While I’m still somewhat at a loss as to how to deal with a design thief, I can’t help feeling a bit buoyant. After all, someone in this great big world felt strongly enough about my design to reuse it almost image for image. Despite feeling mildly vindicated as a designer, I’m also confused and upset. I spent a lot of time working on this site, time I could have spent with my family, and some random German comes along and benefits from it without expending one ounce of effort. Beyond that, this gentleman’s guestbook contains a compliment or two on the “beautiful design.” Why should someone else get the credit?
I’m not one to anger easily. I’ve also gained a modicum of confidence in 12 years of designing for the web. Although I’ll most likely just let this post stand as a record of this regrettable act and move on, I would appreciate suggestions.
For those interested in comparing the two sites, feel free to take a look at my thief’s site.
Ryan wrote,
Man, what a schweinhund!
He definitely ripped your design off.
Link | January 18th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Joe Lencioni wrote,
Maybe this guy will see your post, realize that he had a lapse in judgement, and change his design. However, people without integrity are generally also selfish and are thus not likely to do anything unless it benefits themselves. So I wouldn’t entirely count on that happening.
If that doesn’t happen, I would suggest moving on this in some way very soon. Perhaps you could send him something official such as a cease and desist letter or you could embarrass him by telling his friends that he’s a crook (or both). If people knew about this, it might affect their opinion about him as a DJ or whatever he does.
Alternatively, you could take the high road and turn your design into a wordpress theme that people can download and then include a link to your site. Then you could suggest that this guy download the theme and you’d get the credit, recognition, and a link to your site. I guess it depends on what makes you more angry–the fact that someone stole your design so now you aren’t unique and all your time and creative juices were sorta overlooked, or simply the fact that you aren’t getting the credit for the design and some crook is instead. If it’s the former, send the letter and email his friends. On the other hand, if it’s the latter, I would turn your design into a theme (it’s a nice design, would benefit the wordpress community, and boost your exposure/page rank a little).
BTW, he has a new logo now, so maybe the site is just some beta site in development or something??? It seems weird that he would go through the trouble of turning your design into a theme for himself to use if it were only temporary though.
Regardless of what you end up doing, what this guy did isn’t right even though it may be flattering.
Sorry for the rant, this might be incoherent.
Link | January 18th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Joe Lencioni wrote,
I’m not totally sure if this is the case or not, but according to one of the pages on the site (http://www.epunk.org/impressum.htm) it looks like he may have hired out the design from this person:
If a professional designer did this for money, that’s just despicable. However, it’s not clear that the design of the site was from this Felix Diederichs or if there was other design done by him.
Link | January 18th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
raddy wrote,
Freaky!
I can’t believe people still do it!
But… in other hand it kinda say that you are goooooooddd!
kudos!
Link | January 19th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Joe Lencioni wrote,
It looks like he also stole your Google Analytics code, so you’ll be seeing all of his stats.
Link | January 19th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
jerry wrote,
I’ve contacted the gentleman and requested that the site be taken down. I’m not sure if I’ll even hear from him since my guestbook entry was promptly deleted. One step at a time.
Link | January 19th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
jan wrote,
they have stolen a new template from anyone else…
i wrote a few words in their guestbook. don’t worry, YOU have done a great job!
Link | January 27th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
arch wrote,
Du musst ein Fachmann sein - wirklich guter Aufstellungsort, den du hast!
Link | April 14th, 2007 at 1:52 am
jason wrote,
Copyright laws have been almost internationally standardized. Google Berne Convention, this requires nations that have signed to protect the copyrighted work created by individuals who are citizens of other nations that have signed the Convention. Both Germany and the United States are signatories. So find out who enforces German copyright laws and file a complaint with them. OR you can always write a nasty letter referencing this.
Link | May 5th, 2007 at 1:45 pm