Stealing Trend
June 21st, 2007 Filed in: News & Updates Jump to commentsSo, what is the next web trend after the Web 2.0 trend? Steal. I’ve been noticing this trend for a while and in fact it is rising. Rippers now on the Internet steal anything from text content, graphics, icons, design templates, to coding scripts. Almost every other week, I get an email from visitors telling me who stole my work. By the way, thanks for reporting copyright violations to me. This becoming an issue and I really want to bring it up. I have setup a Flickr gallery to showcase the ripped work. Here are some of the sample cases.
TV Print Ads (new)
Two days after I published this post, someone sent me another email reported my work being stolen by two Bosnia & Herzegovina TV stations - OBN.ba and RTRS.tv. He was nice enough scanned the newspaper ads and sent it to me. Although, I’ve never seen the actual ads but I believe they just ripped my high resolution wallpapers (without any editing). This is ridiculous, from a TV station?
SWsoft Sitebuilder
SWsoft Sitebuilder is an online application that allows users quickly build their website without any programming or design experience. The hosting provider will install the Sitebuilder on their server. Their clients will use the online wizard to pick a template, fill in the content, and then upload to their web space. I found several of my artworks were included in the application as a template. I certainly did not give them permission nor sold my work to them. It was actually a media/hosting company who reported this to me.
Canvas Printouts
Believe me or not, I found these in a local shopping mall, Pacific Mall. If you live in Toronto area, you probably have been to the mall or know about it. It is located at Kennedy and Steele. I was shopping at the mall and found my works were selling at a retail booth. They printed my work on a large size canvas and selling for $35CAD. I quickly took some pictures with my camera phone and asked the owner where did they get the products from. The owner told me they brought their products through several level of connections, thus unable to trace the manufacture.
Best Web Gallery being ripped
Shortly after I launched Best Web Gallery, I found a site just ripped it exactly the same, but replaced with a different logo. They even copied my gallery entries and screenshots. As usual, I sent them an email and asked them to remove the design and related content. However, I didn’t receive any response. So, I submitted to Digg and got more attention. Then, the site quickly removed the theme in the next day.
How did I catch them?
Well, the Internet is very small. Unless you don’t publish your site online, otherwise the chance of you getting spotted is very high. Most of them are reported from visitors. The others are traced from referral links and tracking codes.
What should you do if someone stole your work?
I’m sure I’m not the only victim. What would you do if someone stole your work?
Send them an email? Half of the time, they don’t even have a contact number or email address on their site. If you are lucky enough, they will apologize and remove your work. The worst I’ve seen they just ignore your emails and pretend nothing happened. Or even worst they will claim as original and question you back “are you sure you are the original creator?”
Find a lawyer and sue them? It is probably not worth the value to sue them because most of them are small business or personal website. The lawyer fee will probably cost you more.
How do you handle your copyright infringement issues? Any advises or suggestions that you can share with us?
June 21st, 2007 at 3:29 am
I hate when this happens…
Be creative on you own, dumb-asses!
All the best from bonn, Oli
June 21st, 2007 at 3:37 am
The situation is more worse in some countries. Stolen designs, contents, even websites are all over the Internet…
June 21st, 2007 at 4:13 am
That is bad. Fortunately I’ve never had anything like this happen to me (probably because I don’t get half the exposure you do) but it would make me seriously angry.
You wouldn’t expect anyone with half a brain to rip from such a high profile site but I guess they do :(
Hope you manage to sort this out!
P.S. Cool Site 8 looks awful now, no wonder they felt they had to steal a design.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:15 am
Hi Nick,
I think that stealing trend is a horrible thing to do. It only proves that people envy you and your talent.
I am a 30 year old Graphic Designer from Israel. Building my website, I have some questions. (and I am sure others would be glad to know too)
Lots of websites upload vector items and even complete editable files for everyone to download.
What exactly can we use?
For example, if I downloaded a vector file of a couple dinning in a restaurant and there is a bottle of wine on the table that I could really use instead of re-designing it. Would that be ok?
Can I use it on my website or on a restaurant menu? (for sale or as a bonus?)
What are the limits to avoid copying or “stealing” (by that I don’t mean duplicating arts)
What goes though minds of Designers that allows everyone to download their vector file? What exactly are they allowing us to do with it?
Maybe you have some of those answers … :)
Thanks,
Monalisa
June 21st, 2007 at 4:20 am
Nick, have you contacted the sitebuilder co. and if you have what is the response you got form them?
June 21st, 2007 at 4:42 am
If someone is seriously stealing your work there are three steps to follow:
1) write to the site via email and letter (their Who is entry may provide this if it’s not on the site) informing them of the copyright breach and request they remove the offending content.
2) If they refuse or don’t co-operate then repeat but send letters to their hosting company or any other ‘brand’ that you can see is supporting their site. Big corporations who can be sued don’t want to be involved in legal disputes. Normally a host will appply pressure and then just turn off the site.
3) If the above fails then proceed with legal action. Even a ’serious’ letter from an attorney or lawyer should be enough to prove you are serious without having to go to court etc.
Hope this helps.
Colin
June 21st, 2007 at 5:32 am
What a shame !
But what can we do to prevent that kind of stealing ? I think legal actions are quite long and very expensive…
The good thing : it’s just mean that people really like your job ! Me too :D
June 21st, 2007 at 5:46 am
“Coolsite 8″ LOL :D
By the way… ripping/stealing has been around for years, it’s not a new trend.
Most are caught out though, and remove the stolen content which is good :)
June 21st, 2007 at 6:59 am
Oh my days!
How obvious are those rips man.
There are two things you should do.
Number 1:
Regarding the work that is being sold you should sue there arses or request that all money sold is given to you.
Number 2:
Personal and non-profit use of your works should not be sued. Just try to contact the people and get the work removed. If they persist to ignore or keep the work on after you prove its yours then perhaps take action.
I hate people who rip work that is not given to people to re-use. I have used a few of your free icons and other free vista style icons from one other site but this is ok because they are free to re-use as long as you dont try to make profit from them.
Rippers are scum who dont have any talent so should either gain the skills or give up, sad idiots!
Good luck Nick LA
June 21st, 2007 at 8:13 am
Hell, sue them and foot them with the fees or maybe remove them yourself.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:35 am
Like on MattBrett.com, I’d like to say congratulations on your rip! You are now officially one of THE greatest designers around!
June 21st, 2007 at 9:35 am
Nick, your themes are fantastic. I’m using Glossy Blue on our podcast network and have heavily modified the graphics - however, I still credit you for the theme. What’s wrong with people?
Oh, and seeing your work being sold on canvases in some market?! I would’ve been sick. People are bastards.
(added you as a friend on Flickr too)
June 21st, 2007 at 9:52 am
lol it’s not wise how blatantly obvious people can be with their copying. I’ve had bits of my coursework copied at Uni before, and it was actually a guy I lived with. He even went as far as to copy what I had written on my C.V. 2 years previous. Pure egg!
June 21st, 2007 at 10:16 am
Well Nick! i like ur great designs and works.actually i learnt a lot about Illustrator from u!…
talking about “Stealing Trend”,i remember one of ur illustrator design were(Its a DJ girl)used on the cd cover for some remix album stuff.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
So did you ever find out who stole your artwork and printed them? Or you just let it go? :$
June 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
It’s too bad that there isn’t a web site that is the opposite of Digg. Though, there probably already is one and I just haven’t looked hard enough.
Your work is spectacular. If I would ever use it, I’d ask first. Jeeze.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
wow, that one in the mall, I were I would have done something to the guy,. if not beat the crap out of him, I would have called the authorities or something.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Eli - I think the point Nick is trying to make is that in recent months this has dramatically increased. People are realizing that the internet is an international gallery free for the taking and reselling. I can only imagine how many more people are profiting off of his works.
It’s even happened to me, and I’m a nobody. A forum I’m a part of makes it a point to Digg every site they’ve ever seen mock their work or the work of its forum-goers as an ongoing effort to make this much more humiliating and hopefully bring some sort of justice to it. Problem is, Digg is such a craphole anymore.. is there a site solely dedicated to blatantly ripped works that gets a good amount of hits to help stop this?
If not, I’d be interested in starting one.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:07 pm
You should phone the shop up that is selling the artwork, get the address, and then say that its your artwork and record the phone call and post it up here.
Then, if one of the ndesign blog readers lives near the shop, then can go in there and tell them face to face.
I just think that its so bad that people are acctually selling your artwork that you spent hours designing.
Its just outrageous.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
A horrible reality. :(
I enjoy when this kind of people are catched.
Good luck, Nick!
June 21st, 2007 at 8:14 pm
yes Nick, i remember that i report you one before. it’s really make me sad seeing someone stealing my work without even mention my name. i know the feeling.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Is your vector graphic “Sakura” a picture of Zhang Ziyi?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:43 pm
sry wrong place to post! ironic though. Not to say using an image to create vector is stealing. But still ironic.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
how did they get hold of 300dpi work - that’s what i’d like to know. it’s all very well nicking 72dpi stuff and duplicating it online, but it’s not so easy to steal for print cause it just looks shite unless you have the raws.
i feel your pain.
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:49 am
lewis - they downloaded my wallpapers (1280×1024) and cropped out my logo.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:15 am
So I guess that Pacific Mall has decided to expand from just selling pirated DVD’s :-)
That must have been a surreal moment staring at your own art work and know that someone stole it.
Considering the quality of your work, I doubt this will be the last time it happens. Which sucks, especially after you put so much time and effort into making something. Someone else wants to profit from your work!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:24 am
It stinks that these people just copy your work without asking… Good luck getting your content back :(
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
I saw you listed meetn.nl. I know the owner.. He scammed a lot of people with his hostservice as well..
If you want, I can contact him (in dutch) and ask him to remove it. Got his phone number right here…
it sux!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
send me an e mail if you want me to contact him.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Hi Nick
you should submit this to Digg.com and expose these guys, don’t forget to send a DMCA to each and get their sites closed down.
Good Luck
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Ive notice alot of people do this just to have content to litter up with Adsense ads.
This is how it commonly takes place…
“Let me use Wordpress, pick out some of the most popular keywords, steal this well known sites stuff because noone will notice, and place 20 ads all over the site. Who cares about the legal end, I will be selling this on SitePoint shortly.”
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm
i made a phoenix look alike theme too (coz i like it so much) but luckily i never use it for my blog :)
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Oh my god, it’s sad seeing these cheap rippers take work from people who really deserve the credit. I’d say there should be stricter punishments, and last we should all find ways to destroy the “stealing trend” from cheap pathetic thieves.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Its the kid learning at a young age. When we had our Nation FBLA Leadership conference the other year when I was in high school, we had like 3 people that got kicked out off Website Development for copying OTHER websites…and they were horrible copies!
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Todd H - We are not talking about kids here. Read case sample #1 - SWsoft Sitebuilder is a large global corporation and I think this is a serious issue even such a big company will steal design.
I think we should have a community to ban the copyright violated sites.
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Been following your site through several incarnations and always enjoyed the content and attempted all of the tuts and help that you put up.
So I think that someone claiming you property is shite and they should be told to bring it down ASAP, even when they are claiming copyright of your graphics as panick-serenade has done
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Just my 2 cents worth (which is more than I’ll get from the work I’ve seen stolen)…Unfortunately, it’s not only individuals who inadvertantly rip-off art here or there…While at a local mall one day, I saw ‘what seemed to be very familiar designs’ on printed shirts…and when I got close enough, it hit me: ‘Hey, I did that!’…and when I inspected the tags, I realized this wasn’t even the company that purchased the designs!…
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Nick - I think you should take some action about SWsoft sitebuilder. Perhaps find a lawyer and sue them.. They deserve to pay for your work. I can’t believe that they stole your work.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Yeah, but…
So, yes, it’s totally unscrupulous and it sucks that people are doing this. But, you may find yourself better off figuring out how to ride this wave instead of fighting it.
Your artwork is incredible, and I hope you acquire the popularity you deserve. The lame theft is a testament to the quality of your work.
You probably don’t want to get into RIAA mode over this…instead let it work for you. How, exactly, you should do that…I don’t know. I could totally see your Flickr page garnering a lot of attention, though. You may also want to offer people an easy way to order prints from you.
I should add I’m not even beginning to pretend I fully understand your situation, and I realize I may be way off the mark…just thought I’d throw in another potential perspective. Good luck!
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
The best remedy is to hit them with a pointy stuck.
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:22 am
I’m a designer just starting out. This business is hard enough without people ripping off your work. Its very discouraging to someone like me who needs to promote images but can’t afford to have them stolen.
Aren’t their software tools we can use to make it harder, if not impossible for thieves to take your graphics?
I know flickr allows you to set your profile so no one can take your photos.
Either that or you could simply take down the for sale/commercial work and slap a Creative Commons License on the “Free for personal use” stuff.
These are just my suggestions. Do what works for you.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:00 am
I just want to clear things up. Anyone is free to visit my website, panick-serenade.net, to discuss this also. Please do not run and point fingers until you’ve seen my blog about this.
Basically I found the phoenix artwork on a flickr site from someone else claiming it as their own. I asked them, and they said it was fine to use it in my layout. Now i’ve found ndesgin-studio, and a great site at that. I’ve givin’ proper credit and have e-mailed the owner. If he/she would like me to take the layout down, i’ll do so immediantly. I had absolutly no intention to steal, stealing is wrong and I know this.
please, I encourage anyone and everyone to visit my blog and discuss whats happened. I hopefully want to settle this not as pointing fingers but with an agreement. I was mislead, and I just want everyone to adknowledge this.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 am
dustin only wants to get advantage of this to have more visitors in his site, is obvious he doesn’t have the skills to be what he says he is…..
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 am
Haha sure, why would I want more visitors? More bandwidth gone yay =D. Yeah, I don’t appreacheate you coming to my site and opening your mouth. I’m not using this situation to gain visitors. Why would I want them? Honestly i’m trying to handle this situation like mature person, but certian people opening their mouths about things they won’t even bother to read a little into, are annoying me to death.
You know i’m sorry I was misleaded, and im sorry I just so happened to be getting more visitors form this, but if thats the case then simply don’t visit.
All i’m asking is to settle this situation with the author of this beautiful artwork so i’ll know if they want it taken down or not.
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:43 am
That’s pretty scary that you found your own work in a shop o.O I would have been so pissed!
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:56 am
I used to have a website that used to have content stolen quite regularly. I laid JavaScript “traps” that would pass the url to a script on my site, which emails me the url of the guilty site. I then emailed the host to take it down and it worked most of the time.
When some fools copied the HTML, they also copied my Amazon referral links, so even though I shut the site down after 3 years I’m still getting sales commission creeping through!
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 am
Nick - this is horrible!!! there has got to be something you can do!!! I know that almost every state has a non-profit organization called the Lawyers For the Arts (or sometimes the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts). Make a search in google, and find the one for your state. It’s a way less expensive alternative then going out and getting a personal attorney (if you don’t already have one) plus they are Arts attorney’s, so I’m sure some, if not all of them have dealt with this type of situation before.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just little crappy sites here and there that don’t get much traffic anyway, but the fact that someone is making serious dollars off your work - I think you need to put the smack down on some fools!
Good luck to you, and I hope it all gets squared away!!
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Nick, there are so many thieves in this world. and believe me, we can nothing to do, if the thieves do not solve the problem in itself. It sadly made me if someone steals your work. We’re Behind You All The Way!
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I really feel sad for you and others. What I do, is that I file a lawsuit and then see their face in trouble. It doen’t matter on how much you spend, all it matter is to get thief to their feet. I am think about sending ideas to the US Congrees to make Copyright Laws more effective and powerful. I had someone steal my C&C Generals Mod’s whole storyline.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:49 am
You said “The lawyer fee will probably cost you more.”
But if you won , they must pay all your spending.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Hey nick,
Im a big fan of yours and i support you all the way through this! I recently found myself in a bit of a scandal through the popular website deviantART. As someone had both posted some of my artwork and published it on his blog. But i was not the only victim, he had stolen many of others works to. As a colabaritive we approached the owner of the profile but we received no feedback from him. Before this we had reported him to deviantART, but a week later we noticed that he had added more stolen images to his profile. So we got a team together to report this offence and within 8 hours he had been banned.
Now i know that this is isnt relevant to your situration and any ideas we might have, but here are mine:
Use WhoIS to contact the server and tell them about this wrong doing if you get no email back.
Confront the person saying this is your art, with no reply get a few people to email him. This takes a bigger impact.
Just my opinion,
Mc Cool
June 24th, 2007 at 10:02 am
They are stealing of you because you’re a good designer. They are too poor and too lazy to make something by her own.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:04 am
with your lawyer issue. not only will it cost you money BUT when you won (because this case would be a sinch) you would get a lot of money out of it. you have terms of use on here which state clearly that you can not sell your work. and look i see it right now. copyright mark, your name and year. i think youd have a solid case. id say think about it for sure and get a quote from a lawyer that specializes in copyright infringment.
ps. i also love your work and have one of your icons as my display pic and ive spread the word about you :)
June 24th, 2007 at 11:06 am
tutorial writers
es una web que no deja usar el click derecho ni seleccionar texto
esa es la solucion
suscribite ahi
y tu pagina
tendra desabilitada en la navegacion la opciones de copiado
June 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Hey nick,
I feel terrible that someone is stealing your work. I live in the toronto area (just out of oshawa) and I go to durham college for webdesign / development. I would be disgusted if anyone stole my work and claimed it as their own or didnt even give me credit.
I can only suggest that you take legal action against the store you saw in Pacific Mall since they are actually making money of of your work.
I know legal costs are expensive but if you can go to small claims court or something and get a settlement it might help you out a bit.
I know there are ways to protect images with javascript aplications not allowing right clicking and such… and I hope you look into things like that and other options in the future to try and cut down on mis-use of your work.
Contact me if you ever need a programmer / designer, or heck just want to chat (im in the area).
~Good luck!
June 24th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Hate to say it, but if you don’t want someone swiping your artwork, best not to put it on the Internet. I know that’s not the answer we all want to hear, but that’s how it goes. Best thing you can do is license by Creative Commons, really.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I’m very sorry, but i have to admit that i stole part of your work once too. It was for a hairdresser’s bussiness card. She wanted something attractive for the background. I was desperate trying to find an apropriate illustration, then i found your site and saw your illustration “flow” from which i took part of it.
Finally the client got another image which she wanted to appear in the card, so what i stole from you wasn’t utilized. But anyway i was a f***ing thief. As a graphic designer, i also got my work stolen somtimes, but that is no excuse for what i tryed to do.
One sometimes thinks that the internet is too big and taking something that is right in front of you is not bad, and it will never be a danger to you, but it really sucks. There’s always somebody behind the work you are about to steal. I forgot this, but thanks to you i won’t forget it again.
I regret my behaviour and i apologize sincerely.
José Manuel, Seville-Spain.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Mk As explained in my blog the top image has been taken down, sorry for any confusion and/or irratation its caused. I just want to clarify I was mislead and that I had no intention of stealing. I’ve sent the fickr account with the stolen graphics to Nick, hopefully he’ll have fun with the account owner.
Now please, anyone whos coming to my website and posting immature comment, stop, I know you may be upset by the fact that I look like a theif but just take my word for it. I didnt intentionaly steal the artwork.
And Nick; You really should get a lawyer over the art that the store is selling. You deserve at least some profit off that. Hiring a lawyer in that situation would be well worth it.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Let them steal your work.
Just make sure you copyright your images or work through the copyright offices before you publish them on the internet. If you register your work through the copyright office the one who stole your work is due extra damages and the case is usually clear and cut without any hassles and it’d be well worth the trouble. You’ll be a rich person laughing your way to the bank.
Oh and carolyn wright is a great attorney. Shes a copyright lawyer you should check out her blog:
http://www.photoattorney.com/
Just my take.
Keep up the beautiful work.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:13 am
It seems like a lot of people suggest to find an intellectual property attorney. Has anyone experienced these cases before and what is the chance of winning?
June 25th, 2007 at 4:06 am
You’re an amazing artist and no business can earn money with your work without paying anything to you. Sue them. It’s their problem if they can pay the money or not, the case will make everyone think once more before they steal something.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:09 am
Ive heard of people profiting form these situations. Google probably holds all your answers nick. But it probably worth it to register all your work form here on out with a physical copyright. you can for instance print out a image and mail it to yourself, itll act as a copyright.
Honestly that mall thats selling your artwork will probably be a easy target. And honestly I dont think the store owner has any “sellers in china” but thats just my opinion. For something like stolen artwork on websites like the free website generator, contact their host and shut them down. You deserve credit for your artwork, and they deserve no internet =D.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:00 am
If the rip is ont the net, I send an invoice, and a threat of warning the provider. That’s enough to get it removed.
If the rip is real life, invoice+lawyer, anycase. But I have a friend, so that helps diminishing the costs
June 25th, 2007 at 10:25 am
I haven’t had many people steal my artwork, so I guess I’ve been lucky, but in the few cases I have had to deal with I usually just go up the chain.
Email the offender, if they take it down - great. If they refuse to, or claim they made it, contact thier hosting provider and threaten to sue them for allowing thier clients to use copywritten material on thier servers. Usually does the trick, if it doesn’t, actually consult a lawyer, alot of them will tell you if you’ve got a case, etc for free - and I’m sure for a small fee they’d be happy to email the hosting company and tell thier findings. I doubt that you’d have to go any farther at that point, but if you do, then sue them… for the rights they infringed, and whatever profits they may have taken from you, or made, I’m sure you could make a nifty amount.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I vote you hire ninjas to viciously and invisibly slaughter suspected perpetrators. If you get caught, call it Darwinism combined with population control.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:51 am
I totally sympathize. We get emails of our work being ripped off weekly, as well. Usually it’s girls from Brazil for some reason… very odd.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:29 am
ahahah i like andrews idea, Ninjas are cool.
Is this like a proper store or one of the move-aroundable ones that are seen in malls?
June 26th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Hey man sorry to see people ripping your work. Take it as a HUGE compliment, although this can hurt business. I was shocked looking through your flickr list, thats unbelievable, those are LAME rips :(
June 26th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
hey….i am in the same situation as you. I am at Hong Kong right now and one day I was shopping…and saw my work on a display wall inside the shopping mall. I was so shocked. (you can look at my webpage to see my artwork called Flying Lemons). I called the managment office and got the company who did the display. And we settled a compensation fee….coz I don’t want to make this a big thing….
but everyone is telling me to sue them.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:52 am
I find that when folks have problems with stealing that the victimized sites can use Digg to rectify the problem. The beauty of the Digg effect is that the website who stole your stuff would be bombarded by tons of people which as anyone knows…the Digg folks can bring any site down to its knees.
I’m glad you’re protecting your stuff properly since I love the wallpapers you make. Emails, as you said…work half of the time when complaining. Hope you get your stuff back from the brink!
Perhaps, a significant watermark would deter these ppl?
June 27th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Oh I forgot! Greetings from Mississauga! :p And no I haven’t been to Pacific Mall but I’ve heard of it.
Any good?
June 27th, 2007 at 10:16 am
How to avoid it?
I think maybe if you use a Creative Commons License in your work people wouldn’t steal it. You would be offering it to them :D
June 27th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Agreed, this stealing non-sense needs to stop. Make your own stuff and be original you newbs!
June 27th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Hey Nick, just wanted to check in here and make sure that my personal mod of your GlossyBlue WP theme isn’t in violation of your copyright. If it is, give me a shout and I’ll be happy to take it down.
Cheers,
Scott
June 27th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Sorry, that was dumb question # 9. Your terms do include… “You may modify, translate or distribute”.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Ah, fallait s’attendre a des trucs du genre !
Faut juste porter plainte et faire constater cela par un huissier !
June 27th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
This is definitely not a new fashion — this is how the Web was since always — you think that someone actually released the GIFs that you could see on all the websites everywhere?
I’d say that it was a conscious and deliberate design decision. Back then the Internet was meant for collaborating, not doing business.
Is there a solution for that? I certainly hope that some day the law will catch up to the technology and we will be able to live in harmony…
June 27th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
dont make a big thing about it, the internet gets big with inspiring (stealing!) grafix websites mp3 movies and scripts, allthrough some rips are real lame :-)
June 27th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
so cool,i like it!
June 28th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Wait, do I see correctly? You’re saying some one stole your text CSS styles? Don’t you think thats a bit of a … HUGE stretch?
You can’t copyright orange links/whatever.
Give me a break.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:20 am
Yo! your works are impressive!
*Salutes*
Really love them!
But didn’t give even a pixel of credits to you, that’s TOO MUCH!
Awww man TV Station! Those are rich dudes who can really afford to pay!
The software system, if they are so poor and still building their company;
at least they can give some credits to you instead of claiming it like their own creations. Very misleading.
=\ $35CAD.
I feel the pain.
I’ve a few college juniors who once ripped my wallpapers and re”edited” it then print as card to sell it off BUT claimed as their own creations.
The Best Web Gallery - that’s the ultimate overload level.
How to report them?
(IF they are distributing it for commercial purposes & didn’t give any credentials.)
There are ways to watermark your creations and implement scripts to “disable” users from downloading your GUI’s automatically.
For websites, you can report to their web hosting companies.
Besides Creative Common License & some other copyrights & cyberlaw issues.
But different countries practice it differently.
Else bombard them in the comment sites & fully publish out a violation of copyrights copycats. Shame them to the max.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I think it’s quite flatering to your work. This means that your work is widely appreciated and loved. I think most people steal ideas, images, templates they love very much.
Indeed it’s frustrating, but Internet thievery has and will always exist on the Internet and there’s not much you, me or everyone can do about it, unfortunately.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
That is just too bad. Granted, it is cool that someone admires your work enough to use it in something, but to not give any credit (or permission) is totally not right.
Thanks for bringing awareness to this increase of graphic thieves.
June 29th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Unfortunately Nick, ur Illustrator design (football player) was stolen in my country too. It was also used for flyer, for football match ofcourse.
I´m from Croatia, country near Bosnia & Hercegovina.
I´m sorry…it´s everywere,
Can´t you protect in some better way?
June 29th, 2007 at 5:50 am
You should really try to sue the Tv company…. They are so big that you could realy get som juice out of that copyright!
June 29th, 2007 at 6:11 am
No, that TV company is not that big,hell, ther country is small,it´s yet to be descovered and it has many financial problems!
ofcourse, that´s no excuse note for them, or anyone else!
So, Nick you won´t get som juice out of that copyright, so don´t bother…it´s not worth it..
June 29th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Must be a little flattering to see your work get stolen so often!
June 29th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Inspiring my ass. One thing is to get an idea from another work. A different thing is TO COMPLETELY COPY A WORK AND TO PRETEND TO BE THE ONE WHO DID IT.
I own a blog and I am using a wordpress template made by N-Design. The funny thing is that I didn’t download it here, but on a p2p network. It was in a template collection, and the copyright on the bottom was removed. I found out who the author was and I putted it back.
The point is: dudes like this guy work FOR FREE and they allow you to use THEIR work on YOUR website, the only thing that they ask is to say that they worked for you for free. Is that a problem? Then don’t use it and work on your own.
I am surely inspired from n-design and my next works will be somehow inspired from its style, that’s sure. But I won’t COPY its work, that would be a different thing.
I have no time to make my own template for now, but when I will have the time I will make my own and personal template, but until that day I can’t see any problem in saying thanks to N-studio for giving me a good template for a while. Thanks to them I already opened the blog, and I can work without any rush to my template :)
June 29th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
hey nick,
sorry to say but ive found some else who has used your glossy theme, changed it and has not credit you back on it.
The site is :http://www.cgitop.com/
June 29th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
well i’ll admit that i wouldn’t call it a TOTAL steal. I mean, he probably used the glossy theme as a base, but he deeply edited it and worked really much on it and it now looks quite different from the original one!
It’s almost like starting from the basic wordpress theme you know. I mean he could have wrote that he used glossy theme as a base, but there’s a lot of people who do worth!! ;)
June 30th, 2007 at 8:15 am
That TV station can now have big trubble. But i think you say that those wallpapers can anyone take?
June 30th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I’m guessing, the TV stations that downloaded your stuff, didn’t read the terms of use, or probably didn’t understand it, and made use of the images thinking its totally free.
June 30th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
It sucks that there are people who just leech your work! I wonder if there’s a better way to protect one’s work and creativity. The internet is great source for getting your work out there, but the problem is people just taking your work and not crediting you…. :( Thank you for letting us know about things like this. I guess as you grow a larger site you have to think about how to protect your work…
July 1st, 2007 at 4:44 am
Welcome to the internet friends…
July 1st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
OMG, be proud! The one selling your work on canvas was the icing on the cake!
July 1st, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Wow that must really suck..it’s actually kind of sad to see these people ripping your work.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Well there are a few things you can do - to protect your images I am sure there are file protection programs out there. Print work is a little trickier. As for just styles, changing the name to something random of the directory of your style.css file works. You could always get a lawyer and copyright all your work.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:28 am
You can get most people to remove offending content just by contacting them directly. For others, you can hire an attorney off of a freelance site like Elance to send a letter for less than $100.
A lot of lawyers and legal types hang out on Elance to pick up random work, and are willing to send infringement letters. You can use a registrar’s whois to locate the site owner’s address, or if it’s private, you can send a personal letter to the email listed on the whois (generally an abuse email for the registrar). Explain the situation and the steps you will take if they are unwilling to give you the information (mentioning a lawyer will pretty much guarantee that they will either give you the contact info or contact the site owner directly).
Stealing designs is becoming an epidemic, and believe it or not, a lot of the offenders are actually designers. As a designer myself, it drives me nuts when I get requests for cloned sites and stuff like that — but it happens all the time.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:47 am
It is really a shame that your work is being stolen. A while back I did some work for Gemnas Incorporated and someone ripped it off. Gemnas went after them and paid an attorney to sue them. The sue for the simple website was $3500. The attorney fees were UNDER $2000. $1500 of pure profit. I would suggest you take legal action against these cyber-theifs or at LEAST look into it.
- Revlet
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:17 am
It always makes me angry when people use other peoples work. Even when the artist says its ok it irks me!
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Hello there!
That`s just rude,the rip-offs!
THe TV station OBN also ripped the webdesign of german TV station prosieben.
www.obn.ba
www.prosieben.de
And also some of the blogs in the gallery are also bosnian. Maybe the same person?
Can`t believe what jerks live in my country :)
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Hi!
Just a little advice from one designer to another I picked up from a professor. Get to know the trade-marks, copyrights and patent laws in your country. Since you’re in Toronto here’s the link to Canada’s http://strategis.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/welcome/welcom-e.html
For everyone else visit http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/other.html
There are links to other countries.
Hope this helps all who want to protect their work. It doesn’t hurt to know what your rights are in protecting your work.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
thats mental!
i dont think i could even bring myself to use someone elses work without any sort of permission or purchase of it
you did a danm good job of spottong it all though
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
ergh.. that really sucks big time. but i guess look at the good side, thats how good your work is! :D
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:21 am
It must be hurt.
Go go go my friend.
The original one is undefeatable.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:56 am
Similar thing happened to me last year. A designer, who I think was not familiar with Wordpress has stolen one of my creations. He only changed the header graphic and then claimed it as his very own design. And mind you what, the client whom he worked for was a law firm. Hehehe, now you can imagine what I did.
Btw, I know it hurts when you see people are stealing your work but I do agree with Sheena. Be proud. You are an excellent artist and I am one of your fan :).
Kudos
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
A reply to Zlatan R. I am not sure…but it could be that ProSieben actually owns OBN. They are one of the largest media companies in Germany. OBN’s logo is also alarmingly similar to RTL which is owned by ProSieben as well.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
For the Canvas Printouts I would engage a lawyer an sue them! Even because the owner of the shop, didn’t help you!
July 4th, 2007 at 6:41 am
It’s a shame!
July 4th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
lol, its very lame the extent people go to steal something… its pointless, can someone gain from stealing a website? surely not… i pitty the fools.
- lewis
July 5th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Dude I am a huge fan of your work, it is ridiculous that companies are STEALING your designs to earn money, like the bamboo poster thingy, and these posters in a newspaper.
You should somehow find a way to copyright your designs or add a watermark (that isn’t easily removed with the healing brush or clone stamp tool)
So that when they publicise your work they automatically advertise for you (since your watermark is on it.)
It disgust me to see that people are earning money this way, it’s the same thing as stealing art from a museum (only your designs are better then the things you find in a museum ofc.)
I do hope you find a way to stop art theft
Wish you good luck.
July 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Hi Nick…
I wanted to stop by and personally thank you for creating and sharing the GlossyBlue theme. Its a very kool WP theme (I had to modify it a bit to suit “my” tastes). LOL its the “only” nice thing about my blog at the moment as its a new blog and there isn’t hardly any content just yet. I think you’re a terrific artist/designer. Thanks again.
Also to put my input in about plagiarism: I think its ludicrous that people would stoop so low as to steal others intellectual work. Its lazy, irresponsible, and its just plain wrong and It just irks me! I’m sorry to hear and see that that people stealing you designs. At the very least they should give credit where credit is due.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I actually think myspace has something to do with the increased theivery of late. More people are learning how to copy images, and on top of that, they seem to think that if it’s online, it’s fair game to steal…
Very sad indeed.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Hey Nice post i really can feel what you feel its becoming a trend these days but still you don’t have to be afraid of showcasing your work and optionally publishing some open source work there are still some people who appreciate the Designer and keep the copyright and the link.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:06 am
honestly, when i first clicked to comment, i had to sit here for about 3 minutes thinking of what to say, only to tell that i did that. i seriously cant think of anything to say that has not been said or thought of except that im sure all of your viewers are all on the same page with how we feel about this.
July 6th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Found another rip of http://bestwebgallery.com/ here it is: http://www.pr6directory.org/
July 6th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Stop wining about people stealing your work. If you have a website things like this will happen. How many ebay clones do you see out there. Why isn’t ebay not doing anythign about it. For god sake stop crying about your work being stolen. All you will get is headaches with no results. If you dont’ want yoru work to be stolen maybe your shouldn’t publish it on the web. That’s the only way it will work for you.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:14 am
@ Larry
No offense, but you’re seriously a dumbass. What happens here has no damn connection with ebay clones. “Clones” in your comment simply means other websites which use the same CONCEPT like ebay. There’s no fault or illegality in doing that, as long as you use your own system & design it using your own theme and design. What happened here is a total ripoff e.g. same design, same content.
If some moron were to copy ebay exactly like how the other guy ripped off best web gallery, can you still say ebay will sit down quietly like a little girl and let it go? Hell no.
Keep quiet when your work is being plagiarized? I don’t think so mate. You wanna stay low and pretend nothing happened, that’s your call. Others will defend their work, let them do it and leave them alone.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Another radical solution (for web) is to find and engage an HACKER, to delete the website which stole your design….and put one or two phrases about design stolen.
these people are NOT graphic design. they MUST PAY their stupidity.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:57 am
i just find this incredible post !
see it !
http://web2themes.com/2007/07/03/i-found-someone-stealing-my-themes/
webdesign steal is a really problem for SERIOUS webdesigner.
at the Middle-Ages, people put in public the robbers, and people threw unpleasant things to them (tomatoes,etc..) . Why not create a website with this concept ?
July 7th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I feel for you Nick as I have been in the same position before and unfortunately due to the sheer size of the Internet you’ll never always know who’s taking what and when - especially when you have a fan base as large as you do. The only real comfort you can take from people plagiarising your work is that you know they have good taste!
July 7th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
No offinse but i agree with larry. Unless you want to hire a laywere which i hightly doubt then go ahead. There’s nothing you can do about stolen work.
July 8th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
i probably use the most free and safe way of doing this
send thenm an email uisng a fake lawyer letter and threaten to contact there hoster
if you contact me i can give you a few of the letters i used when my stuff was stolen
July 8th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Kip, That is an amazing idea. xD.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:49 am
Wow all that is truly RIDICULOUS…
I hope you’re not letting this go.
This is YOUR work. And I trust you can prove that? Taking copyrighted material and/or selling stolen goods is illegal.
You know the websites/e-mail, spread the word about them. Demand removal and compensation. And you don’t need a lawyer for a civil suit.
Get their info from the Whois database, and give them a call. If the information in the Whois is fake, report them. Their whole site will be shut down.
They owe you big time, designers get paid thousands these days to do what you do.
For the future,
Make one killer, unique site for each of your websites. And leave it!
Then watermark all your other work.
Sad you have to do that, but unless you’re providing a free service for leeches, it has to be done.
July 9th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Dude, you are a legend, being doing your tutorials for ages now!!!, but ive never stole anything, what these people are doing is theft, you need to sort them out mate and make an example of them, or they’ll just keep on robing your work!!
July 9th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Actually im redesigning my portfolio site, and thinking of only letting people access through, username and email, why dont you make people register for this site, get them to register a valid i.p, so you can track them.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:08 am
Unfortunately stealing isn’t an old idea. People have been stealing designs on the web since it started. While originality is hard to achieve in almost any medium, it seems to be even harder in a medium that is so accessible such as the web.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I had no idea this was such an issue. I bet some of our stuff has been getting ripped off.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:51 am
I actually threaten them saying I’ll sue, lol. And it actually works.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Terrible to see this happen to such beautiful artwork :(
July 10th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Unfortunately, this happens every day to even the least known artists. That’s the downfall to posting anything on the internet.
Is there anything that can be done? Not really. You can only get them to remove your work in any way possible but like I said, it happens every day and it will never, ever stop happening.
Hope you get those issues resolved. I’ve had it happen a couple of times and had to let it slide because there wasn’t much I could do about it.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
you can sue the two ads from TV broadcasting company, considering that they’re big company in their country. just get a copy of a newspaper where it was printed. ;)
your work is great, you should give them an example..
July 11th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I found a blog that looks pretty similar to glossy blue, he calls it “sleep blue”
http://www.ehomy.net/blog/
July 12th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
hey Nick, its been a long time (hope you still remember me). WOW that is horrible that they steal your stuff. Its good and bad. Good because it shows how great your stuff are and bad because well its stealing. So, did you contact them or something regarding them using your work without your permission?
July 13th, 2007 at 5:40 am
hy, I am each day visiting this web site because I find it quite amazing and helpful. I love your work. I have to admit I was embarrassed when I saw that televisions from my country are stealing your work. Sue them, get them pay because people here do not appreciate other peoples work! They do not see this as crime so someone has to show them what copyright and intellectual property means.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Check this out.Some guys from BG have ripped this site too.
http://www.musicplace-bg.com
Greets from Serbia :D
July 13th, 2007 at 11:13 am
That’s a shame to see.
These big companies can’t use their own creativity.
- Aurelius Tjin
July 13th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Since you’re bringing this stuff up, I can’t recall you ever asked me for permission to use my photograph in your poster (image at the top). How about that ?
July 13th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
That’s a shame to see.
Realy bad.