I followed the Artzsche thread in the MMD...  It's more than
likely that there will be a lot more people who did pay for one of
the products offered by Artzsche on their site, without ever receiving
anything.  But not so many will be able to inform others, lacking
a platform like the MMD.  Or they just are ashamed of themselves,
and not willing to tell others about it.

However, the Artzsche guys still do operate their web site
www.artzsche.com  To run a web site you do need an Internet Service
Provider (ISP), as well as an IP address (or domain).  And both
things one has to pay for, so somebody will be sending bills to
Artzsche, and Artzsche must be paying those bills, otherwise their
site could not be used by them very much longer.

I do not know how these things work in the USA, but over here in
Europe some providers already had to inform justice about some of
their customers, in order to enable prosecution of those customers.
And the BSA was using this way to stop several guys who were
distributing illegal copies of music, films and software using P2P
[peer-to-peer] software, threatening with prosecution and expensive
penalties proving to be very quick to cure the illness.

I'm not naïve: stopping the Artzsche site will result in another one,
because it's a too easy way for making money.

And yes, it looks that behind Artzsche is Newsdocumentary.com,
a misty company as well.  They are referred to at the Artzsche site,
the copyright of the site belongs to them.  But they do not publish
the site -- that's done under the flag of Artzsche.

The IP-address of Artzsche is 204.9.177.195, and it is assigned to
the USA.  The ISP is Six Apart Ltd., headquartered in San Francisco.
They sell software and do some kind of hosting.  It looks like either
(a) the Artzsche site is running software from Six Apart, and is hosted
there as well, or (b) some fraud is involved.

If Artzsche indeed is a customer of Six Apart (and it does look so)
it's quite easy to find out who is responsible for the way Artzsche is
doing business, since there must be a billing address and bank account.
On the Six Apart web site I read, "For all press inquiries please
contact Jane Anderson <jane@sixapart.com>."

Maybe Six Apart is willing to cooperate with the MMD.  After all,
the MMD is digital press.  And Six Apart might be not too pleased
to find out that, presuming no fraud is involved, they are hosting
Artzsche, given the way Artzsche is doing business.  Nobody is pleased
to find out he has accidentally stepped in something a dog has left
behind on the sidewalk!

Stopping Artzsche will not really cure the problem, because it will not
stop them, or their successors.  But doing nothing is the best way to
encourage those people.  Maybe the involved members of the MMD can
join together?

And it might be interesting to look around in communities devoted to
other Artzsche subjects, like Switch watches.

Jan Kijlstra