Stealing Design, Copying of Other People’s Work
September 16, 2008
Recently, I stumbled upon a site belonging to an individual (www.xomox.cn) and discovered that my entire design portfolio has been stolen and copied word for word, to use as his own. I don’t think anyone has ever experienced this kind of blatant infringement before. I knew him long ago in New York City through a girlfriend as she was dating him. Let’s just say this has never been someone that I trusted, although we were in the same field of graphic design, I had advised him on many design and career path matters. Almost 10 years later, I discovered that he stole my work – he’s located in China so I can’t really pursue this legally (or could I?). He was wishing that I would never find out but it’s the web, so you can find anything. I called him and he promptly took it down, realizing that he’s in for a lot of legal drama. His explanation was that “my hard drive is down and I had to show my prospective clients some inspiration of work so I just borrowed yours and was going to call you for permission and now that we are clear, can I borrow your piece on Ann Taylor just to show my client that this is the direction I want to pursue?”. (As if I should be flattered) No, this guy didn’t credit my name, the companies I worked for. Even the project description and sizes of images are identical.
The images below show MY work on the left column, and his exact replica on the right. On his client list he listed all my clients verbatim. They are completely identical. How can we protect our work so this doesn’t happen?
I hope this never happens to any designer out there.
jennyng.com (owner) vs. xomox.cn (copier)
September 16, 2008 at 11:46 am
Boy, I have some stories to share, obviously over drinks and not the world wide web.
This is terrible, I hope you told him “you will have to talk to my lawyer”. Since the design world is so small, you should make sure his name and reputation is out there and everyone knows the kind of designer he truly is, a hack. Needless to say, not a LinkedIn buddy.
September 16, 2008 at 2:45 pm
wow, that’s unbelievable. I have never seen anything this extreme. I am sorry that it happened to you, and I am extremely outraged! That’s the lowest way to steal someone’s works. Not even trying to disguise a little bit at least? Shame… The comparison image should be submitted to Communication Arts or AIGA for further discussion! Shame on you xomox!
September 16, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The good news is, your website is going to get a lot of hits! Sorry, but I am sending your link around, this is an outrage!
September 17, 2008 at 12:23 am
The worst thing about this is that this person tried to defend what he did by saying he only did it because he admired my work and didn’t think this harmed anyone. This shows that this person is not only dishonest, he is clueless.
September 17, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I was studying a MFA in NY when a visiting lecturer stole my idea and used it in a big show in Chelsea. This prompted me to study law to eventually specialise in Intellectual Property law. What happened to you really makes me sick. It is as bad as identity theft. It might not be worth suing him as he may not have any money and sadly it boils down to that. You should however get a guarantee from him in writing that he will refrain from presenting your work as his own. But I hope you get a lot of publicity and that something good comes of it for you.
September 17, 2008 at 3:41 pm
What happened to me really prompted me to think about how vulnerable designers are out there. With the web now, all our work are exposed (unless you password protect it in which case it is harder to publicize your work), and anyone can save the images to their hard drive, change the file names etc. I’m curious that in a court of law, how does one “prove” that your work was stolen…?” My site isn’t copyrighted, my work can’t be copyrighted, so how do you protect that work? Anyone can borrowed your idea and change it somehow which I’ve heard about many times before, it’s a slippery slope. But you’re right this scenario is exactly like identity theft.
September 26, 2008 at 12:54 am
I loved the post. I think your thinking is nearly matching the great sukrat’s cocept.