Website ripped off

[EricM]

man, the internet and unhonourable slime buckets like John Falk.

 

his server will yank his site in a second with a quick note from you Jeff. They don't want the trouble you can casue.

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

Simply amazing. Some people are legends in their own minds.

[EricM]

"Lets all SPAM him!"

 

putting his email address here in plain view will no doubt casue alot of "bigger man" spam from the spam 'bots too.

 

Mary, this thread should be left in the archives for all that are possibly searching his name and reputation via google...

[david_carson]

He didn't turn off the 'virtual directory' on his server, so you can see all the stuff in his directories, like here:

 

<p><a href="http://www.jfalkphoto.com/Gallery/">http://www.jfalkphoto.com/Gallery/</a>

 

<p>His phone number seems to be 805-527-7129 (according to whois), or 805-469-8863, according to, ah, his? web site.

[stacy]

I tried to send him a nasty email but it came back- damn.

[ar_fonseca]

yes his e-mail address, is disconnected....but never fear

I'm sure many here will continue to flood him w/ e-mail

[r._weiner]

What's funny is that the majority of the pictures don't look like they were even taken in Los Angeles where he claims to be based. Did he actually think he could get away with this?

[mark_jacoby___raleigh__nc]

How about this e-mail:

 

jefalk@pacbell.net

 

Mark

[._._z]

Domain Name: JFALKPHOTO.COM <br>

Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE<br>

Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com<br>

Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com<br>

Name Server: YNS1.YAHOO.COM<br>

Name Server: YNS2.YAHOO.COM<br>

Status: ACTIVE<br>

Updated Date: 31-jan-2005<br>

Creation Date: 31-jan-2005<br>

Expiration Date: 31-jan-2006<p>

 

 

Last update of whois database: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:57:33 EST <p>

 

NOTICE: The expiration date displayed in this record is the date the

registrar's sponsorship of the domain name registration in the registry is

currently set to expire. This date does not necessarily reflect the expiration

date of the domain name registrant's agreement with the sponsoring

registrar. Users may consult the sponsoring registrar's Whois database to

view the registrar's reported date of expiration for this registration. <p>

 

Domain Name.......... jfalkphoto.com<br>

Creation Date........ 2005-02-01<br>

Registration Date.... 2005-02-01<br>

Expiry Date.......... 2006-02-01<br>

Organisation Name.... John Falk<br>

Organisation Address. 5800 Nutwood Cir<br>

Organisation Address. <br>

Organisation Address. Simi Valley<br>

Organisation Address. 93063<br>

Organisation Address. CA<br>

Organisation Address. UNITED STATES<br>

 

Admin Name........... John Falk<br>

Admin Address........ 5800 Nutwood Cir<br>

Admin Address........ <br>

Admin Address........ Simi Valley<br>

Admin Address........ 93063<br>

Admin Address........ CA<br>

Admin Address........ UNITED STATES<br>

Admin Email.......... jefalk@pacbell.net<br>

Admin Phone.......... +1.8055277129<br>

Admin Fax............ <p>

 

Tech Name............ YahooDomains TechContact<br>

Tech Address......... 701 First Ave.<br>

Tech Address......... <br>

Tech Address......... Sunnyvale<br>

Tech Address......... 94089<br>

Tech Address......... CA<br>

Tech Address......... UNITED STATES<br>

Tech Email........... domain.tech@YAHOO-INC.COM<br>

Tech Phone........... +1.6198813096<br>

Tech Fax............. +1.6198813010<br>

Name Server.......... yns1.yahoo.com<br>

Name Server.......... yns2.yahoo.com<br>

[derek_c.]

Dang... that's messed up.<br>

I hope he learned the lesson...

[robert watcher]

<b>"How I found out...

<br>Basically he copied my entire site including my Sitemeter. Everytime his site got a hit, it showed up in my sitemeter stats."</b>

<p><p>

That is so funny - a buddy of mine <a href="http://hakinphoto.com/">Joshua Hakin Photography - www.hakinphoto.com</a> (a Canadian) had his website featured in Shutterbug magazine a couple of years ago. Well, one enterprising photograper figured that if his website was good enough for Joe Farace to highlight, it would be good enough for him - plus he lived in the Mid West USA so no one would know. Both Joe Farace and I got an email early one Sunday morning from an infuriated Joshua telling us that this guy had ripped his site off verbatim - although he did use his own images. Joe gave Josh some excellent advice and legal suggestions and the 3 of us emailed him with harsh criticism.

