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?
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 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 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 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 8th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Kip, That is an amazing idea. xD.
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 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 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 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 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.