Part three
Finally, in the late summer of 2007, our arrangement with Brian came to an end and we got to pull their RoidStore banners. And I thought that I had heard the last of Brian and his RoidStore. Although the writing was on the wall, I was still unaware of how thick Brian and Anthony’s partnership was and that all along, Anthony had become the darling of Elite just to manipulate us to advertise RoidStore. I’m sure the two of them laughed at me all the way to the bank.
But that was not the end of my foolishness. More and more of my site’s Moderators and Administrators began to complain about how Anthony’s actions on the forums were becoming increasingly erratic and abusive of our members. And in addition, while we were selling his personal consultations, we would find out that he was not speaking to the guys that had paid for his consults at the scheduled times. Many paying members were getting increasingly disappointed and angry. I stupidly decided to remain loyal and kept him on as a Chairman Member of the site – although by this point, I too had become concerned about him as a number of our Moderators were suggesting that they thought Anthony had a substance abuse problem.
I told them emphatically that I did not think that Anthony was involved in recreational drug use. However, his increasingly volatile behavior on the site and his attacks and tirades on the Mods and members in combination with what we knew had happened to the Steroid.com mentor Bart Harcourt and his heroin overdose did make me worry that Anthony might be slipping down that same devastating path and that he had gotten himself mixed up in something he was unable to control.
The final straw came when Anthony asked me to ban another Mod who is a friend of mine because this Mod allegedly suggested that one of Anthony’s friends might not be a natural athlete. Imagine that – who would ever think that a friend of Anthony’s might not be natural? I tried to reason with him and told him that I had no intention of banning this Mod and that if he was upset, he should go on the forums and share his friend’s perspective – not try and get me to censor a legitimate discussion that was not even taking place on the public forums. This made Anthony enraged. We knew that we could not have him around anymore and so the Admins decided to suspend his account on the forums. I was really sad about the decision. I had always liked Anthony and was glad to help give him his start. I also thought he showed so much promise. In a weird way, I felt like I had when my first girlfriend in high-school broke up with me – I wondered what I myself had done wrong.
At the same time, I felt relieved, because I thought I was finally done with the Anthony Roberts and Brian Clapp dog and pony show. I said to myself, “I’ll just continue to sell Anthony’s book, pay him his royalty, and we’ll all move on.” But I did not realize Brian and Anthony’s primary goal was to get RoidStore back on the EliteFitness.com site any way possible. And they intended to sue me if they needed to in order to get the RoidStore.com banner ads back on our forums.
And so, this past winter, we got served with a lawsuit.
In March, EliteFitness.com was served with a lawsuit brought in Texas by Brian Clapp and his company Dynamic Sports Nutrition (Steroid.com) that also employs Anthony Roberts. Brian’s attorney is a guy named Paul Beik who's fresh out of law school and works for Egbert Law Offices. And you’ll never guess what the suit is about. (Actually, you can read the whole thing if you google it as it has been posted online.)
Here’s a summary of what EliteFitness.com is getting sued for:
As you know, we market and sell downloadable e-books that are written by various different authors that we represent. One of those authors is a guy who writes as Dino Strong and who wrote what many of our members consider to be the best guide to anabolic steroid cycling ever written. The title of the book is Anabolic Gameplan. In the lawsuit brought by Dynamic Sports Nutrition, Brian and Anthony allege that Dino Strong copied a book by Anthony Roberts titled Anabolic Steroids Ultimate Research Guide.
Dino Strong writes a book and EliteFitness.com gets sued by Brian and Anthony. Dino himself is not even named in the lawsuit. And get this, they have not yet told us in writing what they allege was copied. I’ve been told that a few paragraphs they claim Dino copied were posted on their sites, but they have not to this day sent me anything more formal telling me what Dino did wrong. What’s crazier still is that Anthony Roberts got a pre-release copy of Anabolic Gameplan and read it before it ever went on sale. Although he did have a few comments and suggestions, back when we were working with him, he certainly had no problem with our selling Dino’s work.
To make matters worse, after they filed the lawsuit, they sent demand letters to all of our ISPs threatening them that they would be sued too if the entire EliteFitness.com site was not taken offline. And for forty panic inducing minutes on February 29th, they actually succeeded in having our entire site shutdown until our lawyer explained things to our ISP.