<p><p>By Sunday evening the fellow had apologized to everyone involved, taken his site down and asked Josh if he would help him design and put together his website. Joshua obliged. To me it was amazing what could be accomplished in a few short hours with the web and email - never would have happened in that fashion with phone calls and letters and maybe would not have had the urgency to resolve the problem.

<p><p>

Anyway my point was - when I asked Josh how he found out someone was using his website, Josh told me that the guy inadvertantly left Joshuas <b>hit counter in the page code</b> and when he noticed this surge of traffic from an address he didn't recognize, did some investigating. I think there is a show on TV called <b>Dumb Criminals</b> or something along that line, isn't there? I know they aren't criminals but ----

[robert watcher]

Oh I forgot - - - Joe Farce had taken screen shots of the offending website and was going to write a website ripoff article for an upcoming Shutterbug, showing the shots of the two websites and their pages, side by side. I bet the guy is happy he resolved it quickly and got on Joshua's good side - - - that would be embarrassing being he claimed to be a pro - - - and was obviously a Shutterbug Patron.

[andre_noble4]

Ironic: John Faulk's hometown, Simi Valley, is suppose to be America's most crime-free city.

 

Weird: His portrait - he looks like such a trusty ol' fellow, perhaps even a retired peace officer.

 

Sad: Now his wife knows he's a plagarist. She ought to be looking for locked away love letters and unfamiliar phone numbers scrawled on sheets of paper in his pocket now.

 

Actually, maybe the ol' fellow is just putting up the stolen web site to create a business tax write-off for the IRS?

[brendan_turner1]

I'm sure the nasty e-mails and hooplah were effective in getting the site down. But

this guy ROBBED you! He's still even got one of your photos up on his site.

I'd never want to see someone in financial ruin, but at the same time this guy could

have done serious harm to YOUR business and reputation. I'd sue him for your day

rate at the very least.

Anyway, not meaning to sound blood hungry, but what greater violation could be

enacted upon a photographer than to have their years and years of hard work copied

by some no talent hack who claims it as his own? I mean, that really is just about the

lowest.

[john_falk]

Hello all:

 

Without all of the facts, I clearly understand the concerns of Jeff obvoiusly. I do feel that perhaps at the very least a bit more of a reasonable initial looking into things by him would have been much more appropriate, but that is past.

 

Without question one can see by the whois further up in this thread, the site was created only a couple weeks ago, and uploaded in the following week. this further confirms that which I have expressed to many since this occured and the following is what I emailed to those whom inquired on the day [so its in that day's tense]:

 

Hello, here is a copy of what I have sent to several of the folks that inquired about that situation, its not what you think it was at all...

 

Thank you for the respectful inquiry. As I am presently in Miami on a shoot until next week, its been a bit rough to handle in the midst of working, the phone calls all day from people has been rough as well. Many are nice and decent just wanting to know what happened and I took the time to explain it to each as best I could. Some were mob like in threats and so on - cursing and hanging up.

 

It was not intentional whatsoever, I was getting some help with starting a site and we were viewing several sites for what I liked etc, that one came up and I liked the simple nature of the look, I did not expect the full download, import or whatever it is that did this. Its only been up for a couple weeks. And nonetheless, though I understand him being upset, I don't feel that Jeff's call to my wife at 1:50am in the fashion he did was reasonable, or in the spirit of professionals. I have taken steps today to have the site 100% removed regardless.

 

Thanks again, having nearly 30 years of photography, I am not under any conditions letting this hamper me.

 

John

 

Nonetheless, I took immediate actions within minutes in the middle of the night... I appologized to Jeff regardless.

 

In closing at this point, I would however take it as a high compliment that one of the recent posts here clearly states that I have still left one of Jeff's photos up on the site. Well that is mine actually, and I am flattered by its' appreciation...

 

Sincerely,

 

John

[EricM]

i don't believe a word you say. there are many ways to beta test a site without posting it in real time. but you took the trouble to code your own images in without the intent of using it as a verbatim template? right. you're a piece of stool and you're not welcome, as far as i am concerned, in this forum.

[john_falk]

Eric: You have a right to an opinion of course. Though I have been in photography for many years, I know literally nothing about designing, creating, or anything for that matter regarding a website. Nonetheless, the facts are the facts, and they are not affected by the opions of distant onlookers that are 100% unaware of them.

 

Obviously, I should've sought more professional help, no question; and in-fact that is precisely how I am going to proceed with it from now on. But, please understand that I have been very busy [work wise] and have had very little time to actually dedicate to sitting with him at getting it started [this was not my #1 priority at all]. It had only been up 7-10 days in the first place, and other than a tad bit of narrative input on the bio start, I dont think I spent 15/min with him since that first day.

