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Triple Thief Trouble (very long)
It's been a very tough week for me. Still kinda messed up from my cat's passing, and I guess my clientele didn't care one whit.
Steeeerike ONE!
Well, as some may have seen in this one thread where I nearly fired a client, but "Nice Client" saved his butt. But, this is CS, so you can guess whats about to happen.
Supposedly Nice Client (SNC) recently informed me and several others that I inspired him to create his own design business. I was kinda surprised, since he'd never shown interest in creative works before....but he told me "oh no, the money seems awesome!"
Yeah. Because, you know, when creating art...money's all that matters.
Anyways, so for the past few weeks, I've been made to sit and watch as he came up with design after design, showing them to me to ask my opinion. The first sign of trouble was when I noticed one of the ones he showed me looked awfully familiar. I admonished him for using a tutorial site's template as an item for sale, and he seemed apologetic.
A week later, I signed onto a forum I visit on occasion, to see a huge fracas ensuing. Turned out SNC had been caught copying another site design, this time from a live site that one of the other forum members owned. He apologized, all was well, or so we thought. Later that same bloody evening, my coder IMs me.
"Hey, Seraph? So, SNC hired me to code some of his new designs up for him. And um....I think you need to see this."
Yep. SNC's new designs? Not quite so new, as much as Blatant Ripoffs of Seraph's Own Flipping Stuff. One was even a direct copy of my portfolio design!! I lost it. I immediately got SNC into a chat, and ripped him a new one.
He claimed he didn't copy my portfolio....and then I showed him a comparison of the two. By screenshotting his, and overlaying it onto a screenshot of my site....the colors matched, the layout was perfectly the same, DOWN TO THE PIXEL. His tune completely changed at that point.
SNC: Well, I figured that by adding in my own logo, it would therefore be mine. Its enough of a change.
Seraph: No, you cannot take my copyrighted design, match it completely, and just switch in your own logo. That is a blatant copyright violation, and I swear to god, I will still come over there and sue your British butt if I have to.
SNC: I'm not stealing, I'm just cloning!
Seraph: Cloning IS stealing. You can expect a formal Cease and Desist letter from me in a few, and I'll tell you right here. If you don't delete all those files within 24 hours, there will be trouble. Big. Freaking. Trouble.
SNC: Well I'm sorry. I thought we were friends, but obviously, we have different viewpoints on what constitutes stealing.
After I finally sent him the letter, he folded, and deleted everything. Funny part is that he'd actually been hired by a company for his design work....when they found out it wasn't HIS creativity, it was mine....he was immediately fired.
Steeeeerike TWO!
Not two days after the incident with SNC, I log onto that same forum yet again, and have a message waiting from the admin.
"Check the paid services section...you may want to see this."
Well well well, if it wasn't a client who had emailed me asking if I would sell him my templates at a huge discount. And here he is, selling templates. Wait a minute, that template looks familiar...why....its my bestseller!
Again, I lost it. I immediately fired off a C&D letter to him, copypasta'd it onto the forum thread where he was trying to sell my work...and went into Overkill Mode.
I did a bit of research, found his home address and phone number. I left a nice message on his voicemail, letting him know that he was in copyright violation, and had less than 24 hours to remove the files. And then, I called up the NY police dept, spoke with an officer who told me that cyber crime of that sort was still considered theft, and that they would investigate him. Then, I contacted his hosting company and filed a DMCA notice with them.
In the middle of all of that, he emailed me back a reply to the C&D....
"Hi Seraph, I didn't realize it was your site, I was trying to copy someone else's..." I'll save the rest of the blather, save that pretty much he was trying to say that since he was attempting to steal from someone else, it was ok.
Orly? I promptly replied to him, explaining what I had done so far, and that he could expect the poopstorm to continue if he did not delete the files. Oh, and just to let him know, they had bought one of my premade templates, so yes, it was MY design.
Two hours later, he removed the files. I'm still keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't do anything else.
