I started a post early this morning by that very title.  It was to address the server moves last night in relation to the severe weather we experienced.

And then I received an e-mail from mArniAc with a subject of the same name.

I originally said “[o]n Friday, April 20, at 10:00 pm CDT, you can expect the site to be unavailable for at least an hour.”  As you might have guessed, that schedule changed.  Dramatically.

Last week as I was following up on several copyright infringement issues, I discovered my own server data center was hosting more than a few sites utilizing my content—both text and multimedia.  They appeared to be using it to make money from ad revenue.

So I reported it.

What do you think I got in response?

It was anything but a cordial acknowledgment of the crime taking place.

As a matter of fact, I was essentially blown off by The Planet.

They didn’t care that they were hosting a great many sites stealing my content as a means to make money.  On the contrary, they appeared rather at ease with enabling copyright infringement, aiding and abetting federal crimes, breaching the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, felony theft, and several other crimes I can’t remember at the moment.

Let’s just say they responded to my concerns with an arbitrary disregard.  In fact, they seemed more interested in making money from the theft than they did in ensuring my ownership rights were enforced.

To make matters worse, the sites I pointed out continued to carry my own copyright notice, the one that states any site other than xenogere.com showing that information is guilty of several crimes.

Do you think The Planet cared?

Nope.  Not one bit.

Assholes.

So I decided to leave immediately.  Considering I was paying them to host my site yet received zero consideration, it occurred to me that they had no interest in following the law or protecting legitimate customers.

Screw them, I say.

That means my servers moved last night instead of next Friday.

That also means I had a great deal of damage control to perform this morning in order to get my site and the sites I host back up on the internet.

I apologize to everyone for the unexpected outage, especially in light of last evening’s dangerous weather situation here in Texas, but I considered it of the utmost importance to take my money elsewhere.

And I considered it a critical issue requiring immediate action.

Nevertheless, timing is everything.  Despite the severe threat and immediate danger posed by our spring thunderstorms, my servers were moved last night in a rather hasty maneuver intended to take funds away from The Planet as quickly as possible.

Please accept my apology for the poor timing.

[Update] By the way, this means no additional posts today.  I need to focus on the remaining tasks necessary to ensure my servers and hosted sites become available again as quickly as possible.  While I’d love to participate in Weekend Cat Blogging and Carnival of the Cats, neither is my priority at the moment.  This also means no nature photos or story today, as well as no creative writing.  Sorry.