Mel posted this on maxbumps:

"Update on my status: After posting the following on the 61 forum:

James, as you can tell from the 20+ posts you've deleted so far, I'm not going away until I get back what's rightfully mine. You've not only stolen my name, but you have stolen my music. Not once did I agree that you could take my music away. I have full copyright over my songs and both of my artist names are registered. It's only fair that I ask you one last time to remove my names, my songs and my accounts from your site before I pursue legal action pertaining to copyright infringement, theft and defamation of character. I am seriously considering this option if nothing has been done within the next 14 days.

My accounts have all now been deleted, along with my songs etc. I am happy that James decided to remove them, although he did hide the reason why. I still want my name removed from the 'banned' list, but for now, at least my music is safe."

Yay! Goodbye folks.

From supergrover over on maxbump
"My sneaking suspicion is that the autoban code ain't as slick as someone thinks it is. MF is pretty passionate in her denials. KRay doesn't strike me as being someone out to screw over a site for nonprofit.

I've never received any notifications about any of my deleted posts. While I don't mean to infer that they have any obligation to warn anyone about anything, it's odd that there are supposed to have been a (history?) of warnings given.

Btw, if the new implementations are there to prevent some of the issues, why not graylist the blacklisted and just watch them closely."

EXACTLY, MY MAN!

FYI - also from Melanie and copied here for posterity:
"That is the problem though. I did not violate ANY TOS and I certainly received no warning from them. All I want is for my name to be removed from a list I do not belong on. I promise that once that is done, and all my songs and other accounts that I can't get into have been removed, I will leave quietly. I'm heading over to join max bumps, so anyone that's interested in reading, please go there. I apologise if I have caused any offence to anyone out there, but I did no wrong and I have to defend myself. Surely, I have the right to do that. Locking forum posts is not being objective, it's the actions of someone trying to hide something.

Artist accounts: Mel Cheeky collabs, Shining voice.
Listening Account: Mel Cheeky"

What she is asking is NOT a lot. They've spent more time removing her alt accounts and modifying forums where she posted than it would have taken to alter the damn announcement and remove her name and delete the three accounts as requested.

Artists - imagine it!
You've done nothing wrong that you can think of.
You've never been warned about your activities at all.
One day the terms of service CHANGE with no prior announcement. The new terms are retroactive and suddenly you're banned and locked out of your accounts.
The music that you entrusted with the site - your original artwork that you contributed in good faith is now locked away from you. Your music is online, inaccessible for you to edit or remove, and you're told you're not welcome back.
In what world is this considered a decent thing to do to an artist?

Listeners can take a similar lesson from Kosmik Ray's ban - no warnings, no interaction, no slap on the wrist. Just NEW terms and retroactive enforcement.

Mel posted in reply to James's accusation about being banned on facebook: "Mel has NOT been banned from facebook at all. What a blatant lie! Anyone can find her on there by using the search! Melanie Fudge, Wales. If you're going to lie James, make sure other people can't find out about it. To me, you've just made yourself look worse. Hmmmm is lying one of your traits?"

James replied and then locked THAT announcement thread: "@ melanie (who are you fooling?): you littered thesixtyone's facebook page with spam and inappropriate messages. i reported it and got a response from facebook support that you've been banned from the page."

To which Melanie had to reply in ANOTHER thread: "I have NOT been banned from ANY groups on facebook at all. I have not spammed, I posted 2 posts on the wall there. There's no sense in lying and then locking the forum post AFTER you delete my comment. You may be able to try and control what's posted HERE, but you cannot police everywhere. I will have my say, and I will defend my character."

In matter of fact, someone said this:

"Max Bumps has now been around for some time, and it has been known to the community at large as a forum sam and james have no authority over. If ever there were a place for someone who felt wronged by the powers that be at t61 to air their grievances, this would be it. Silence from them [there] appears to tell a story. But then one can read only one's own guts into a silence."

I understand you believe Max Bumps to be hostile to SLers, though I think that is only some of the members, some of the time. You should understand in turn, that the rest of us are privy to less than half of the conversation. Mel, or Kosmik, or anyone would likely have a stable - I make no claims about more friendly - forum to state their side if they so wished.

I was going to post this on Dwyndal's wall but realized it could be seen as spam since much of it is off topic. Just because Dwy has an account on that other website doesn't mean I should post on the comment wall.
________
BTW - Melanie is a friend of mine of course. I've worked with her in SL for the past few years. I've admired her music, her award winning songwriting, her friendship, her chipper personality, and her integrity. When she says that she was not warned about anything and SandJ say she was I'm certainly apt to believe my friend.

As someone who knows her as a friend and a business acquaintance (having booked her to perform shows), I simply cannot fathom her doing the things that they claim she did.

On maxbumps the question came up - why hasn't she created an account at that forum to defend herself? I cannot answer for her but I can say that I won't create an account there while the anti-SL bullshit of the past remains. Unlike what SandJ want to claim I suspect Mel hasn't been that involved with her t61 accounts - I fully suspect she's either not aware of or couldn't care less about yet another forum about a site where she posted some music and failed to spend all that much time in the first place.

On maxbumps Apoc said "Music is very subjective. Metadata is very objective." It's funny but this sentiment is what irritated me last time and what sent me over the edge this time. Metadata is information. It takes a human or an algorithm that a human created to interpret raw data and turn it into something meaningful. Look at the history of this site - why does it change so often? A combination of a changing user base and changing interpretations of what the data is actually saying.

I do not accept "the metadata said so" as the reason to ban and dismiss the cries of a dear friend.

Funny - on the one hand you have someone saying "well the fact that they won't create an account HERE on our mighty forum means they're suspect" and on the other you have someone saying "well they MUSt have been forewarned like SandJ say they were." I call BS to those too. If she knew she did something wrong she'd just go away and consider herself reprimanded. Instead she's creating 4 or 5 alt accounts to get in and attempt to have her voice heard, attempting to get an explanation as to why in the world she was singled out when to the best of her knowledge she did nothing wrong.

There's much more wrong here than Mel vs. T61 - but thankfully she's at least not gracefully stalking off in a huff - she's letting us know that this is BS.

Had no clue about what was happening, just that this side was more and more sucking anyway and that I have not so much time now anyway. Well I love a lot of the music here so I will not delete my account and will still bump a bit, but not as be for, well so I have more time for other things.
BTW congratulation to the makers looks like you won a war, lets see how you will do without the ppl you battled.

Dolmere, I agree with you, and if you don't mind, I'm borrowing your 'todo' list for my own account. If you'd rather I not do so visibly, let me know and I'll remove it, but I think it demonstrates categorically the way to reflect the result of the admins' actions.

Dol,

Sorry to see this dust up take away from what is still a great forum for new talent to gain listener support and feed back. All the friends you brought here have really enjoyed the experience. I know you have worked really hard at promoting this site and it is really sad to see what in essence is a communication issue let all that work go by the wayside. Please just let things cool down and wait for more information before ..leaving all your friends... that would really be the sad part...

Hugs Paradise

Wow. Sad. I just told a musician friend in RL about this last week, he joined immediately, is having great fun and doing well. I'll have to tell him about this, though - to be warned. I really hate to burst his bubble but that's what I'll have to do - I'll just point him at the forums, don't have to do more. I will continue listening to music and musicians that I like as long as those are still here, and bumping them - not going to punish them for this, but will do so half-heartedly and there will have to be changes before I promote this site to anyone new.