Final episode of Lost tonight! I've been delightfully frustrated by it from the beginning, and I'll be sad to see it end. However, there is one face I will be happy to never see again: Emilie De Ravin's.
Emilie De Ravin plays Claire on Lost, and she is an asshole. Oh, I haven't told you about our sordid history?
Back in the year 2000, there was this show, Roswell, about alien teenagers who like hot sauce. De Ravin came in near the end of the first season, playing another of said alien teenagers. She was beautiful and evil and for me, it was love at first sight.
So I did what any young man in love would do: I bought her domain name. In the year 2000, not many people knew how to work this internet thing, so http://www.emiliederavin.com was still available. I snatched it up, then threw up a pretty nice fan site. This went well for a few months. I got to scour the internet for pictures of De Ravin, and creepy fans got to visit my site and email me begging for n00dz.
Then I got an email from a company called SafeSearching. They said they represented Emilie De Ravin, and, citing some recently created law in California, they said I was "cybersquatting"—keeping the web address just to exploit the fame of a celebrity —so I should transfer the address to them.
Back then, the laws regarding the internet were even murkier than they are today, and I knew this was fishy (e.g., why should California law have anything to do with me?). So, for a while, I fought. I banded together with other fan site owners. The webmaster of http://www.emilie-deravin.com (note the dash) went down immediately, her address forwarding to SafeSearching's shitty-ass "official" De Ravin site. Others continued to fall around me, but I stood my ground.
I was contacted by an underground resistance calling themselves The Bringers. They were a group of webmasters from a wide variety fo fan sites fighting against oppressive companies like SafeSearching. They had their own lawyers, who knew the threats were empty. It was looking like I had ground to stand on.
Then SafeSearching brought out their secret weapon. I got the following email:
hi mike. don't get me wrong, i appreciate what you're doing, but actually, the safesearching guys are really nice, and the site is still being designed. the only profit they make goes to worthy causes and i am very much behind them.
they've urged me not to respond, and let them handle it, but i wanted to know if there's a way we can sort this silliness out first. if i tell them to let you administrate my fan boards, and put a special thanks to you for your efforts on my site, as well as send you a signed thank you on a photo or something, will you just cooperate with them? It is my name, and they are successfully doing what they do, but i'd like us all to be friendly.
what'da'ya say?
em
(please don't post this publicly)
As I said, I was a young man in love, and they were using my own love against me. I wasn't in a position to get into a legal battle, I was getting pressure from my registrar, and she asked nicely. So I began negotiations to hand over the domain.
I did hold out for some monetary compensation, and pointed out their lack of legal backing. Here is part of their deliciously evil response:
[...] this would be a simple open and shut case, as evident by our last um-teen lawsuit rulings where we reclaimed the domain, plus attornies fees 100% of the time.
That's not a threat. You've been very honorably and decent, that's why we're even having a dialog, and for some reason, Emilie has been particulary tolerant of you. This is a good thing. It's easier this way.
I wish I hadn't backed down at this point, but I did. I gave them what they wanted. They added a link to http://www.phronk.com on Emilie's official site, and promised three signed photographs. So I awkwardly flirted with Emilie over email, and waited for her photos (surely accompanied by a letter revealing that my love was requited) to arrive.
I am still waiting.
Emilie De Ravin may still look stunning as a dirty jungle lady in Lost, but she betrayed me. She used her feminine wiles to violate the freedom of the internet, then didn't even give me the inadequate compensation she promised. I hope her character dies tonight.
P.S. I don't actually have a personal problem with Emilie De Ravin. She really just associated herself with an asshole company. SafeSearching is still around, but now go by the name Celebrity Loop, and have (predictably) evolved into social media douchebags for celebrities (and still make shitty-ass sites for minor stars). They no longer represent Emilie, and http://www.emiliederavin.com/ is now completely abandoned. I would never have let that happen. In other words, Emilie De Ravin, if you want someone to make a good web site for you, and maybe also be your loving boyfriend forever and ever, I am still available. Thanx.
Here is RPattz looking down her shirt: