I was looking at the detailed visitor stats for my website (DannyDahl.com) and I noticed a large amount of hits from a myspace profile. Upon visiting the profile I see some mexican guy's face and text plastered all over my layout. He even used the same wording for each section on the profile. Same exact code... exactly the same.
He used a different picture of his face and slightly changed the background.

looking at the code of the profile, I see img references to like 10 images that are on my profile and hosted on my website.
my freaking Trakzor and cbtracker images are even on there! (that explains why i thought i had a million stalkers from new york all of the sudden)

aaaanyways, I'm pissed.
So before emailing him asking him politely... eff that shite this biznitch is even using this for his design myspace, showing off his work he's designed... he probably didn't do any of it.
so instead of messaging him, i sent an email to the Copyright Infringement staff of Myspace asking that all of the content be removed from the offender's profile, along with the deletion of his account if possible because I will not tolerate plagurisim.

If myspace staff is unhelpful, I'll probably try to screw over the bandwidth of his freewebs account that is hosting the 2 images that are his on the profile, and once that's done, then send him legally threatening email.

I'd link to the profile, but I don't want anyone tipping this mexican bastard off before myspace sees the profile.


Anyone else deal with this before? what did you do?

also you're not claiming to have written and sung the music yourself.

I'm totally with you on this - I've dealt with a helluva lot of thieves in the past. It irks me that people cannot grasp just how upsetting it is to see your hard work - that you provide for FREE - being ripped off and treated like shit. There's no feeling like it.

Well, hell hath no fury and all that - I go all out. I've stopped actively seeking infringers now because it just made me stress out too much, but if I find one I don't stop until my work is credited, replaced, taken down or whatever.

In order to successfully report an Infringement of Copyright to Myspace Support - you will need to complete an electronic form, with your name, address, signature etc and fax (or mail) it to their office. It's a pain in the ass and I've got as far as filling half of it out before realising I was wasting my time.

Now what I usually rely on is the implied threat of legal action and the fact that I have about a billion and one friends I can request a spamfest of (though that part goes unmentioned). The very fact that you have exposed this thief as a complete fraud is usually incentive enough for your work to be removed.

I have every sympathy.

I sent him a message with a couple of legal threats in it, asking him to remove everything on his profile within six hours or I will be forced to take action.

(It was a well written threat for having been thrown together in a two minute typing fury. I think I'll save it so I can copy&paste it to a future offender... if i find any.)

Apparantely it worked because in less than an hour I received his reply saying thanks for not taking action and giving him the chance to remove it. His profile consists of only a few lines of text. Plain ol' myspace default layout.



I checked, and this guy has a createblog member account (it's the same as his freewebs account)... but there are only like 4 posts on his account and they're all from like 6 months ago. Lame, I was hoping to see an active member feel the wrath of the ban-hammer. :p

Normally, I would the saved copy of his profile that he stole from me so you could all ridicule him and send him all the "where'd you get this layout from???" messages, along with a link to a page that uses nothing but images from his freewebs page and refreshes without cache every few seconds so if you left it open overnight, it would make a dent in his monthly bandwidth.... BUT, since was willing to politely remove everything on the profile, I wish not to further provoke the thief.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

But seriously, what the f**k are you going to do to him? Scare tactic? IM GOING TO GET YOU IN TROUBLE TO JOCKING A LAYOUT THAT I POSTED ON THE INTERNET FOR EVERYONE TO SEE!

Yep. Although, it is in fact illegal, and if someone were to be willing enough to pay for lawyer & legal fees, you could sue for a number of things. It wouldn't be easy, but you could win.

And does the average (i steal layouts) joe think, "GREAT! lawyer fees! this will be awesome! please take legal action mr.original-content-creator!" lol

the threat is enough to make them cower in fear. :p

obviously it worked?

If I were "(i steal layouts) joe" I would laugh at the threat of bringing the legal system in. I guess that's the American way, though. If someone does something mildly not nice to you, you have to sue them. Some a-hole cut me off today, should I sue him?

Also do you realize how much money you would be paying the lawyer to take on this case?

Hey, just because something is posted in the so-called "public domain" does not mean it's a free for all. Any free resources, Danny's layouts included, are posted online with their own Terms of Use and implied licenses of use.

Serious business, Steven!

Never, but I don't design.

Implications don't make a very strong case.

dude, not to mention, your layouts suck ass. who cares.

i dont understand why we're still arguing about this. his method obviously worked because the guy took his layout down.

The bottom line is that it is indeed possible to take someone to court over a situation such as this. You would have to be crazy to be willing to pay the legal fees, but who knows, the person you could have stolen from could be a spoiled kid with a rich lawyer daddy.
So the threat of taking legal actions works, as it should.

Monster, my layouts suck?
I don't have any layouts for free use on createblog.com... the only layout I have visible anywhere right now is the one on my profile, and I would like to think it doesn't "suck" since it won MySpace of the Month a few months back.
And even if it did suck, I put my hard work, effort, and time into creating it, so it should still bother me if someone steals it.

If you were a painter... and you were painting in public at a park.
You suck.. you are absolutely horrible.. but you spend hours and hours painting a scene. Upon finishing the painting, someone walks up and takes a picture of the painting without asking or even talking to you.
You then find this person's website where they are claiming to have painted that piece and are using it in their design portfolio..
but you shouldn't care because it sucks right?

I've had this happen before, I didn't do anything I just removed the images from my website and changed the image names around and re-hosted them so who ever was using the layout, their myspace officially looks f**ked up.

Myspace staff isn't helpful, I do agree. They never help you and I think I've only been able to contact them and get a response once..

Personally I wouldn't care to much I guess, I write a copyright on the images and stuff and then the copyrights are imagemapped so their links back to my myspace or website anyway.

Horrible analogy. I wouldn't give a shit because it was a shitty drawing. I'd know that if I kept practicing, I'd get better. They can have my shitty layo-er...painting. I'll make better ones.

The fact that you're pissed about your shitty layout and that you think this is your magnum opus, then you fail at webdesign, or art in general.

And, I did have an "S" on my "layout," bitch.

i think he's talking about the time and effort taken to create the layout. not the quality of the layout itself.

anyway, this is a bit off topic.

no shit sherlock.
you said my layouts sucked.
i dont have more than one. dumbass.

whatever, layout, layouts, your shit sucks

HI ELBA!

rofl that's really funny!

I really don't care if my stuff gets jocked - actually, I usually put up a notice that's like "hey feel free to use this for whatever you want, I don't give a shit". I'm just completely carefree when it comes to that sort of thing I guess.

That's just too crazy.

I think he's trying to imply that Mexicans like to steal things.

that's not nice :[

It isn't.

CAUSE THEY ARE f**kING DIRTY NASTY THEIVES.



i f**kING HATE MEXICANS.

















































(I'm Latino by the way Just so that no one Reports me for being a hater)