Posts by R3plicant

Networksavvy said

R3plicant said

Graphic-Studio said
Of course look’s like they’ve completely changed the Skin of their Theme and your ads are gone. So they may have gotten wind of your peril, and high-tailed it out of there.

I told them about my desire that they remove my work from their site in early Dec’ last year, (2010), they did as I asked.

So what exactly are you pursuing if they have already removed your work?

Them having my work on the site is one thing, but to have it on their site for some possible 9 months before I found out, means that the work was being used to help make them money by the ticket sales for which the work was principally being used for, look at the screenshots I provided.

Do not be confused, the work was used for their 2010 campaign/event – it MAY have been used to also promote the 2011 event too, but I am not 100% sure; but a part of me deeply suspects they’d have tried to have got away with it had I not caught them with my work.

Tickets were priced from £70 to £140 and the event held more than 13000 people. Tickets for the 2010 event were, if the 2011 campaign is anything to be believed, starting to sell in late March or early April 2010. I discovered the work on their site in late November 2010. In all that time my work was being used and I never got a penny – how is that right or to be overlooked?

They made money with the help of my work and I rightly want paying for it. I’m going to fight it tooth and nail, hard and dirty if I have to, (legally of course), but dirty if needs be. I’m going to make sure that these f**kers do not get away with it.

They shafted me – now it’s my turn; I’m fighting back. There’s an old saying, words to the effect of:

A man with nothing to lose is a formidable opponent. I have nothing to lose – I have nothing.

JackHowell said
Simple fact is: you created the artwork + you have the source files (right?) + it was use without your permission (and without licence) = you are absolutely legally allowed to sue (find another lawyer/solicitor).

HOWEVER , if you sent a “cease and desist” letter and they took the work down then you can only claim damages if you can prove it damaged your business in some way – which, unfortunately, is unlikely. If you can’t prove it did damage your business then they have done as legally asked and unfortunately, that’s it. End of really.

Disclaimer: I am not a solicitor, this information is as far as I know as a designer and does not constitute legal advice.

Yes, I created it, (form stock images, which was all above board and legit). Yes I have the source files. Yes it was used without my permission, which they never even bothered to obtain. They just downloaded it from my page on Deviantart, and used it.

I didn’t send them a cease & desist letter, I just emailed them, demanding they remove my work from their campaign. They removed it pretty quickly, but that still doesn’t make what they ultimately did, right. What they did was distinctly and unquestionably wrong – and I intend to make them pay me for the use of my work and the annoyance, stress and heart-ache of it all.

I want to see them write me out a nice big juicy cheque. I don’t care even if it’s only a couple hundred quid, but more would be nice obviously. I just want to see them pay for what they did to me. Arrogant, greedy, selfish, rude & low-life f**ks that they are.

quickandeasy said

Networksavvy said
So what exactly are you pursuing if they have already removed your work?

+1

So they must have purchased your work to use it… right?

So you got paid for that.

They started to use it but you told them they were doing so outside of the license boundaries…

Once alerted to this, they stopped using it…

I understand you’re angry at this and want compensation, but, you’ll probably end up wasting time and money doing so mate!

I didn’t get any money, they never contacted to ask for permission, they never GOT permission, (obviously), and when I found the infringement, I eventually discovered they were the culprits and demanded they remove my work from their campaign – which they then did. If I don’t get any money for it, I’d be very tempted to go down the media firm’s offices and knock a few skulls together, regardless if it cause me more aggro.

What they did to me was blatant, unbridled copyright infringement – pure and simple, AND they got caught doing it, by ME of all people. I’m seeing my solicitor next week to have a chat about it – he seems to think there’s some merit to my case, though I’ll only know what he thinks when I see him.

Graphic-Studio said
Of course look’s like they’ve completely changed the Skin of their Theme and your ads are gone. So they may have gotten wind of your peril, and high-tailed it out of there.

I told them about my desire that they remove my work from their site in early Dec’ last year, (2010), they did as I asked.

360Degrees said
I believe that an extended license of a texture here would cost 200$ tops.

With respect 360Degrees – what do you base that $200 figure on? Incidentally, my work wasn’t a texture 360Degrees, it was 3 or 4hrs of hard work. My work was anything like, “a texture”, as you put it.

Also, quickandeasy what do you mean when you say, “an extended license should cover it”. What value are you putting on it? If you are at all. Please explain, I don’t understand what you mean, thanks! Lastly, (for THIS response anyway), who compiled the exclusivity payment percentage price list? Does any one know? I’d like to ask them how they came to those prices. Afterall, the pricing is a governing factor of whether I take the media firm to court or not – so some facts would be vital to my case as opposed to someone just deciding that’s the value of a percentage of exclusivity on any work an artist creates then sells to someone else or a company etc.

I feel like there’s SOME progress being made here but still no one has been able to give me a definitive answer – much to my frustration. Seems to be guesswork, (no offence), especially as there’s yet to be a legal definition to an answer that’s been given here.

I’ll just have to wait & see if anyone actually knows and can back up their statement with legal facts. I’m not about to place my life into the hands of mere guesswork. If I take the firm to court I MUST know facts – or else I really won’t have ANYTHING to live for – and no, I’m not being melodramatic; I’m quite serious.

My life’s already sh-t, (I have no money, no own home, no assets, no property, no car, literally one friend who himself is poor, I can barely feed and clothe myself, I can’t go on holiday, I can’t buy anything nice and I have no one to turn to if it all goes wrong – I quite literally am on my own, [even my family are very hard-up]), so I’m not about to plough into this case ill-informed and unwittingly making my already sh-t life even worse. I’m quite sure you understand.

quickandeasy said
Talk to them first mate, taking them to court may end up costing you a lot of money. If this item is for sale on here, then an extended license would cover it, if it’s not for sale on here, how did they get hold or your work?

I did talk to them, (media production firm). They said they got the work from DeviantArt, (which is only place I uploaded it to). They have steadfastly refused to pay me for using my work and I intend to make them pay me for it – whether they like it or not.

stefusilviu said
If you ask me, I tend to belive that this page with Envato payment rates is useless. But I can be wrong on this issue. Maybe your lawyer should have some general data for this.

Well, it’s my solicitor who needs to know the information, so he’s not really the man to ask. I did, to myself, quietly question his abilities because he did not know the answers of how much I should have been paid. I’d have thought a good media lawyer would know this – but in his case, it would seem he has no idea about the sums I should have received; hence his asking me to find out.

It will be interesting to see if anyone else here has some facts for me and where they got the facts from. They have to be recognised in British law if my case is to hold itself up.

stefusilviu said
Wow. This can be a big headache for you, but you can get some answers here.

The payment rates from Envato payments are not helping you i guess. These are percents for sellers. If you have a large number of sales, then Envato give you a larges percent from one item price. It’s a simple reward for big number of sales.

Now, i see that you posted this wood background on Deviant art and they downloaded it from there. You must read carefully the terms from Deviantart. Maybe Deviantart give them the right for use your background, because you share this file for free.

It’s a massive headache, yes! Huge!

The Deviantart site allows artists to write their own rules for the work being made available for download. I said in the ReadMe file that the rest of the work was with, that the work was for PC wallpapers and if the downloader wanted to use the work for anything, then they had to contact me. The firm did not contact me and used my work without my permission – hence my claim for copyright infringement – there may be other things I could/should claim for too like the stress of it, it’s been immense; I’ve been very depressed in recent months and this issue has been the primary, larger cause of it.

As for your earlier point about Envato payment rates – well, they might be helping me, I don’t know though. SHOULD I claim the highest amount, ($75000 / £44900), from the media production firm, (because I never sold the work to no one)? Could my solicitor use the figures given on that payment page and be correct/right?Would the figures be legally recognized in a British court of law? Does anyone know this?

Please let me know asap. Thank you!

Hi folks,

Please read carefully, this is super important to me as I have been screwed by a media production company here in the UK and I am doing all I know how to take them to court for a copyright infringement that I say has left me out of pocket. Though HOW MUCH out of pocket I do not yet know. Hence this very important question:

Can someone in-the-know please tell me what the widely accepted, (amongst the graphic designer community at large), prices a graphic designer should have been paid for the use of an image he/she created being used for:

1. A background used in multiple places on a commercial website selling tickets to a large music/surf event. and 2. A background used on national television, (here in the UK). The same firm offering the tickets produced the programme that was broadcast by a famous national broadcaster. I am not referring to a background as is only defined on GraphicRiver, my work was designed to be a wallpaper for PC use, but it was used as a background by the media firm.

I am asking if any payments that should have been made to me should have been either/and/or:

1. A one off payment or,.. 2. A payment for each actual instance of use of my work, or,.. 3. A royalties scheme where any repeated use of my work would have paid me per showing of the media TV showing.

Some facts I already know:

1. The broadcaster is, (if information I have been given is correct), not culpable for the infringement by the production firm, but it, (broadcaster), may still be guilty if someone knows differently. I contacted the broadcaster who told me to speak to the media production firm.

2. The media production firm did not make contact with me to seek permission to use my work, (it had been downloaded by them from Deviantart, (who incidentally are refusing to help)), nor did they GET my permission to. The question as I am asking has nothing to do with any policies of DeviantArt; the media firm downloading my work from there is merely co-incidental.

3. My solicitor is asking this because without the right information he cannot make a case – if the media firms hould have paid me a small sum, then there’s no point the solicitor fighting my cause; conversely, iif the sums involved should be significant, then how much possibly would it be? If it’s a significant sum, then the solicitor has good reason to take the media firm to court.

I’m sorry to be so pushy, but I must have an answer before Monday 2nd May.

If no one knows, what do you think someone in advertising might know? Do you know anyone who works in advertising who would know the answers I seek?

Please help, so far no one is helping me except a solicitor just while I try to determine if I have a case or not. Shutterstock have been utterly useless, point-blank refusing to help and I can’t get through to iStockPhoto, (not that my work was a photo, it was a graphic).

Also, I asked on Deviantart, but so far no one there knows the answers. I’m fast running out of ideas.

If you need to speak to me urgently, then please message me as soon as you can, I need an accurate response before Monday 2nd May, thank you.

At the bottom of this post you should see the screenshots of the work I created as a background in them all. I did not create anything other than what you see as the background.

Thank you kindly.

1. http://img10.imageshack.us/i/copyrightinfringement01.jpg/

2. http://img26.imageshack.us/i/copyrightinfringement01.jpg/

3. http://img703.imageshack.us/i/copyrightinfringement01.jpg/

4. http://img849.imageshack.us/i/copyrightinfringement01.jpg/

5. http://img339.imageshack.us/i/copyrightinfringement01.jpg/

So, there ya have it. My creation used in a large media campaign and I got absolutely NOTHING . What should I have been paid? Please remember, my work was shown on National TV here in the UK also by the same media production company.

Hoping to hear from you folks soon, much appreciated.

Ps. Thanks for the support shown earlier last month. Life’s been a bitch lately, it really has, so thanks for the words of support.

EDIT , I just found this on the Payments Rates pages: http://graphicriver.net/wiki/account/money-account/payment-rates/ Is this the list to read to determine what I should have been paid? If so, my assumption is that because only the media production firm used my work, (and without my permission), then they should pay me the higher rate of $75000, (£44900), yes? No?

Can I pass this list discretely to my solicitor please? Would that be ok? If you have any stipulations on my doing so, then please say what they are and I’ll abide by them if we, (you & self), both agree on the terms you set.

Giallo said
be patient and you’ll have so much satisfaction.

I was patient back in 1995 when I, (miraculously), passed & finished my photography course. Look where that got me: nowhere, I was technically crap, had no money, never really knew what I wanted to do in life – and now here I am in 2011, with no money, and I’m STILL getting nowhere! A CV I wouldn’t wipe my ass with, a deep rooted & vehement hatred of studying & educational establishments & the despising of a loathsome, almost ‘pestilent’ life ever since I can remember. No matter what the fk I do, I just CANNOT get anything right. I’m CRAP at Graphic design, I’m CRAP at games, I’m crap at music, I’m crap with women, I’m crap with life, crap with people, crap with ANYTHING I do. I’m sorry I wasted your time folks. Happy designing and making money, I can’t stand this st any more I really can’t.