Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
Let me start by apologizing to all the Musclezine members, guests, mods and especially you guys here at Elite that have been putting up with all these Musclezine threads and all the drama.
Well, heres the full story. I dont feel the need to keep anything from any of you that are interested. Txlonghorn and I took over Musclezine in late September. At the time it was a ghost town. Amaf, the original creator of the site, gave me full control since he did not have the time to put into the site and I believe he was probably quite discouraged to run the site due to its awefully dismal opening. Since Tx and I took over the operations of the site, with the help of our amazing Musclezine Mods, Musclezine.com began to head in the direction that Tx and I had envisioned when we took it over.
Unfortunately Tx and I assumed from the beginning that Amaf owned the site. There was no reason to think otherwise.
For the past 14 days Tx and I have been having a serious discussion about the ownership of Musclezine. The basis of our conversations was that since we have been running every facet of the site, that it would be a good idea to stabalize the ownership of Musclezine. Its not that Amaf had been doing anything wrong but that Tx and I felt that we owed it to the members and mods to make sure Musclezine would be around forever. How could we do that if we did not own the site? And another issue was since Tx and I have been making all the decisions, the improvements, dealing with the sponsors, paying for the server and basically doing everything, we would be fools to keep increasing the market value for a site that is not even owned by us.
So speaking on mine and Tx's behalf, I began some primary negotiations with Amaf about being the owners of Musclezine. It was during these negotiations that Amaf revealed that in fact he did not own the domain name www.musclezine.com . The domain name was owned by someone else, someone that Amaf knew. Now this caused an obvious kink in a verbal agreement that was reached between myself and Amaf that would have made all 3 of us (myself, Tx and Amaf) equal share owners of MZ which virtually made it a lock that MZ would be around for years to come. At this time it was told to me by Amaf that he would work on getting the ownership of the domain name from this person that owned it.
It was brought to my attention very quickly that this person was not interested in selling the domain name and in fact he decided to use blackmail tactics. This person who I know absolutely nothing about demanded to be a Moderator and to source on the board (I guess by means of open source posting, I dont know) or he would pull the plug on the domain name.
He was promptly told to take the domain name, apply some WD-40 to it, and shove it right up his ass. Our hand was forced and we made our move. On the other hand, this person was not bluffing as you have all found out and he pulled the domain name. It has been relayed to me that this person as of today has opened a copycat of our board.
Now, as far as the original Musclezine goes, it is still up and running but our current URL is different. Hopefully someone can post it for me on this thread as I dont know it off by heart. We will get a new domain name registered ASAP and as soon as that is done, we will get the word out as to what it is and we can get the site running at 100% like it was since the day Tx and I took over control.
My personal thoughts on the B.S. that has happened over the past couple days is that I cant blame this person who owned the domain name for doing what he did. There will always be people who try to cash in on someone elses hard work. He saw an opening which was foolishly left open and he seized it. Which if any of you can read between the lines, that hopefully shows you why Tx and I felt the need to become owners of the site. The key to successfully running a BB'ing discussion board IMO is stability. Lets face it, there are tons of BB'ing sites out there but the ones that rise above the crop are able to convey a sense of stability to the members. The members must know and be confidant that the site will always be there when they type in that URL and that it is run by a strong staff. Although I'm sure our Musclezine members felt very secure in the way the site was run by what they saw, unfortunately on paper it was not secure and as it has been explained, it was found out that the ownership of the site was completely in shambles. If Tx and I didnt step in when we did, it was almost a given that all the hard work we had put in and would continue to put in would be more and more in jeopardy as each day passed.
Sorry for the almost ridiculously long post. We had hoped this whole situation could be handled behing the scenes and not turned into a huge soap opera but we obviously had false hopes. As I've stated previously, the original MZ is still up and running at a sort of temporary URL. We will have our permanent domain name registered as quickly as possible and that should clear up everything but as I have learned from this, nothing is for sure. There will also be a very pleasant surprise with respect to the ownership situation when the dust settles. I cant get into details right now but trust me when I say that the original MZ will be owned exclusively by the particular persons that made it what it is today.
Huge apologies to so many people. This situation makes me sick to my stomach. Its flat out embarressing and if there is any blame to be given out, feel free to put it on me for not competely researching the ownership situation. We made what seemed to be some strong assumptions about the ownership, but in business, making assumptions is the kiss of the devil.