 

Like I've said all along this course, I do not condone this whatsoever, and would be upset if it were me too. Without question however, I would have absolutely handled the matter and recourse far far differently; but that is me. No matter what, I took immediate action in the middle of the night at the very minutes I realized what the extent was really going on, and that is also evident.

 

I fully realize that you can not please everyone no matter how hard you try and there will always be skeptics. But, what I will do in all cases is present [only] the facts as they actually are, take responsibity for what happened, and appropiate the action in every best effort with dignity - all of which is 100% evidenced.

 

Thank you,

 

John

[EricM]

Right in my opinion? The proof is in the pudding chump. You're full of excuses and there's nothing you can say. What if it wasn't discovered by Jeff? How much longer would have this copied site have run being unnoticed by it's creator? You've copied someone's site, and being a so called photographer, you must have the slightest bit of respect for infringing on someone's creative design and work? No, you don't. You're a bottom feeder.

 

"Like I've said all along this course, I do not condone this whatsoever, and would be upset if it were me too."

 

What a load of rubbish. You gave approval for it, how can you post here and say you don't support ripping off others work? What do other photographers in your community have to say about you?

 

"Without question however, I would have absolutely handled the matter and recourse far far differently; but that is me."

 

Me too. I would have booked a consultation meeting with you and then rolled up my sleeves and whooped your butt all over your studio old-school style.

 

"I fully realize that you can not please everyone no matter how hard you try and there will always be skeptics."

 

It's easy to please everyone with hard honest work. It's a matter of living with honour. Now go away.

[john_falk]

And sometimes an actual 'honest mistake' comes along... However it would appear that you have not had one personally yet, you will.

 

Many have and do understand in fact. I can say with 100% conviction, that you are not correct in that you can not please everyone all the time...

 

you're correct in one thing, it may have been a couple more weeks maybe even a month, but my galleries will be in place when fully prepared and organized by a professional web-designer. Again, since one of the skeptics herein has already "mistaken" one of my photos for Jeff's, I am also a talented photographer.

 

Thank you for your concerns and voice, we will just have to agree to dis-agree.

 

John

[jason_thomas1]

"I took immediate action in the middle of the night"

 

That's not true. I saw your site, as did many others, throughout the day. Perhaps the following night? I didn't check the following day; but I think a call to my house at 1am in the morning would make me double check my site and every possible place it was published.

 

I don't think you're going to find many supporters here; doesn't seem to add up.

[jewan_runhaar]

Hi Eric~,

 

John, IMO, actually has a point that his site was not live. If it wasn't for Jeff's counter nobody would have noticed, since it was not his index page. So it could have been used for testing purposes only.

 

I don't think it's for people here on the forum to decide what should happen to John or what actions should be taken against his actions. It's between Jeff and him. If you're willing to advise Jeff in this that's fine by me. If you want to express your feelings about how wrong this is that's fine as well, but I don't think you should threaten people on this forum.

 

BTW I don't approve of any of Johns actions and think he should have hired a pro from the start, but don't want people banned of the forum over this. It's not worth it IMHO.

 

Jewan

[john_falk]

Not attempting to attain supporters, simply stating the facts. As many times as I have said them, and as many times as I will - they will not change.

 

I called my help at 2:08am PST from Florida [as I was in Miami on a national commercial shoot - I will post an email from another concerned person that actually called me in Florida that morning] and that is on my cell records less than 10 min after my wife got jeff's call at home. Within 30-50 mins the site home page, all of its content, links buttons etc were down. I dont know exactly how that was done, but it was.

 

Having a 8:30EST location call in Miami, I later that afternoon understood from a person that called me that day from Florida that indicated that yes the main index page was down - but if you manually type in the hml lines it still showed. So as soon as I could get back in touch with the help back in CA, I saw too it that it was then 100% in everyway was offline.

 

here is a post to another forum that day by someone who called me:

 

=======================

I had an actual conversation with the photog in question, and can tell you that he was quite unaware of the problem until his wife called him at 2am. Turns out that he is on a shoot in South Beach Fl, he took about 10min away from the shoot and here's what he had to say to me... (not word for word, but I think you'll understand)

 

 

John Falk (JF) had "a college kid" he knows, creating a WEB site for him and they were looking at some sites to get a feel for what JF was looking for. Jeff Ascough's site was a choice of JF because of the simplistic layout. It is obvious that "the kid" used the whole site and just began changing things as needed to reflect the different person. The plans were to use the site as a template for the JF site.

 

JF stated to me that he is a 30 year photog, and knows NOTHING about building a WEB site.

