Could You Please Remove the Knife From My Back? (Sucky CW and CS)

[Seraph]

Yes, both Sucky Coworker (in a way) AND Sucky Customer! Agh!

Work's been pretty decent lately - had a few jobs that went very easily, and even had a couple clients pay me a bit extra for "doing such a great job!" (SQUEE!!!)

But then work died down, and as I am wont to be, I visited a popular forum that runs lots of "contests" for designers. These contests go like this:

Contest holder (CH) posts project, crazed money-desperate designers all post their own entries. Feedback on entries is given so people can fine tune, and CH then picks a winner afterwards. Usually.

Oooh you're already starting to see what happened, aren't you?

Anyways, I saw a contest for a banner design, which I particularly love to do. Some football site needed a rather large advertisement for their site. I complete my entry within a few minutes, and got the feedback on it. I revised my entry, and I will admit I was rather pleased due to the positive comments on it not only from the contest holder, but from other entrants and even people who just stopped by the forum thread!

Then...SCW enters. He is another entrant, who noticed how much people liked my design. His entry is a DIRECT RIPOFF. Same placement of every element, almost the exact same background...just everything was at a lower quality as if he couldn't quite figure out how to duplicate the shines and extras I put on my entry. I pitched a fit, of course. Even the other entrants all said "Hoooly cow man you stole her work!"

Worst part? CH comes in and says "Wow <ripoffartist>, I LOVE THAT!"

Everyone's jaws dropped. (In the Internet sense, of course.) I pointed out, politely, that his entry was a rip of my work, and the CH actually GOT HUFFY WITH ME. As in, sounded angry that I had pointed out he had stolen. He proceeds to give feedback, but subtly comments that he's none too happy I'm pushing the matter that my work was stolen.

RipoffArtist's response? "Sorry, I don't understand English!" Even though, mind you, the entire forum is in English. The contest brief was in English. All of his responses are always. In. English. So yeah...total obvious lie.

As a matter of pride, I revised my entry. Got feedback. Revised. Got feedback. Do you see a pattern here?... Hours later he states he will be choosing between mine and ripoff's banners. It was to the point we were then the only 2 entrants - everyone else left because they were mad that Ripoff was allowed to continue.

Then, the amusing part. Ripoff Artist comes back crying into the thread three days later that CH has STOLEN his banner. Seems that RA was dumb enough to not watermark his work, and the CH took it and ran off.

After a lot of uproar, the CH eventually came back and promised to pay both RA and I...but of course I never saw a red cent.

In the end, I'm mad at myself for having spent so much time on it...but it was a matter of my stinking pride....and seeing the shocked post of RA after his work was stolen was priceless.

(Oh, and later I got a project from someone on said board, just because they had seen that contest and felt bad about the end result. Cha ching!)

[NightWatch]

I was gonna say, maybe the site Owner knew the ripoff artist and it was a scam. But if he just stole the work... what a jerk. At least karma bit him in the ass and got you a project.

[froglet]

Maybe the reason CH was so enthusiastic about the stolen work and was encouraging them, was because the lack of a watermark, wanted to get it as good as the idiot could manage, then steal it?

[fireheart]

I have a few punishments in mind....

or my other favourite....

[Seraph]

Maybe the reason CH was so enthusiastic about the stolen work and was encouraging them, was because the lack of a watermark, wanted to get it as good as the idiot could manage, then steal it?

Yeah my husband and I tossed around that idea as well. Its amusing to think of.

I gotta admit, I might have been the victim of stolen work too if I hadn't started following the sage advice of many people here at Customers Suck.

[icmedia]

Yeah, I stopped entering those "contests" because of the, shall we say, 'deviant' goings on at the forum I visted.

Between other designers ripping off your designs, buyers who either stole work or chose obviously inferior work just because the designer was practically giving it away... yeah, I have enough portfolio pieces so, I quit doing work on speculation.

Now I don't even start a design job unless I've been properly commissioned to do so based on my past work.