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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 22nd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
The best remedy is to hit them with a pointy stuck.
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!