Strike THREE! Seraph's Gonna Kill Someone!
Well, last and final annoyance. Yesterday, I got an IM from a client of mine, pointing me to look at a website. Hm, they had one of my premades up...but I didn't recall selling it to them. I checked their background, and turns out that person had bought a single-use license for another site....but was sneaky enough to copy/paste certain bits of the code until he finally cobbled enough together to steal it for another site.
At this point, I was just dumbstruck at the fact this was my third thief within a single week...and my coder decided to step in for me at this point. He tracked the guy down, called him at his house...and surprisingly, got ahold of the guy's FATHER. He explained to him that his son was in major violation of copyright laws...and at that point we found out he had it up on more than two sites. More like four. Oh, and he was offering "template designs and installations". With my design.
I literally stomped off at that point to go scream into a pillow. My wonderful coder handled it from there...needless to say, when I came back to my PC an hour later after trying to destress, I found an email from the kid, apologizing and saying that I had no license, so he figured he could do what he wanted.
Mhmm. That lovely link at the bottom of my site that says "Click here for the license terms", and the link in all the invoices that says "Purchase of these templates means you agree to these terms at <link>." They mean nothing. At all.
Anyways, I told him that now at this point, I wanted him to buy an individual license for each site. I think he understood how mad I was, so he agreed.
SC: So, $50 for each site, right? I have four sites with it up.
Seraph: Yes....you will now have to buy a license for each one of those sites.
SC: Ok. again, I am sorry about this. I sincerely apologize.
Seraph: Thank you for that. I suppose I can give you a bulk discount on those purchases....how does $175 sound to you?
SC: Sounds great! Sending payment now.
He paid, I waited to make sure it didn't get charged back...everything was hunky dory. Until today, when I went and looked up a price for someone else. And um...oops. Turns out that the license for that design was actually $45. So, technically, his total would've been $180. So, he still got a discount...just a much smaller one than he and I originally thought.
...
Oh well.
Now to trawl Craigslist for a good deal on an ipod touch, LOL!
Steeeerike ONE!
Well, as some may have seen in this one thread where I nearly fired a client, but "Nice Client" saved his butt. But, this is CS, so you can guess whats about to happen.
Supposedly Nice Client (SNC) recently informed me and several others that I inspired him to create his own design business. I was kinda surprised, since he'd never shown interest in creative works before....but he told me "oh no, the money seems awesome!"
Yeah. Because, you know, when creating art...money's all that matters.
Anyways, so for the past few weeks, I've been made to sit and watch as he came up with design after design, showing them to me to ask my opinion. The first sign of trouble was when I noticed one of the ones he showed me looked awfully familiar. I admonished him for using a tutorial site's template as an item for sale, and he seemed apologetic.
A week later, I signed onto a forum I visit on occasion, to see a huge fracas ensuing. Turned out SNC had been caught copying another site design, this time from a live site that one of the other forum members owned. He apologized, all was well, or so we thought. Later that same bloody evening, my coder IMs me.
"Hey, Seraph? So, SNC hired me to code some of his new designs up for him. And um....I think you need to see this."
Yep. SNC's new designs? Not quite so new, as much as Blatant Ripoffs of Seraph's Own Flipping Stuff. One was even a direct copy of my portfolio design!! I lost it. I immediately got SNC into a chat, and ripped him a new one.
He claimed he didn't copy my portfolio....and then I showed him a comparison of the two. By screenshotting his, and overlaying it onto a screenshot of my site....the colors matched, the layout was perfectly the same, DOWN TO THE PIXEL. His tune completely changed at that point.
SNC: Well, I figured that by adding in my own logo, it would therefore be mine. Its enough of a change.
Seraph: No, you cannot take my copyrighted design, match it completely, and just switch in your own logo. That is a blatant copyright violation, and I swear to god, I will still come over there and sue your British butt if I have to.
SNC: I'm not stealing, I'm just cloning!
