Man this pisses me off
 

My Rural Spirit forum using a custom theme I created.

. . . and then this. . .

http://vbcustomz.com/board/index.php

Whoever runs vbcustomz was apparently hired by this guy, who wanted a theme like Rural Spirit, but said he couldn't afford what I was charging to create a similar theme for him, so went to a "designer" who would rip off my theme for cheap.

Grrr . . .

--------------- Added 12 Mar 2009 at 21:22 ---------------

vBcustomz just went down. Regardless, they were doing a 1 to 1 lifting of my theme, even hotlinking to the images on my server.

Some people will not have any morals and will steal just about anything, yet if you were to come face to face with you it would be a different kettle of fish. The luxury of being behind a screen will prompt people to do something they wouldn't do in the real word due to them lacking a backbone and a pair of balls.

I have to admit, I would be a little peeved off. That is a seriously beautiful style. I'm not sure what you could do about it, though I'm sure some other people will step in and gibe you a reply or two.

Thanks, Shelly. I've had some of my themes lifted before, but never so blatantly (usually just certain elements here and there), and never by a "design" company looking to make money off my work.

Ditto for Shelley,

Thats a really nice style, and i understand you for being mad about it.

You could try and email the guys they host with, Just do a whois on the domain name and it should give you all you need to know.

Just see what can be done there, you may be supprised.

Some people just can't come up with something original, and the fact that they feel the need to copy another design beats me??

Good luck with your quest

;)

Thanks, UKBusinessLive. A member here who has had a similar problem with the person who runs vbcustomz PMed me with some useful information.

Just to clarify, I know who hired this guy not only because I talked to him just yesterday about potentially creating a theme for him, but also because the only change they made to my theme was to use beer mugs for the status icons. lol

LOL :D

Shame they didn't pass any beer your way ;)

No worries buddy, Keep us upto speed, Its nice when we get a good ending to a problem such as this

:cool:

I can see "why" they wanted to copy your theme, its very nice.

That is a very nice theme. You did a really nice job on it.

Didn't something like this happen to someone else and so they reported it to the host for copyright violation?

Removed

You'd be within your rights to send a DMCA notice. As others have said, start with the site admin and if you don't any cooperation, then move on to the hosting provider. You'd be amazed how fast some providers respond to notices.

The X-Box style with credits to "vBWorks.co.uk" is really by vBSkinWorks. At vBWorks.co.uk/forum they have a style named BlueFox with no branding that is actually by vBStyles.