Instead, they hire private investigators, file fraudulent court cases against themselves in order to do false discovery, and use other methods to track down the people who have been posting on these sites. They are going to use that info to file suit against whomever they can, blaming them for taking down their company. You can see the beginnings of that in Nicky’s letter –

“…that accused me, Nicky, and my company of irresponsible and untrue activities…The effects have been devastating…”

So anyone who says anything about the Sheets’ on here, be prepared to spend your own money defending yourselves against these folks. They are oblivious to reality, and continue to believe that they are the innocent victims of some kind of scurrilous campaign, instead of realizing that what has happened to them is a direct result of their own actions: the IRS is after them because they didn’t pay taxes, and vendors are mad at them because they didn’t pay their bills.

As with everyone who breaks the law, doesn’t pay taxes, goes after hookers, etc., etc., they always blame anyone else and the blame always goes elsewhere.

When is one of those loonies going to stand up, man up and say “hey we messed up. And, we’re going to take care of everything 100%.” We’re going to pay our bills and pay our taxes. But no, they would rather do everything but that. And blame everyone else. Man.

They (Sheets) still live large on the backs of honest taxpayers all the while Mr. Nicky is busy filing four (count ‘em) bankruptcies and chasing high-dollar call-girls.

Man my wife would smack me upside the head with an iron skillet and I would never see the next day if I did something that stupid. BTW Mr. Sheets, didn’t you see the set up? Are you that “hard-up” for some action? Has Ellie cut you off?

If I read one more post anywhere where “plants” put the blame on D Mag or the IRS I am going to puke.

People: you messed up. Pay what you owe, start being honest, stop ripping off the country and for God sakes learn to spell and learn how to construct a sentence. And please stay away from hookers. They won’t be that fun.

The only reason it’s news is because people that are jealous of someone’s lifestyle would love reading about their downfall. Who cares?? If they owe the IRS then I hope the IRS collects and does what needs to be done. If not, then shame on you for this smear campaign.

Meh…..You all make me tired.

Uh Tim, if you are worried that Nicky Sheets is going to hurt sales of your magazine with his email list then you all need to be looking for your next job don’t ya think? LMAO

You guys clearly have it in for these people for some reason. FYI, Candy hates the Sheets and she and her friends have been attacking them for months on Dirt. Duh. Are the Sheets not allowed to defend themselves? Who cares if this guy sent out some e-mail to his friends. You screwed up and had the story on line. Get over it. I don’t even know these people but the D attacks on them makes me feel sorry for them. Why do you all hate them so much. If it is not because of them pulling their ads what is it?

“As I say, one of the attachments was our story, which he’d copied and pasted from our website. Right, yes. I said the story wasn’t online yet — not officially anyway. But the story did exist on our server, waiting for our web folks to press the “publish” button. If you knew how to find it, you could find it. Somehow Nicky found it. Shame on us for having an online system cobbled together with duct tape. Because of our own ineptitude, the Sheetses read the story before we technically published it. Ah, well. Live and learn.”

That’s last part is close enough to “my bad” for me, but maybe you disagree.

The copyright part. According to the U.S. Copyright Act:

A copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, display, or license his work. See § 106 of the act. The owner also receives the exclusive right to produce or license derivatives of his or her work. See § 201(d) of the act. Limited exceptions to this exclusivity exist for types of “fair use”, such as book reviews. See § 107 of the act. To be covered by copyright a work must be original and in a concrete “medium of expression.” See § 102 of the act. Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not the work is registered.

Key there would be the reproduction (and probably the distribution) part. It’s online, so anyone can see it, and anyone can link to it, and anyone can pass that link around, and you could even, if you were so inclined, quote part of it. But the entire thing pasted in a Word doc and sent around? Gets sketchy. Would a court find the Sheetses in violation? Maybe, maybe not. As Tim noted, though, you’d have to agree it raises interesting questions.

There is also link at the top of the article that says “email page”.