A Look Back at the SimpleNet Crisis

Remember way back when all was really peaceful in the Internet Sonic community?  We really had no online fights, no controversies brewing, nothing like that.  All was quiet.  Sites and their webmasters were churning up lots of Sonic material, including media. It just so happened that some of the media was in MP3 format.  But did it really matter?  At the time, no.  But in early 1999, that all changed.

You see, Simplenet decided to crack down on MP3 sites in January of 1999.  Their first stop: Sonic sites.  The first that was known to go was Knuxcom, a general Sonic site that was of very high quality at the time. The site was shut down, and afterwards, an explanation was given my SharpKnux, who was part of the site.  That alone was what sparked such an uproar.

The Sonic Foundation, which did have MP3s, took those down, as Kedzie K feared he would be next.  Several Sonic sites were outright missing as well.  This was a news report I had on Sonic HQ News January 24th, 1999:

This is about the effects and thoughts on the Sonic Simplenet crackdown, as said by JD Harding, webmaster of The Sonic Corner:

So far I’ve found that the following Sonic Simplenet sites, who had Sonic music on them, are missing:

Sonotropolis (sonotropolis.simplenet.com)
Which had original music by Razor, Arrow, and others.
Foxfire (foxfire.simplenet.com)
Which had all of the Sonic Arcade tracks, and others.
Planet Mobius (mobius.simplenet.com)
Which had an awesome collection of Sonic music.
Sonic Oasis (oasis.simplenet.com)
Which has the whole Sonic Boom soundtrack.
Knuxcom (knuxcom.simplenet.com)
Holding several Sonic mp3s.

Now, as I’ve looked around, Artail Productions (Team Artail) is the last and FINAL Sonic website that has Sonic music on it. Sonic R is gone, Sonic Arcade is gone, Sonic Boom is gone, and the Sonic R Remix music is gone too. If this continues and we lose Artail Productions (Team Artail), then we’re screwed as far as Sonic music goes. I for one am angry that so much Sonic music has disappeared from the net. Simplenet has to stop this, as Sega has not voiced that their music cannot be distributed on the net. When I hear that Sega themselves, including the composers both agree that the music CANNOT be distributed on the net, then they should take down websites. Otherwise they should keep their paranoid hands off of the Sonic sites, and stick to what they SHOULD be doing, which is upgrading the servers and maintaining their dignity.

JD, as you can see, said some pretty strong words about Simplenet, and frankly, I can’t agree with him more. We can only imagine what will happen if Simplenet gets Artail Productions.

February came.  WB of Sonic HQ posted this update on what Richard Jacques, composer of the Sonic 3D Blast/Sonic R tunes thought, on February 2nd:

This is on the MP3 situation from JD Harding of The Sonic Corner…

Hello Sonic fans, I recently recieved an e-mail from Richard Jacques after asking permission to allow me to add his music to my site (The Sonic Corner). This is what he had to say in terms of a response:

“Thanks very much for your email. I am glad you like my music. With regards to the state of the internet, this has really been a big issue for me recently. It seems all of the ISP’s are cracking doen on EVERYTHING. I have had a lot of email from people exactly like you. The love games music, they love Sega, they want to have the music on their site. The official line from our legal department here at SoE, is that people are in breach of our copyright. There is a clause on the game packaging and in the game itself about not reproducing any part of the game in whole or part, and the soundtrack is quite a large part. OK, annoying but I agree Sega has to protect it’s intellectual property. BUT I think the point is that people can’t get this music. Sure, people who buy the game can listen to the music, but in the case of Dreamcast and other formats, you can’t just put the disc into a regular audio CD player and listen to the music. It’s a completely different format. So, Sega really need to provide the fans with dedicated soundtrack CD’s. Sure, you can get the odd import from Japan, but often they don’t have any remixes on, they’re expensive and they may not be popular in the US and Europe. The only thing I can say is for as many people as possible to email me, telling me about this problem. I am going to try and setup a record label to produce quality soundtrack CD’s, and to include remixes and bonus tracks, that Sega can sells. I am sure people would pay 10 bucks or something. Let me know what you think, and spread the word and get people to email me. It gives me a good case when I speak to my boss.”

