RIPPING Commercial Themes!
 

It has been brought to my attention that a member here has commissioned another member to RIP one of my Private Commercial Themes, namely the TREK TALK Theme for trek-talk.com.
Is this acceptable behaviour on this site then, I thought ripping was frowned upon here.
This is the thread with the request:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=218792
The request may seem innocent but a friend of mine here was approached to rip the Theme, he refused of course, the member here asking for the rip has already taken the statusicons.
This is the site I made TREK TALK for:
http://trek-talk.com/
I am very concerned about this.

Sorry - there's nothing you can do about someone admiring your style and wanting a similar design. Happens all the time = Get used to it or shut down your site. Be flattered perhaps... Truly though - There is really no way to stop people from ripping your style unfortunately - I see it all the time and who's to say the style wasn't originally birthed in someone elses mind...?

Hmmm - I'm sure you do not want to hire an attorney for everytime someone "borrows" an image from your site. Surely no... If yes - you may want to tell your attorney(s) to begin their hunt with Google Images :)

At anyrate - not to be a complete smartass - but that request you linked to is not requesting a rip of your site. It's someone who apparently admires your concept and wants a SIMILAR style.

I actually responded to that thread (without having looked at your site) because I am a Trekkie from way back - I thought it would be interesting to build a custom Star Trek themed vBulletin style.

Anyway - were I you - I would not worry about your theme being ripped - it's kewl - but it's not all that to be honest - and the images you have used for the header have been "borrowed" from elsewhere and you do not own any of the myriad Star Trek images that can be got 'round the www --- So - I think the lesson here is - what's good for the goose - is good for the gaggle. Respect the fact that someone admires your style as to emulate it.

Welcome to the worldwideweb :)

Jacquii.

Ooooh, thanks for the reality check and wake up call.

$300 to design a skin and implement it haha. That's a pathetic amount of money for the time involved in designing a skin.

No one realizes this though. 300 is usually not enough to even upgrade a skin from X to Y *cough*

Why do you think they come here. Because people are stupid enough to create a style and implement it for this amount. And take note, 0 posts by the person requesting, chances are this one will end in disaster. People will never learn.

It seems enough for some, however. I guess everyone is looking for a bargain these days. Ultimately you get what you pay for, and I suspect that someone doing that kind of work for that price, will leave them with a headache when it comes to maintenance and upgrades :)

Exactly!

You get what you pay for & EidolonAH, at least they are making it BASED off your style and simply did not use it and remove your copyright/branding as I have seen that so many times it makes me sick.

You release it here and if I like it I will use it, I will honor your credits etc but that is just me and we can't think everyone else is like us or even someone we like. Different minds can think alike or the norm completely opposite :p.

that link shown surely is not a request to rip.
But I against ripping because I am in this business. However I cannot stop it from happen even my skin is cheap.

I had something similar happen to me , but the other way around , i had a commercial forum rip off my images .

Having this in my footer probably helps some

Cost me ~$2,000 for Registration .

I contacted them and asked them to remove them. They told me that they "got the idea" from me but made them from scratch.

I investigated see attachment ....

then reported to them that the images were the same they just hacked em up . I told them if they removed them i would make them custom ones .. and so i did and all is well

It'd be really nice if there were a couple free Trek themes.

For the record, commission Trek themes are in violation of copyright law. Fair use allows Trek-based creations online, provided they are free and nobody gains any profit from them. Paramount Pictures holds the copyright to all Star Trek-y stuff, and unless you have a license from Paramount, you can't charge for them.

Oooo - Sarcasm! I LOVE it tehehe - But seriously - what did you expect from the commentary? Everyone to bow down and say that you are right and console you? Ha! Too funny...

Damn! What the hell are you guys charging your clients? $100 an hour? Must be nice.

It's not stupid Shelley - I'm happy to put 10 hours into a design for $40/hour --- I take into consideration that not everyone can afford a $2000 vBulletin skin LOL - and for every corporate identity package ordered (top dollar of course) - I will show you 100 vB enthusiasts on a budget :P and more than happy to have a custom design that is both affordable and classy.

