Website ripped off

[kai_griffin]

OK, on balance, I withdraw the word "monkey" from my original post, that was unnecessary and has caused inflamation where it wasn't needed.

 

There is a sense of pack-animalism in this to some degree, though. It is an unwinnable proposition for one person to fight a battle in a forum such as this against one or more people who are completely unwilling to accept his/her side of things, even though they have been presented pretty clearly, from my reading of it.

 

I do not know if it is common practise in this industry to hand over someone who has wronged you to be demolished in a public forum; maybe it is. I'm working under the assumption that it is better practise to handle something like this privately... *especially* when the person accused of wrong-doing is at least willing to communicate and has met the basic demand of pulling the material.

 

So, if some of you don't like the fact that a complete stranger like myself suddenly barged into your thread with a "matronly feminista" (wtf that is) calming suggestion, well, too bad. I believe I am correct in my sentiments above, and I don't believe it is right to drag someone who has already admitted fault and rectified the situation through the mud for days on end. That's my view, and I'm sticking to it!

[EricM]

Kai, I believe you're a good man. And we meet in a nasty thread. So I hope our future encounters in other threads can be on better terms.

 

But it needs to mentioned since Marc's resent posts that John may only finally realize what he did was wrong and hasn't since responded. Everything up to this point has been an apology from John for posting a site containing Jeff's photos and logo. The first words from Jeff in this thread is what we have since been trying to pound into John's head, "he ripped off my code...". We can gather without a doubt that John never had intention to post a site with Jeff's photos. But that's what Johns' explanation and apology has been. That he goofed and posted the site too soon and didn't realize it was live "yet". It has become clear with his own words that he had every intention of using this code and changing a few things around while adding his specifics while proofing and making editions to his new copied site with the help of some convenient scapegoat. John has admitted his ignorance by thinking that you can't copyright a black and white page and it's up for grabs, but since been corrected on the copyright issue by Marc, "...while quite simple, the design personality of how those elements are used together makes up the proprietary property. Straight lines and curves are not proprietary design elements, but use them to design a car that looks exactly like a Lexus and see what happens."

 

After all my heated posts, continually using words like template, and asking three times directly if John would have carried on using the site if he hadn't been caught by an active sitemeter, he still accused me of twisting facts while not answering my question. And it continues. John recently still choose not to address this specific copyright issue made by Marc and using stolen code, but replied to a more recent post made by Meg, a typical post still containing the double speak found by politicians that give a response while never answering anything.

 

"I'm sorry Jeff. My web master and I didn't realize that code was property of its creator. I made a mistake and had no idea what I was innocently doing was wrong. My utmost apologies. I owe you a beer, if you'll drink it with me?"

 

What's so hard about that?

[sung_chun_kim]

Soooo.... John, you say that you didn't think it was live, nor did your help think it was live, yet according to some here it was linked from your profile on dpchallenge? Is that true? Can anyone else here confirm that?

 

With respect to your protestations that any and all of this was inadvertent, do understand that ignorance is not much of a defense here. There are legal implications for what you did, not only with respect to ripping the site design, but also posting images as your own when they clearly were not. Even if it were inadvertent, what you did was publish those images, and the law doesn't give two craps about what you thought you were doing.

 

You're 50 years old, self-employed, and about to publish a website--have the decency and wisdom of your age to figure out what you and your hired help are doing. I'm not exactly feeling sympathetic when listening to you stumbling around in the dark complaining that you don't know what the hell you're doing.

 

As for Jeff being "unprofessional" and not doing what you would have done, consider yourself lucky that you (or your wife) got a 2am call from Jeff and not a 9am call from his attorney. At least Jeff has got a handle on his business and is not exposing himself to lawsuits or looking like a buffoon on one of the largest photography websites on the internet. I would consider his conduct very professional in that sense.

[fotografz]

Kai is right in that this has been dragged on quite far. I said as much with my first post.

 

But what it has done is serve to provide some sense of the importance of proprietary

intellectual property ... which includes web design and the code that makes it work. That is

a special skill, and it isn't free to those who contract for it. To those who create it it is as

important as the photographs we create are to us.

 

And if you think this is a heated thread, it's nothing compared to other sites that Jeff

Ascough participates in more frequently than here. One site is packed with a lot of full

time, long time professional wedding photographers ... and the threads on this event are

hundreds of posts deep ... and they are pissed off ! (just to keep this little thread in

perspective).

[EricM]

a url please, Marc.