Sick and tired of Sonic import CDs that cost 30 dollars and you really don’t know what you’re getting? Richard has the idea to make remixes of his own music, and sell if for 10 dollars each CD! Wouldn’t that be better than 30, plus the cost of import mail charges? E-mail him and send him your support on this. Please, if you own a Sonic website, put a copy of this letter on the website. Richard needs lots of support, and I for one would like to see his music on soundtrack covers.

Richard’s e-mail address is: jacquesr@soepd.sega.co.uk

A week later, on February 9th, a completely legal, that’s right, legal Sonic site was shut down!  This comes to us from Vector of Sonic HQ:

This was written by SonicBlu, owner of the Sonic Oasis, which was shut down by Simplenet:

Many of you might know by now that The Sonic Oasis was temporarily shut down for a little over a week. I got the notion that Simplenet found my Time Machine MP3s, and since they do not like for their customers to place MP3 files in their domain, they thought mine were regular MP3s, but I have made them from scratch myself. I asked them when I’ll be getting my website back, and they told me that it was okay for these MP3s to reside here. After I gave them my URL, they checked into it, and found that there is nothing wrong with the site. That’s gratitude for ya, eh? So now that everything is coming back to normal, the sounds section might still be broken, but those of you that subscribed will get notified as soon as they’re all back.

I was wondering if Simplenet would shut down a legal site in the middle of its crackdown. They really should write some kind of official apology to SonicBlu, but I doubt they will…

Then, the day came.  February 25th, this unfortunate message was posted by Zifei on Sonic HQ:

Now we have a really big problem, Team Artail (formerly known as Artail Productions) is forced by Simplenet to take off all their MP3s. That leave us Sonic fans with NO place to download large amounts of MP3 quality files. We’ll see how this situations turns out, as I’m sure some sites (us included) will try to provide some MP3s.

A ray of hope emerged March 12th with Media.Seganet.com.  They were one of the newest sites to provide us with Sonic MP3s.  But just 3 days later, bad news came.  Knuxcom, around in the ‘net community since 1996, the first of this domino effect, was going down.  Here’s what SharpKnux said:

I have decided that as of April 2, 1999, I will close down all of KnuxCom. As of currently, the only page that resides on KnuxCom is the Sonic Page. So by April 2, that page will be gone. Why am I doing this? Well, for a simple two reasons: I lost interest in doing a general Sonic site, and there are plenty of Sonic sites out there that are much better than mine (and I figure, it’s too late to “win” back fans of the site). I was going to create a page called The Sonic Database, but those plans have been cancelled. Sorry.

So what’s going to be here instead? Well as of April 2, 1999, I plan on changing KnuxCom into SharpKnux’s Art Studio, which is simply going to be an art site featuring my artwork (and perhaps a fan art archive). I have been wanting to make a site like this for a long time, but simply haven’t had the time to do so while trying to complete KnuxCom’s other pages. I figure I will have more interest in my site if my site revolves around my favorite hobby: art. I will put up more info on the new site when the time comes.

I will keep the Sonic Page link open from here until April 2, which is when I will delete the enitre page. Take what you want from the site, but remember to give me credit for what is mine in there, and do not copy anything word for word either. Anyone hear of plagerism? It’s illegal… Oh yes, one more thing. Please do not flame me or send me nasty complaints about my decision. It’s final, and I’m the one paying for the account. =)

I would like to thank everyone who supported KnuxCom in the past two years. This would be everyone who has linked to this site (and I encourage you to keep linking ^_^), anyone who has submitted anything to my site, and any one who just comes by and visits. Thanks again, and, as I always say when I put messages to a close: Later!

As some of you might know, TSSZ opened the day Knuxcom closed, on April 2, 1999.  But on that same opening day, we broke the story first on another Simplenet site shutting down, World Sonic:

On March 1, 1999, Dash talked with his staff about a “new” website. It was suppose to be called E Productions. E Productions would be a fanmade company that made fancomics. Of coarse, that suggestion did not become a reality, but something else did.