Seraph: Cloning IS stealing. You can expect a formal Cease and Desist letter from me in a few, and I'll tell you right here. If you don't delete all those files within 24 hours, there will be trouble. Big. Freaking. Trouble.
SNC: Well I'm sorry. I thought we were friends, but obviously, we have different viewpoints on what constitutes stealing.
After I finally sent him the letter, he folded, and deleted everything. Funny part is that he'd actually been hired by a company for his design work....when they found out it wasn't HIS creativity, it was mine....he was immediately fired.
Steeeeerike TWO!
Not two days after the incident with SNC, I log onto that same forum yet again, and have a message waiting from the admin.
"Check the paid services section...you may want to see this."
Well well well, if it wasn't a client who had emailed me asking if I would sell him my templates at a huge discount. And here he is, selling templates. Wait a minute, that template looks familiar...why....its my bestseller!
Again, I lost it. I immediately fired off a C&D letter to him, copypasta'd it onto the forum thread where he was trying to sell my work...and went into Overkill Mode.
I did a bit of research, found his home address and phone number. I left a nice message on his voicemail, letting him know that he was in copyright violation, and had less than 24 hours to remove the files. And then, I called up the NY police dept, spoke with an officer who told me that cyber crime of that sort was still considered theft, and that they would investigate him. Then, I contacted his hosting company and filed a DMCA notice with them.
In the middle of all of that, he emailed me back a reply to the C&D....
"Hi Seraph, I didn't realize it was your site, I was trying to copy someone else's..." I'll save the rest of the blather, save that pretty much he was trying to say that since he was attempting to steal from someone else, it was ok.
Orly? I promptly replied to him, explaining what I had done so far, and that he could expect the poopstorm to continue if he did not delete the files. Oh, and just to let him know, they had bought one of my premade templates, so yes, it was MY design.
Two hours later, he removed the files. I'm still keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't do anything else.
Strike THREE! Seraph's Gonna Kill Someone!
Well, last and final annoyance. Yesterday, I got an IM from a client of mine, pointing me to look at a website. Hm, they had one of my premades up...but I didn't recall selling it to them. I checked their background, and turns out that person had bought a single-use license for another site....but was sneaky enough to copy/paste certain bits of the code until he finally cobbled enough together to steal it for another site.
At this point, I was just dumbstruck at the fact this was my third thief within a single week...and my coder decided to step in for me at this point. He tracked the guy down, called him at his house...and surprisingly, got ahold of the guy's FATHER. He explained to him that his son was in major violation of copyright laws...and at that point we found out he had it up on more than two sites. More like four. Oh, and he was offering "template designs and installations". With my design.
I literally stomped off at that point to go scream into a pillow. My wonderful coder handled it from there...needless to say, when I came back to my PC an hour later after trying to destress, I found an email from the kid, apologizing and saying that I had no license, so he figured he could do what he wanted.
Mhmm. That lovely link at the bottom of my site that says "Click here for the license terms", and the link in all the invoices that says "Purchase of these templates means you agree to these terms at <link>." They mean nothing. At all.
Anyways, I told him that now at this point, I wanted him to buy an individual license for each site. I think he understood how mad I was, so he agreed.
SC: So, $50 for each site, right? I have four sites with it up.
Seraph: Yes....you will now have to buy a license for each one of those sites.
SC: Ok. again, I am sorry about this. I sincerely apologize.
Seraph: Thank you for that. I suppose I can give you a bulk discount on those purchases....how does $175 sound to you?
SC: Sounds great! Sending payment now.
He paid, I waited to make sure it didn't get charged back...everything was hunky dory. Until today, when I went and looked up a price for someone else. And um...oops. Turns out that the license for that design was actually $45. So, technically, his total would've been $180. So, he still got a discount...just a much smaller one than he and I originally thought.
...
Oh well.
Now to trawl Craigslist for a good deal on an ipod touch, LOL!
I'm sorry you had to deal with that crap.
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