Here’s what they want: “Plaintiff (that’s Brian and Anthony) seeks statutory damages in the amount of One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($150,000.00) per willful infringement and Thirty Thousand Dollars ($30,000.00) per non-willful infringement.” And they want this money from me, not Dino Strong, the book’s author.
Needless to say, I was furious when we got served with a frivolous lawsuit. So, I called my attorney and told her to get ready to fight. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not a big fan of attorneys (except for my members who are attorneys – I love you guys) – whenever I have had dealings with lawyers in the past, the only people that tend to come out ahead are the attorneys! Fortunately, my lawyer talked some sense into me. She told me, “You don’t want litigation in Texas – it will cost you a fortune – and even if you win, there is no upside for you. Furthermore, you’ll have to hire counsel in Texas and that’s very expensive too.” And she was right, I’d much rather see some of that money go to AmFAR (The American Foundation for AIDS Research) and Feed the Children, two charities that I have supported for years, and of course, I’d much rather spend that money improving the EliteFitness.com site or spend it on myself.
So I took her advice and we proposed a settlement that would have me pay Brian an amount greater than the ENTIRE profit that EliteFitness.com made on the sale of the Anabolic Gameplan e-book. Why propose something so generous? Because I learned from my attorney that it would be far cheaper to give them everything we got from Dino’s book than to fight the lawsuit in Texas. And I learned that the most they could conceivably expect to win would be $750 to $30,000 – and probably a lot closer to $750 than $30K. In exchange, both Brian and Anthony would have to agree to drop their lawsuit and agree not to sue us again over anything else that had happened in the past.
Finally, my lawyer learned from theirs what they really wanted. What they really wanted was advertising on EliteFitness.com -- and TONS of it. To be specific, they wanted $180,000 in advertising and cash too that I believe would be used to pay their attorney. Essentially, they wanted to plaster RoidStore.com banners on every page of the site.
Well, I definitely was not going to make that same mistake again!
So, what we proposed was a settlement of cash and an advertising credit of $40,000. They would agree to suspend their lawsuit and work with our sales team, to come up with an advertising package that would meet their needs and at the same time not be abusive to our site and our members like their RoidStore ad campaign had been. If an ad package could not be worked out with them, then they would get to start their lawsuit up again. Believe me, I HATED the idea of paying those losers anything, especially since I did not write the e-book in question, since Anthony had received a copy before it went on sale, and since no one believes that any significant copying ever took place at all.
But, the two of them think they have me over a barrel and are determined to extort as much money and advertising as they possibly can. And my willingness to try and settle with them for the sake of saving time and money, has been misconstrued as weakness. The mere thought of their winning the lawsuit seems to have ignited a deluded power play fantasy where they believe I will be unable to afford my lawyers and my site would somehow be turned over to them. Brian and Anthony would not budge from their position of demanding $180,000 in advertising plus a cash payment too. And I still can’t understand why they attack us so viciously after we helped launch Anthony’s career and wrote him royalty checks for 2 years.
And that’s where this sorry state of affairs stands today. I have just hired a team of lawyers in Texas and I have resolved to spend whatever it takes to defend our site and our members. So, we’re off to the races defending a lawsuit over something I did not even write and spending thousands in the process. The irony here is that most likely, the judge will find that the copyright for Brian and Anthony’s book is invalid. To add insult to injury, according to my friend Bill Llewellyn, who authors the Anabolics series that he updates every year, Anthony and Brian plagiarized his work extensively when they wrote their book Anabolic Steroids Ultimate Research Guide that they claim Dino infringed. And Bill has agreed to testify on our behalf. The good part of Bill’s testifying is that Anthony and Brian cannot enforce a copyright that is shown to be invalid itself. The bad news is that fighting them will cost a small fortune – money that we had set aside to set up a second datacenter to host EliteFitness.com and offer our members even greater privacy and security in the event of any type of service interruption at our current datacenter.
Now, we need help. I’ll keep you posted on how this plays out and I’ll let you know how you can help us in the weeks ahead. I’ll also let you know about some of the life lessons I have taken from this experience because I do believe that life teaches us lessons that make us better people as we go onward. And regardless of what you may read elsewhere, I want all our members to know that EliteFitness.com is solid and here to stay. I appreciate your reading this long-winded letter – if you have gotten all the way to this paragraph, then you are a friend of EF indeed. And I hope that God-willing, we’ll be back to discussing bodybuilding and fitness in this weekly newsletter in the very near future.