Sorry again guys and gals.
Well, heres the full story. I dont feel the need to keep anything from any of you that are interested. Txlonghorn and I took over Musclezine in late September. At the time it was a ghost town. Amaf, the original creator of the site, gave me full control since he did not have the time to put into the site and I believe he was probably quite discouraged to run the site due to its awefully dismal opening. Since Tx and I took over the operations of the site, with the help of our amazing Musclezine Mods, Musclezine.com began to head in the direction that Tx and I had envisioned when we took it over.
Unfortunately Tx and I assumed from the beginning that Amaf owned the site. There was no reason to think otherwise.
For the past 14 days Tx and I have been having a serious discussion about the ownership of Musclezine. The basis of our conversations was that since we have been running every facet of the site, that it would be a good idea to stabalize the ownership of Musclezine. Its not that Amaf had been doing anything wrong but that Tx and I felt that we owed it to the members and mods to make sure Musclezine would be around forever. How could we do that if we did not own the site? And another issue was since Tx and I have been making all the decisions, the improvements, dealing with the sponsors, paying for the server and basically doing everything, we would be fools to keep increasing the market value for a site that is not even owned by us.
So speaking on mine and Tx's behalf, I began some primary negotiations with Amaf about being the owners of Musclezine. It was during these negotiations that Amaf revealed that in fact he did not own the domain name www.musclezine.com . The domain name was owned by someone else, someone that Amaf knew. Now this caused an obvious kink in a verbal agreement that was reached between myself and Amaf that would have made all 3 of us (myself, Tx and Amaf) equal share owners of MZ which virtually made it a lock that MZ would be around for years to come. At this time it was told to me by Amaf that he would work on getting the ownership of the domain name from this person that owned it.
It was brought to my attention very quickly that this person was not interested in selling the domain name and in fact he decided to use blackmail tactics. This person who I know absolutely nothing about demanded to be a Moderator and to source on the board (I guess by means of open source posting, I dont know) or he would pull the plug on the domain name.
He was promptly told to take the domain name, apply some WD-40 to it, and shove it right up his ass. Our hand was forced and we made our move. On the other hand, this person was not bluffing as you have all found out and he pulled the domain name. It has been relayed to me that this person as of today has opened a copycat of our board.
Now, as far as the original Musclezine goes, it is still up and running but our current URL is different. Hopefully someone can post it for me on this thread as I dont know it off by heart. We will get a new domain name registered ASAP and as soon as that is done, we will get the word out as to what it is and we can get the site running at 100% like it was since the day Tx and I took over control.
My personal thoughts on the B.S. that has happened over the past couple days is that I cant blame this person who owned the domain name for doing what he did. There will always be people who try to cash in on someone elses hard work. He saw an opening which was foolishly left open and he seized it. Which if any of you can read between the lines, that hopefully shows you why Tx and I felt the need to become owners of the site. The key to successfully running a BB'ing discussion board IMO is stability. Lets face it, there are tons of BB'ing sites out there but the ones that rise above the crop are able to convey a sense of stability to the members. The members must know and be confidant that the site will always be there when they type in that URL and that it is run by a strong staff. Although I'm sure our Musclezine members felt very secure in the way the site was run by what they saw, unfortunately on paper it was not secure and as it has been explained, it was found out that the ownership of the site was completely in shambles. If Tx and I didnt step in when we did, it was almost a given that all the hard work we had put in and would continue to put in would be more and more in jeopardy as each day passed.
Sorry for the almost ridiculously long post. We had hoped this whole situation could be handled behing the scenes and not turned into a huge soap opera but we obviously had false hopes. As I've stated previously, the original MZ is still up and running at a sort of temporary URL. We will have our permanent domain name registered as quickly as possible and that should clear up everything but as I have learned from this, nothing is for sure. There will also be a very pleasant surprise with respect to the ownership situation when the dust settles. I cant get into details right now but trust me when I say that the original MZ will be owned exclusively by the particular persons that made it what it is today.
Huge apologies to so many people. This situation makes me sick to my stomach. Its flat out embarressing and if there is any blame to be given out, feel free to put it on me for not competely researching the ownership situation. We made what seemed to be some strong assumptions about the ownership, but in business, making assumptions is the kiss of the devil.
Sorry again guys and gals.
