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 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.
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 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 6th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Found another rip of http://bestwebgallery.com/ here it is: http://www.pr6directory.org/
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 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 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 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.