what would you do? possible copyright infringement

[Sean S]

Hi everyone,

about seven month ago I designed a small website for a group of lawyers that engaged in selling drugs or medicine to some middle eastern cities such as Dubai. I designed them the website, and since they were in a hurry to get their site up, I gave them permission to put up what I had done up to a point on their server before they pay me for the job.

After a few weeks of work on the site, I got a call from their agent telling me that they don't need my work anymore and that they would like to go with another designer.

Well I said ok and left it there. I checked back a few weeks later to make sure that they took my design down, but I noticed that the site went down and it was no longer up.

Now after all this month, I check back again and I see the same design that I had worked on, and what they did this time was that they changed the

site designed by: mywebsite.com to theircompany'sname.com

I am really upset and could say furious that they did such a thing, after all the hours and hard work I put into it. And also in my resume's i usually link to the client's sites that are still up, and if a customer sees a different name there, that makes me a liar.

I was wondering what you would do if you were in my situation? would you just e-mail them and ask them kindly to remove it or what?

thank you.

[Corriewf]

Have you made any contact thus far?

[Gio~Logist]

Have you given them all the .psd files as well? Do not forget that such thing exists as a poor man's copyright. If you still have .psd's and perhaps other proof and records of you creating the website and them hiring you to do so, you should be able to take action.

[Sean S]

Hi again,

no I haven't made any contacts so far, I'm preparing an e-mail cause I just found out about this yesterday. As for given them .psd files, no I have all the original files including the documents that prove that they hired me to do the design and that they also cancelled it to go with another designer.

[amykhar]

Did they pay you for the work you did thus far? Did you tell them they couldn't take your name off the design?

[Sean S]

No they didn't pay me anything at all and I did mention in one of our e-mails that they can not take the notice off the design.

What gets me even more is that I did mentioned couple of times to them that I expect them to take the design down if they decide to go with another designer or if they are not going to pay me.

I just sent them an e-mail, and if they don't reply, I will try to call their office monday.

[PennylessZ28]

Why would u do business for a company of lawyers that engaged in selling drugs or medicine to some middle eastern cities? You support terrorism? They are probably laughing at you now.

[Sean S]

why? will first and formost, I need to make some money to pay off bills and live. And why would you say such thing as I supporting terrorism? all middle eastern people are terrorists now? So when I donated money for the tsunami victims in Indonesia/Thailand I pretty much donated money to the terrorists? what about the thousands that take vacation in a place like Dubai?

I'm sorry I would love to discuss this farther, but I know that it wouldn't get us anywhere.

but I do agree with you on the part that they are laughing at me, that's I guess what I get for being too trusting with strangers.

[Rich]

Hello,

They are attorneys, so threaten them with a lawsuit. I would have done that the first time I saw my work on their site under their name. Include notice that you have saved all of the email transactions as well as took screenshots of when they first added your style (displaying your credits) and the one they have up now displaying their credits. Copyright infringement can cost someone up to $50,000.

[Ted S]

Given that the people you conducted the work for are attorneys it makes any legal action much different than in a normal situation. Assuming you feel this issue is worth pursuing (i.e. there was enough damage caused to bother fighting) you would want to contact an attorney of your own to have them evaluate your legal standings. You really should not be sending out anything or taking any legal action without proper legal advise which only an attorney can give you. It's unfortunate that these sort of things happen but they do... having a contract really is a must do.

Originally Posted by gio~logist

Have you given them all the .psd files as well? Do not forget that such thing exists as a poor man's copyright. If you still have .psd's and perhaps other proof and records of you creating the website and them hiring you to do so, you should be able to take action.

There is actually no such thing as the poor man's copyright (at least not in the US). Copyrights are assigned the moment you put a work into a fixed or permanent state (as would be the case when you save the file). It's pretty safe to assume that he can prove he did the work, the question is can he prove they don't have the right to use it.