 

The site has been taken down for the legal reasons we all know, and even though JF was busy when I spoke with him, he gave me permission to relay this story to you. Please note that I DO NOT know this person, but can only suspect that his words are honest and intensions were misconstrued at the origin. I also suspect his "kid" (WEB master), will get a bit of a lecture about the legalities of his mistake.

 

Hope this explains the "mistake" as relayed to me...

 

Seymore, CO 02-18-2005, 11:55 dgrin

 

===================

 

 

It all does add up because it is 100% the truth of the matter.

 

Sincerely,

 

John

[dave_smit]

Come on John,

The "testing site" was linked to your profile on DP Challenge. That link isn't done by some

know nothing web designer kid. That's done by someone with access to your account on

the DPC site.

In addition there were photos on that account, presumably taken by you, posted to the site

over a few years. That was an active account, not a new one. That there were photos

posted also suggests at least a rudimentary knowledge (by someone) of how to upload

items to the web. It's a real stretch to suggest the kid web designer was posting a live site

for testing, and also linking that site to your account.

 

The "testing of the website" explanation just doesn't ring true. People test websites after

they've gone through some development. The only development on your site was to

substitute your name for Ascough's in a few places. There was NO development of the site

before it was posted with your name. If this was just a site downloaded to use as example

in designing a page for you as you've explained, why was it uploaded "for testing" with

little changed?

Additionally you've suggested that in your ignorance of web development procedure you

went to Ascough's site and downloaded to use as a guide in developing your site. This

also doesn't make sense. When a web designer asks for site that you like, people usually

take a screen capture of sites they like. Customers do not find a "code sucking" program,

download it and then visit the web vacuuming everything available. This is the work of

someone not intending to develop a new site but to borrow code from an existing one. I

will remind the readers that you've state that you performed this task, not the know

nothing college kid.

This was a site that was downloading in it's entirety, had some changes

made, and uploaded. Someone with access to your account on DP Challenge then linked

that site to your account.

 

The only explanation for a dumb kid web designer was that he's not bright enough to

remove the tracking elements and change all occurrences of the previous photographers

name and credits.

Part of the firestorm that you've witnessed is that this sort of thing happens all to often

and there is no penalty for these kinds of thefts. Whether it's photographers or designers

in the web community selling a ripped off product to an unsuspecting customer there is

no penalty.

On another note, each time you offer an apology it's accompanied with a shot at Ascough

for an "unprofessionally" placed phone call or a suggestion that his not wanting to accept

an incomplete explanation from you is in poor form on his part, has just added fuel to this

fire.

My own thermometer on this issue went from a 4 when I first saw the foul, to a 9 with your

subsequent shots across the bow under the guise of explanation or apology.

Had you been unaware I would have expected a statement that would have expressed

apology, shock and a timely investigation on your part. Your apologies were half hearted

and accompanied with a return "how dare you" or "well if you won't let this go, you'll be

the one who's name is tarnished."

As a fellow member of the professional photo community, I have been saddened at how

you've handled this.

-Dave

[john_falk]

So if I understand you correctly, you are saddened by the fact that after getting a call at 2AM PST 3000 miles from home, I made every attempt to get the thing closed down in the first minutes - then I sent a public and private appology to Jeff within the first hour or so - then again only when I further learned that there were still "remote" traces still remaining, I again took action just as soon as I could make contact --- So if that is saddening to you what would you have preferred as action taken when I found out?

 

And if its my comments to the regard that had the roles been reversed, I would have absolutely acted far different than Jeff, well, that is also the truth. One mistake or wrong does not warrant another. I would have given a person at the very least 24 hours but more like a couple business days to explain, act and respond appropriately. Sorry if you dont agree with that, however there are trails of many that do.

 

I am geniune when I ask: So if that kind of immediate action is saddening to you what would you have preferred as action taken when I found out? [and please dont not say just not have had it happen in the first place - for which I also took account for as well]

 

John

[EricM]

John, you're just trying to do damage control. No amount of chatt is going to do anything. Bo-hoo you got a call at 2am. You were busted. What is saddening is that there are people like you out there.

 

talk like "...I don't feel that Jeff's call to my wife at 1:50am in the fashion he did was reasonable, or in the spirit of professionals. I have taken steps today to have the site 100% removed regardless."

 

in the spirit of professionals? you stole his site verbatim! and you're talking professional?

 

"I have taken steps today to have the site 100% removed regardless."

 

regardless of what? that you have a right to keep it posted? you're so called posted apology is filled with smuggness and an attempt to duck the truth. Stop asking questions here and just go back to the rock you slid out from under.