I saw my last blog design being reproduced as it is including my hand-drawn header graphic on another blog today. Now I am fine with it but at least have the decency to give the credit where it is due. While I took theme skeleton from Michael Tyson, I did put a lot of work in terms of css, typography and graphics there. If I wanted to be charitable about it, I would have put it out for download somewhere. So people, if you take any graphics from here, please put a link back. Thanks.
Mood: Irritated
Updated 03/29/2010: The guy has apologized and agreed to take down the header image!
I thought your site is open source. Sorry, I did not steal it. I live your work in my site, this an honor for you, right? I will soon change his picture. Thank you for your passion.
I feel bad for not being polite enough but I hope people use Internet content more carefully lest they infringe a copyright unknowingly. Meanwhile I’ll take it as a compliment to my design.
4 Comments
This is really bad. Highlights one of the most common problems with the internet.
Ridiculous, that is bad. The hand-drawn graphic is one of the best designs, identity-(i feel) of your blog. Fight for it, i would say contact him/her.
Your anguish is understandable Nistha, but this act of plagiarism is a disguised compliment too! Don’t you think so? In my view, it goes on to show that your creations are good ENOUGH to be copied.
I’d like you to congratulate you! Cheers.
On a more serious note, and because this is intellectual property infringement, may I please suggest you to apply for a copyright? Though IP laws are very much recent and primitive in India per se, I hope USA has enough laws to help people protect their original designs from unauthorised, unacknowledged reproduction.
Thanks.
I’ve updated the post after the site owner agreed to bring it down.
@Kapil – thanks for your views. I took it as a compliment but that header design is quite personal and I do not want it redistributed. And I was mainly anguished because he did not cite the source. A small credit in the footer would have avoided this hassle. All’s well that ends well though.