When will some people ever realise that not everything on the Internet is “free for all” to take. Just because majority of the content on the Internet are publicly available, it doesn’t mean you are entitled to take and use it as your own. You don’t just dip your hand into the sea, fish out a design, redecorate and throw it back into the ocean as if nothing has happened. If everyone is doing it, what will happen to the design community in the future?
If we are talking about images found via Google search, they may also be protected by copyright or creative commons licenses. So what makes them think they can just use and edit it? Changing the colours doesn’t make it any more unique. All I ask for is a little respect for designs and art which I think all artists and designers out there are as well. The increase of such ignorant Internet users are really frustrating for us. I value inspiration and I’m sure all designers in our community will be glad to be a source of inspiration. But there’s also a thin line between inspiration and copying. After all the time and effort we spend working on a design, it got ripped off and the ripped design actually destroyed the original creativity and concept. Though I won’t get discouraged and will continue working on my designs, it’s actually depressing to know what happen to my creations. Will such acts cause creativity and originality to die out? What are your views?
I think I have just coin a new meaning for fishing – the act of copying in the online community. I thought it sounds nicer than just copying. =p On a last note, stop fishing for designs and create your own. Let’s work together to build a better community for everyone!
22 August, 2010 at 12:43 pm
i think you’re completely right!!! besides
the fast spread of images , designs and graphic styles across the internet
is screwing the design creativity, i’d like to return to the time when people started designing from a blank paper, and not from a photoshop layer using “references ” from all over the internet.
28 June, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I thought it is spelled as “phishing”, Dayna-sama. Anyway, I agree with your opinion. It is unacceptable to copy people’s works unless you are purely using it for personal use and credit them. Like me, I’m using a premade layout and I don’t remove the credits
!!!
17 April, 2010 at 12:23 am
I just love the design of your site – I have never seen a Candy House blog before. It sure made spending time on the site more interesting. :-)
4 April, 2010 at 9:47 pm
First of all, I love the illustration.
I have to agree. I may not be a designer but I know how long and how hard it takes for a designer to come up with a layout or an illustration. And then some stranger will just steal it, modify it a bit and claim that he made it. Or use it without giving proper credits to the original creator. There are people who takes whatever they find on the internet and claim it as theirs, may it be photos or graphics. I have experienced photo theft. My model copied all the pictures I posted on Facebook without my permission and he removed the watermark. What the… It was okay if he just copied it but removing the watermark is a different story. But I just let if off. I wish some people would educate themselves about the word “copyright”.
3 April, 2010 at 10:49 pm
I hope it’s not too late for me to chime in!
My stand is clear and simple – stealing and modifying an existing design that is created by someone else whom you have not gotten written (yea, verbal isn’t counted) consent from is not okay. It is very naive and, forgive my choice of word, foolish to think that not all materials are copyright. In fact, an author wons the copyright when the work is published in written or electronic form regardless of whether the author releases a copyright statement or not. It is as simple as that – if she didn’t make it, don’t take it. She should have asked for your permission and the first place.
If she’s thinking that changing the hue is going to help her get away with copyright issues, she’s gravely wrong about that. Copyright violations also apply to original artworks that have been modified/remixed in one way or another. An example of a clear copyright violation will be making a collage out of photos not in the public domain or not released under the creative commons licence. One has to make sure that he/she has obtained expressed written permissions from each individual author/creator/photographer/designer/artist before the publication of such material.
I hope she will take the design down. Consider it has a lesson learned, and that there’s no free stuff on the Internet. If she likes a theme, she could draw inspiration on it and not lift whatever artistic idea directly off the design. Getting inspired by existing artworks is how designers start off with – I’m not ashamed to admit that many of my older WordPress themes were inspired by other famous WP sites out there, but at least I injected my own creativity and did all the graphics from scratch myself, instead of clandestinely taking it off someone’s site and more importantly, leeching off other people’s bandwidth (that’s the bottomline of being shameless).
It’s interesting that there are still people out there that don’t know how to simply respect other’s intellectual property rights. It’s a very fundamental, basic right, isn’t it?
Even when I’m in elementary school I know if I rip off my friend’s artwork, not only he/she will kick a big fuss out of it but I’ll most probably get into trouble with my art teacher too.
3 April, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Very well said Terry! You have sum up everything I wish to say perfectly.
I’m pretty sure most people will know the copyright issues but choose to ignore them. The “there are so many sites on the Internet, I will never get caught” or “Who cares if she finds out. There’s nothing she can do!” attitude of offenders are the reason why such problems will always exist. They were never artists, designers nor photographers and they will never know how it feels like to see someone ruining/copying their work.
3 April, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I see it as a honour system of sorts. I respect copyright not because I fear of being caught plagiarizing or ripping off someone’s work – I do it out of respect of everyone else’s and my own’s artistic licence, conscience and integrity.
I agree that many people don’t really respect copyrights because they thought they would never get caught. However, if they happen to run into owners who are aware of such practices, have simple but effective metric tools to track down data usage (GetClicky, Google Analytics, Site Meter for example), it is very easy to find where the leak took place. A simple search on the Internet will reveal some basic WHOIS information about the domain.
The truth is that many webhosts will take down sites when they were served with DMCA complaints/notices. I understand that this is a double edged sword because some unscrupulous individuals may exploit this system to bring genuinely authentic and popular sites down. However, most webhosts don’t want to get embroiled in the legal battle so they’ll take down the site (or at least issue an urgent and sterning warning requiring the webmaster’s immediate attention and action).
3 April, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Got to admit I am only just starting to appreciate WHOIS information. I wasn’t aware of how useful it is until recently. From what you told me on Twitter, DMCA is only applicable in the United States. I think it would be very beneficial if it was made an international law.
On a side note, I didn’t receive any replies from both the hosting and blogging company. I will be waiting.
3 April, 2010 at 9:08 pm
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