Jacquii.

Is that the whole point. To have a classy style. I don't care what anyone says, If a style is done in 10 hours then it's going to be far from classy and/or images constructed from scratch giving a element of exclusivity to the client. If I design a style for a client they have every single image done, coded design and all images icons exclusive.

I've just been working on a style from several vb providers and I have had to replace tons of graphics and icons that are stock. I'm not saying $300 is stupid, well i am because i think it is because I agree with you get what you pay for. And, it undercuts your worth if you are a talented in this area.

Most top styling providers can't even design. I can name scores of top stylers for vb who cannot design complex images and most of their styles still have the same repreitive default graphics or royality free images which doesn't offer the client any exclusivity.

Luckily, I hate styling with a passion so I'll very rarely take on work. I know, if I take on a job the client can expect a fully exclusive style, support and every icon and image replaced. 99% of the styling providers cannot offer this service and haven't done as long as I've been present at the vbulletin community.

As it goes, after the two styles i'm working on one of which I'm helping with I'll never style again. I hate it more than being stickied.

Hmmm- Exclusive and custom may be two entirely different concepts from those outside the designer "arena" persee. Most requests in the paid requests section is made by those who are looking for an affordable custom solution - or perhaps even a customized header/icon set to be amended onto a premade skin - THAT's what I'm saying $300 - $450 pricerange is applicable to.

$2000 for an exlusive design you have spent 30+ hours on is to be expected because every designer I know wants to be paid a very fair wage for his/her time and creativity.

ha! I think I am not very crazy about styling either Girl - I do love the money though tehehehe - and I'm not all that bad at it. I absolutely abhor the concept of supporting a style through various vB version upgrades though ARG --- Hmmm - being stickied though is an entirely different stimulation, erm - I mean situation LMAO :P

The people who want to pay for our time and services should be able to realize that some of us might be experts in our fields.

I did far to many vB2 to vB3 style upgrades for far too little money.

To turn the otherside of the debate on it's head, there are plenty of people here that do a wonderfull job for free who are an expert in their field. merly because your a paying customer, paying top dollar your not always going to get a great outcome from it.

I've seen plenty of free projects taken that surpass commercial projects so there's always pros and cons to each area.

I mean. Take the company your working for. Couldn't even slice the 3.0 GDK for people wanting to make easy modifications of the vbulletin graphics. And saving becomes a time consuming task aswell as embedded blending effects from another software making re-colouring difficult for beginners. That's a prime example of poor shoddy workmanship right there.

So your not always going to get what you pay for 100% of the time. majority of the time, maybe.

Hmmm - I'm not disputing that at all - I like to think that I'm an expert at what I do as well - Hell - if anything - I'm asking you where I can sign-up to get this top-dollar paying Clientele :)

Jacquii.

Must annoy alot of people cos I hear that an awful lot.

You can't rip vB themes. Only do your best to copy :)

You can rip them off. If you have access to the .xml file, images and the source files you can very much ripoff style here and they do get ripped off. On the commercial front, many members at these warez sites purchase styles and then post them on these forums where people use them and in my books that is ripping off styles.

Most people even take out the credits removing the brand from the footer which was put there by the author which is also ripping off a style and on numerous occasions replacing it with their name.

To me, this is a classic sign of ripping off a style as well as the author who created it. It happens all the time it's just some people turn a blind eye to it and go into a state of denial.

Are we talking about open source software here or free addons/graphics/styles like the ones found here? Often people taken on "free" project to generate good names for their company, products, and to further their own goals. I am thankful to anyone who wishes to release their work for free. But rarely these days is anything free. Most people want recognition and money.

There are people who do it becuase they love the community, or want to give back. Or perhaps releasing the software just because they can. These people are fewer and fewer between these days. Hopefully a trend that will change for the better.

