see pot calling kettle black? Lol.

Immediately he was found out
yesterday, the IT expert
immediately started to redirect
lindaikeji.net to my blog. If you
click lindaikeji.net now, it will
redirect you to this blog. He
panicked yesterday and quickly did
it. A name he register as far back as
2011. Lol. Choi!

Not only that, he’s also a cyber
squatter. Yep, he registers 100s of
websites belonging to others around
the world and tries to make money
off them. Guess one of his aims is
to run me out of blogger so I come
to him and his team and pay
thousands of dollars to get one of
the several names he’s registered.
Not going to happen, boo! Hehe
Below is an article from lawyer and
blogger Uduak Udouk of Africa
Music Law about this guy and his
cyber-squatting criminal activities.
“According to a twitter handle
owned by @MrAyeDee, celebrity
blogger Linda Ikeji was accused of
copyright infringement of his
works. He reported these infringing
activities to Google and what
resulted was a take down of his
articles/works on her site. He also
claimed with the rate and way
things looked, Linda Ikeji’s site
could be shut down within a week.
I get the fact that this guy was
concerned about Ikeji’s activities
and got Google to do something
about it. What I don’t get is his very
strong response and continued
massive tweets talking about the
same issue in an almost vendetta
like style towards her. This got me
curious to know who he was and
what could be a motive behind all of
these.

I began by looking at his twitter
page and narrowed in on his
website www. 15Past8.com. The
description of the services he
offered through his media group
raised my curiosity. He says his
media group owns “hundreds of
websites.” He also claimed some of
the infringing content on Linda Ikeji
came from his site. Well one of his
hundreds of websites is 9jalife.com
because it has the 15Past8.com
media group stamped on it. I did a
basic search on 9jalife.com to see
who owns it. The name ‘Emmanuel
Efremov’ came up as the registered
owner of 9jalife.com. 9jalife.com is
clear it is owned by 15Past8.com
media group, @MrAyeDee’s
company.

For my article on Linda Ikeji, many
have been saying they are surprised
she does not own her own domain.
Purely out of curiosity, I looked up
Lindaikeji.com and noted it is
owned by someone else, a case of
cybersquatting. I also look up Linda
Ikeji.net and see the same
‘Emmanuel Efremov’ come up. Now
I am very curious. How is it that
Emmanuel Efremov owner of
9jalife.com, a subsidiary of
15Past8.com, also owns
LindaIkeji.net? Am I missing
something?

Needless to say, I google the name
‘Emmanuel Efremov’ and lo and
behold, there is a case by
Volkswagen against an Emmanuel
Efremov for cybersquatting. Looking
at the description of 15Past8.com,
the registered domain owner of
9jalife.com and Lindaikeji.net and
the case by Volkswagen against
Emmanuel Efremov, I am left feeling
that the credibility of @MrAyeDee is
shot and very weak at best. It also
makes me wonder about any prior
existing relationship between him
and Linda Ikeji as to the issue of
domain ownership i.e.
cybersquatting. It is not uncommon
for cybersquatters to ask you the
legitimate owner of a trademark to
pay them to own your own website.

If you accuse someone of copyright
infringement, it is a good idea to
make sure your hands are very
clean and there is no connection
whatsoever with a possible bad
faith attempt to hijack their domain
name. I am curious to see where all
of these leads.” Uduak Udouk
Now talking about copyright
infringement, Mr Aye Dee feels that
crediting source is not enough, that
I have to write a written permission
to the website owner. That’s
laughable at best. So if there’s a
breaking news on TMZ, I will first
write to the editors and wait for the
2/3 days it will take them to reply
me…that’s if they even bother to.

I admit that I take content from
other sites. Plenty of it sef, but the
question is, which website in the
world doesn’t? If you go on
Bossip.com, 50% of what is there is
from other sources. Daily Mail UK
takes from other sites, re-writes and
give credit. UK Mirror takes from
other sites. MediaTakeOut quotes
other sources. E! Online, Us Weekly,
People and even CNN take news
from other sources and give credit,
so why is mine an offense to the
extent that my blog deserves to be
shut down? Even in Nigeria, which
site doesn’t take news from other
sites? Which? That is how media
runs. Perez Hilton makes $10million
a year from blogging and 50% of the
content on his site is not originally
his. As long as you give credit…

which I do! Except in cases where
you don’t know the original source
of the story or photo. So many blogs
take content from my site, how
many of them have I gone after? In
fact, I’m happy that they do so, I
have nothing against it. If I take
content from another site and they
approach me to take it down despite
giving credit, I will take it down.
But that doesn’t happen.

I try as much as possible to get as
many exclusives as I can, but
because I work from home my team
is so small. I’ve been planning to
employ more hands which I will do
eventually and then get a proper
office. I’m kinda glad this
happened. It’s now pushing me to
act and take my business more
seriously.

So Mr Aye Dee, Mr EE, Mr
#bringmedown or whoever you are
and Jeremy Weate (look who is
talking ..lol) and all the others
talking, I am not afraid of you! You
didn’t bring me this far and you’re
not enough to bring me down. Like
if you dream it, speak it, act it,
hope it, envision it, see it, pray
it….YOU are not enough! You can’t
bring a good woman down. You can
try boo, oh please keep trying…but
you see this lady, she ain’t going
nowhere. You don’t even know who
you are dealing with. You don’t
know what drives me and how far I
plan to go. I’ve been a hustler since
I was 17, doing it on my own…on
my own terms. Plus I have the
backing of God…and of course my
hundreds of thousands of readers.

I
repeat, YOU are not enough!
I have been blogging for close to
eight years and I plan to be around
for many more years to come, so
get used it. If you manage to close
down LIB, I’ll come back bigger and
better. So keep trying boo! And
enjoy all the attention you will get
from this post…you’ve earned it.
Kisses!

Oh by the way Mr EE, one of your
friends who you were doing the
#bringlindaikejidown campaign
with has turned against you and
contacted me. He’s a LIBer just like
you…hehe…but decided it wasn’t
fair and reached out to me. God
bless you Mr Aye Dee. I hope your
hustle also pays. All the best.
To others reading this, if you want
to be successful in life, please
prepare yourselves for something
like this. People don’t go after
failures. You have to be really crazy
to gather to plot the downfall of an
orange seller or a gate-man (with all
due respect). These people go after
successes. Once you succeed in any
field, they will come after you…it’s
inevitable. Ask everyone who has
succeeded. It’s not whether they
will try, because they will…it’s how
you respond to it that matters.

Don’t you ever, listen to me, ever
let anyone defeat you. You didn’t
work so hard to get to the top for
somebody who didn’t know how
you struggled to bring you down.

You will be disappointing God. You
don’t even know how disappointed
He will be. How dare you let them
win? They will come for you…that’s
a guarantee just make sure you
defeat them.

These people are not even
haters..they are excuses…they are
the natural reaction to success…put
in this world to take actions against
people who are climbing the ladder
of success. If they see you’re about
to fly, they will try to cut your
wings because when you fly, there’s
no stopping you anymore. And
that’s what they want to do…to stop
you! Don’t let them distract you.
Stay focused on your dreams and
keep flying.

Lastly, You know how negative
voices can be so loud that you can’t
hear the positive ones? In moments
like that just quiet the noise and
listen again…listen only to the
positive ones…because they are all
that matters.

May all your dreams come true!
May everything you put your hands
into succeed. May your enemies
show their faces so you know who
they are…but may they never win.

Thank you so much to all LIB
readers for your loyalty all these
years. I keep saying you changed
my life and I will always be grateful.
Long live LIB.

Thanks guys and have a blessed
day.
Now back to blogging!