Design Thieves, Not So Bright

“Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Indeed it is, but that sentiment rarely provides any comfort to the author. Since 10 Volt Media’s new site went online last fall, it’s design has been stolen at least a dozen times (that we’re aware of). Some have taken small bits, but the vast majority have taken the entire site, verbatim, and used it as their own with one or two very small changes. It’s hard not to laugh at how blatant these rip-offs are, and at the thieves who think no one will notice.

The real kicker is that if these people had asked for help or advice, and even in some cases use of some of our images, we would have been happy to help them out.

After sending a dozen cease and desist letters and, in a few extreme cases getting lawyers and courts involved, we’re thinking it’s time to have a little fun. We present you with…

The Design Theft Wall of Shame

This is the beginning of the The Design Theft Wall of Shame, where we’ll post screen shots and details of the latest design thievery for all to see. For some folks, asking nicely isn’t enough and it takes the shame of their peers to make them stop and think about their actions.

UPDATE - October 7th: Shame worked. The thief below sent a sad plea asking that his personal info be removed and that he’s deleted what was stolen. I’ve scrubbed personal info from this post. Oddly enough, he still doesn’t think he did anything wrong…

Our latest member of the Design Theft Wall of Shame is a knucklehead named [name removed]. Back in August, I noticed some strange referrals in our traffic logs. After taking a look I saw that [name removed], had stolen our entire web site right down to my profile picture on the about page and was claiming it all as his own. He swapped out our logo with his own, and replaced our Chicago skyline image with something that looks like a post-apocalyptic clay city. We can’t decide if that’s actually supposed to be the Austin skyline, or a terrain shot from Ren & Stimpy’s Space Madness.

[name removed] pasted screen shots of his own work (or at least what he’s claiming as his own) to the portfolio page, and we all really liked the irony when he changed the “Our Work” navigation link to read “My Work.” I can see this going back a long way. [name removed] in grade school art class, stealing the drawing of the kid sitting next to him, crossing out the rightful owner’s name with a big crayon, writing “[name removed]” in big red letters and thinking no one will notice.

We definitely noticed when [name removed] first had our design up on his site, [removed]. On August 27th I sent him a request to remove it, and within 40 minutes it was gone. That was that, right?

Nope. He decided to try it once more. It seems [name removed] registered a new domain name the very next day, and put what he stole from us there instead.

So now [name removed] has a new domain name, http://my [removed] .com (wow, that’s a clever obfuscation, isn’t it?) and our design is there just as it was on [name removed] old site, only this time with more broken link goodness. Way to go [name removed].

I guess he loved our design so much he just had to have it. What’s next? www.you-cant-see-me- [removed] .org?

We hope he enjoys using our design, and maybe it’ll bring him an extra client or two. He’ll be needing the money for court costs.

Want to say hi to [name removed]?

[info removed]

Worry about the day they stop

Jeffery Zeldman said something last year that stuck with me:

Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.

He’s absolutely right. If they’re stealing it, you must be doing something right. It’s not as though these no-talent jackasses will actually be stealing any of your clients or competing with you on any level. They can’t, and have proven so by stealing something they can’t create on their own.

Submit Yours

Has your design work been stolen? Submit the details and we’ll feature (expose) it here.