I was referring more to the scripts/styles graphics released here but you could also extend this to open source/freeware/donateware products. But to point out about the comment you made about "not charging people enough" and "people further their goals" it's not a bad thing but your right in saying (or atleast I think so) is that they are becoming fewer and fewer these days. The way you conveyed it is that you regretted charging the little amount you did during the vb2 3 days which is why this kind of thinking is why there are fewer and fewer people that give freely. again, I'm not saying it's a bad thing charging, I have no problem in purchasing a high quality product and people do need to earn an income from their talents but if everyone adopted this path we wouldn't have a thriving community with an abundance of scripts/styles (I won't say graphics because I think compared to IPB resources the graphics don't compare) because of the neglection of this area for many years.

The good thing about this community is that alot of people here help freely. expecting no gain and more importantly spending their time to enhance other peoples browsing experience. I have no problem in purchasing a solid product from a reputable person/company but free and commercial can be as good as one another or work very well together (you only have to look here and every vb board to see that). But I also don't have a problem using a free based product that is just as good and I like to think that I give back quality products as well as thousands of members here do.

I think I'm about to cry now. I think I might go release something. :(

My response was specificly to some work i had done for a style company from the vB2 to vb3 days. They were commericial products to begin wtih. The time and effort it took to convert the styles to vB3 was time consuming, esp getting little things right. Though this has nothing to do with how i feel the community here has gone. It was a comment about people not realizing how much hard work goes into something.

I see paid requests for 5-20 dollars all the time that are 1-5 hours worth of work.

I would be very interested to know what you think is a reasonable price for a excellent and exclusive skin?

Yeah -and usually those posts the OP has posted "Should be easy work. Won't take that long." As if they know LMAO - If they did know - they'd have done the damn job themselves.

Anyway - that's generally why those posts go unanswered and the OP posts back several days later "Anyone help with this?" https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

Jacquii.

In regards to the original subject of this thread, I must say I'm shocked to learn that people rip other's work...truly shocked :eek:

...Sarcasm? :p

ROFLMAO - More sarcasm ==> I absolutely L-O-V-E it https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

DM, might be an interesting 'article' thread if you wrote up what steps you took exactly to register your TM'ed items (what types of TM you chose, steps you did to go about it, etc.). :)

That is something that I see over & over again people completely ignoring. The same holds true for people charging for stuff like BlackBerry themes that contain copyrighted & trademarked images -- the sellers simply have no rights to the images they are using to make money with.

That reminds me... when vB4 is released, let's talk about an upgrade or two of some styles. :D

$40 an hour is not cheap. That's above market rate in the UK. Although experts can charge more, and do.

You would be correct if someone was charging to design a model of the Enterprise, for example. However, what's being charged here is a modification of vBulletin, not modification of Star Trek material. That's like saying if someone has a Star Trek image on their forum, I couldn't pay them to modify my forum somehow.

Your analogy is a bit off. If you have a Star Trek image on your forum (eg: somebody posted it in the forums) and you pay somebody to modify your site then what Kayvin is talking about does not apply (you, on the other hand, might still be liable if you can't defend a fair use argument). However, if you were to pay somebody to design a custom theme for your site that includes a Star Trek image then copyrights do apply. It is very simple... a person (eg: a theme designer) can not sell images from Star Trek in their derived works unless they have a license from Paramount.

It generally covers original material themed on Star Trek too. Copyright doesn't necessarily mean an exact copy, otherwise you'd see plenty of things that are just slightly off to skirt copyright laws. Essentially, you're violating fair use if you profit off of the creation of anything pertaining to the Star Trek franchise that's not licensed.

Generally most of this sort of stuff they won't find out about, mind you, especially since a transaction like purchasing a custom theme is generally done privately. As long as you're not trying to sell a Star Trek-related theme openly and publicly, it's not a huge deal, especially considering a lot of themes wouldn't even be possible without paid stylists.

I bet everyone violates copyright law at least twice a day without realizing it. :D