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 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 9:24 am
It stinks that these people just copy your work without asking… Good luck getting your content back :(
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 7:49 am
lewis - they downloaded my wallpapers (1280×1024) and cropped out my logo.
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 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 10:40 pm
Is your vector graphic “Sakura” a picture of Zhang Ziyi?
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 6:53 pm
A horrible reality. :(
I enjoy when this kind of people are catched.
Good luck, Nick!
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.