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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 8:51 am
Terrible to see this happen to such beautiful artwork :(
July 10th, 2007 at 1:51 am
I actually threaten them saying I’ll sue, lol. And it actually works.
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.