The next day, Dash (that’s me!) went around the net asking people in message boards and e-mailing them personally about what they thought about World Sonic. Most of them said the site is good, but not real good. But the loudest answer I heard was The Sonic Saga. Everyone I asked said that The Sonic Saga looks real promising and couldn’t wait to see it done. Then I remembered that I haven’t been putting that much time into the making of The Sonic Saga, but instead, putting all of my time into World Sonic. That’s when my mind clicked.

Why keep a Sonic site that dose not receive good responses from the visitors? Why not make a website about something that people like. The Sonic Saga!

With a new website, all about The Sonic Saga, I would be able to put A LOT more time into making the comic. And without World Sonic to worry about, I could make The Sonic Saga into a great fancomic!

So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m closing down World Sonic and opening a new The Sonic Saga webpage! However, this may only be temporary. Because I have the World Sonic webpage loaded into my Computers hardrive, I could upload it back up on the net anytime I want. This means NO ONE can copy the World Sonic name or it’s design. Their both copyrighted by me and I’m not giving them up.

This is great for me really! That’s why I’m doing it. Now, about the features on World Sonic like the interview and fancomics page. Here is a list of things that were on World Sonic that will still be on the new The Sonic Saga webpage.

• Danehog’s fancomic, STH: Character Chaos Zone

• Interview’s

• Downloads

That’s all. Everything else, like the fangame, will be canceled. Sorry. Also, keep in mind that the new website will stay at this domain (http://wsonic.simplenet.com) and will not move!

Another Simplenet site, JD’s Sonic Corner would be shut down just a couple of days later.  Less than a month later, there was talk that Laine, who headed Media.Seganet.Com, might be gone, and with that would go the site.  Then, SegaSonic.Net, who was originally on SimpleNet, got shut down, apparently not because of MP3s, but due to videos of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV series.  Tails gave me his thoughts on this yesterday:

…and so I got off of Simplenet as quickly as I could (I was fed up), and I’m now offering the hosting services targeted at Sonic fans that want to get off Simplenet so they can design THEIR site THEIR way. Not what some stinky bureaucrat thinks is appropriate.  

It was truly six months of a media crisis, probably the worst thing the ‘Net community has ever seen, or will see for a long time.

But why am I focusing on just Sonic sites?  Surely other sites were affected as well, right?  WRONG.  We found other Simplenet sites that were getting away scot-free.  We will not reveal their identities for various reasons.  But, in any case, it just did not seem fair.

Then came a ray of hope.  Two big name Sonic sites- SegaSonic.Net (which quickly got off SimpleNet) and Suneet Shah’s Sonic Zone started to put up MP3s.  Why?  Because they could; they were not on Simplenet’s servers, and thus the webmasters could do it.  Media.SegaNet.Com turned into Chupamedia, and it survived its crisis.  And now, we have more Sonic MP3s than we ever did before.  Yes, we did recover nicely.

But is a backlash ahead.  Perhaps.  Rlan has informed me that SonicBlu’s Sonic Oasis has been shut down again.  Apparently, he will move to XOOM, as it is his only option.  Stay tuned on this.  So, there could be problems ahead…again.

So, what is the effect now?  Well, Sonotropolis, Planet Mobius, and Foxfire have all vanished without a trace.  We’ll probably never see those sites again.  We already told you about the Sonic Oasis.

JD Harding’s Sonic Corner shut down, then opened up again for a brief time in mid-1999 and again in 2000, then shut down for good.  JD Harding now has a website called Crystal Dreams, in which he composes and remixes music, some of which are Sonic tunes.

Team Artail and the Sonic Foundation are still doing marvelous, even with no MP3s.  TSF is the #2 site right now, and Team Artail is in a respectable third.

The Sonic Saga is moving along, but World Sonic no longer remains.

And what about the site that started it all-KnuxCom?  It has been shut down, and turned into SharpKnux’s Art Studio, but it has never been the way it once was.  There has not been an update there in several months.

SegaSonic.Net and the Sonic Zone are doing very well with their MP3 collection, SSN had a radio station, WSSN, currently defunct, and the Sonic Zone is doing fairly well.

And so concludes this look back.  I am considered the person who blew the whistle on this story, so I do know quite a lot about what happened.  A lot of turmoil occurred.  Let’s hope it never happens again.

Thanks to Rlan and AJ Freda (Tails) for some of the info on this report.