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posted on 03/13/08
Dealing with Design Rip Offs
Not long after the Huge Type design was stolen, I’ve run into another incident of one of my designs being ripped off. This time though, someone decided it would be fine to rip off the new design here on Pixelspread. This instance was a little stranger than anything I’ve experienced before though….
It started with an email asking me if my design could be used on another site. When I said no, I got another email asking why. When I explained that it was my work and he may not use it anywhere else, he made the argument that at least he was truthful about stealing my design. He explained that most people would just do it without telling me… I sent a final emailing pointing out that the keyword there was steal, and that whether or not you tell someone you’re stealing, you’re still stealing.
Just so you can see what I’m talking about, here’s a screenshot of the rip off that I was sent a link to:
As of yet, it has not been taken down, despite my request.
I’m not sure I should have to say this, but I figure I might as well… No, you may not steal this design, or any of my designs. Even if you tell me you plan on stealing it, it’s still not okay. I release plenty of free themes for the world to use. Those I would love for you to use. But let there be no confusion. If I have not released it as a free theme, it’s for my own use.
So who else has dealt with their design work being ripped off? What’s your plan of action? And what kind of weird excuses have you gotten?
Nick
posted on Mar 13, 07:31 PM
What a dick. Too bad we can’t call some mob dude to take care of this guy.
Al
posted on Mar 13, 09:46 PM
you should send a message to tumblr and tell them that Ol’ Kenny ain’t playin’ nice…they may take it down. Good luck.
Ken Seals
posted on Mar 14, 08:37 AM
You’ve gotta love that crap man. We get it all the time. Unfortunately there just is not a whole lot you can do other than call them out. Hopefully he’ll grow some balls and take it down.
Mirza
posted on Mar 15, 05:14 PM
My theme was stolen by a guy who happens to be an Art Director at a design firm. I contacted the person and I let him keep the theme as long as he was giving me credit and since I was going to release it as a theme anyways. With that said there isn’t much you can do to stop design theft other than ridiculing them.
@Kenny: did you just say that you “kind of made this theme” ? I did not know that Copy-Pasting is now defined as creation
Kenny James
posted on Mar 15, 08:37 PM
@*Mirza*, I sure did.
And thanks again WHATEVER-YOUR-NAME-IS-WHO-HAS-NO-LIFE my people love the theme I made. Just launching it today has made some really awesome progress. And a wholoe bunch of Tumblr’s are using it! SUCESS!!
Mike E. Perez
posted on Mar 16, 08:25 PM
Back in 2000 or 2001, the (crappy) design for my Ninja Turtles fansite was stolen by some kid, and ALSO used as Ninja Turtles fansite. He also posted hotlinks to multimedia on my site, which killed my servers. My plan of action was to bombard his site with flames from my faithful visitors. He eventually changed his site. The design was alright for it’s time, but then I learned CSS and eventually killed the design completely.
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chriskalani
posted on Mar 13, 06:13 PMhahahaha, nice.