Hello people !
I guess you are aware of the contest in which the contest holder just took the submissions from the contest thread and put the images as they were onto his sites. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the contest address:
http://gfxcontests.com/showthread.html?t=832

Now I reckon that it was also partly my fault because I didn't at least watermarked the entries (a thing which I'll do from now on). I therefore advise you to watermark your submissions. I know, it's not a full proof measure, but at least the contest holders won't be able to just put the contest thread entry as it is onto their sites.

I sent the contest holder an email. Here it is:

Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 7:02 AM
To: jimbiddle1@onmbb.com
Subject: Copyright Infringement Notice



Dear James Biddle :



It has come to my attention that you have made an unauthorized use of my copyrighted work entitled “AlienTongue logo” (the "Work") in the preparation of a work derived therefrom. I have reserved all rights in the Work, first published in 12-14-2006, 02:12 PM, (and have registered copyright therein). Your work entitled “AlienTongue logo” is essentially identical to the Work and clearly used the Work as its basis.

On the web address: http://www.alientongue.net/dotnetnuke/ you are using the following address image:
http://www.alientongue.net/dotnetnuke/Portals/0/head.jpg, which is essentially identical to the “AlienTongue logo”.
Also, on the following web address:
http://jamespatrick.podshow.com/, you are using the following address image:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-9/400635/Untitled-1.jpg, which is essentially identical to the “AlienTongue logo”..

As you neither asked for nor received permission to use the Work as the basis for “AlienTongue logo”, nor to make or distribute copies, including electronic copies, of same, I believe you have willfully infringed my rights under 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $150,000 as set forth in Section 504(c)(2) therein.

I demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of all infringing works derived from the Work, and all copies, including electronic copies, of same, that you deliver to me, if applicable, all unused, undistributed copies of same, or destroy such copies immediately and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future. If I have not received an affirmative response from you by 01-11-2006 12:00 PM, indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, I shall take further action against you.

That includes several legal steps I could make, first emailing the company where you registered your domain: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) to suspend the domain you have bought from them, and I can assure you they have a very strict copyright policy. I will also email to http://www.podshow.com, and they will suspend your account, located at: http://jamespatrick.podshow.com/. That’s only the first steps I can take against copyright infringers. The final step is asking for statutary damages as high as $150,000. And remember that I have all the support from the http://gfxcontests.com/ staff, which includes people with extensive experience in this kind of matters.

Just to let you know that I’m very serious about this matter, here is some information about you, so I know exactly who I’m dealing with


Registrant:
James Biddle
46142 W. Barbara Ln Maricopa , Arizona 85239 United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ALIENTONGUE.NET
Created on: 12-Dec-06
Expires on: 12-Dec-07
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
Biddle, James jimbiddle1@onmbb.com
46142 W. Barbara Ln Maricopa , Arizona 85239 United States
(480) 452-7142



Very truly yours, Daniel Ignat (Dextracer on http://gfxcontests.com/)

So, after sending it, I got two replies the same day (which is today).

Here are the replies:

From: "James Biddle" <jimbiddle1@onmbb.com>
Subject: RE: Copyright Infringement Notice
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 10:14:07 -0700

You own the logo, not the name. Until you receive payment, the logos will be removed. Once you receive payment, let me know, and I will put the logos back up.

And the second one:

From:"James Biddle" <jimbiddle1@onmbb.com>
Subject: RE: Copyright Infringement Notice
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:22:34 -0700

Yeah, I got that. Either you can chill out and receive your $250 or I can take the logos only down and you receive nothing, your call. Let me know.

By the way, the award he said he'll give to the winner was $300, and not $250, along with some prizes for the runner-ups.



I wrote this post so that if anything like this happens again, people would know what to do, and so that if anyone is thinking of doing the same thing as jimbiddle, should know that designers would not just let it go and forget about it.

I want to thank thenameisjolo and Bleys for their support and information. thenameisjolo sent me a cease and desist form, so i would know how to write the email, and Bleys posted some information about jimbiddle, and also a very useful link, which you'll find in the above contest thread. Thanks again.

While I was writing the above post, two more messages arrived from the contest holder:

From: "James Biddle" <jimbiddle1@onmbb.com>
To: "'ionescu ion'" <ignat_dan_ign@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Copyright Infringement Notice
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:02:46 -0700

The logos will be removed.

And this one:

From: "James Biddle" <jimbiddle1@onmbb.com> Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "'ionescu ion'" <ignat_dan_ign@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Copyright Infringement Notice
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:08:23 -0700

Had you have just waited they were anxious to do more work with you. This is a start-up radio station. They are expanding to 31 college. I’m just one of 88 Djs they are premiering. If you knew anything about business, accounts receivables (payouts) usually have a net 30/60 or 90 (days). You are among 9 other vendors waiting to be paid. You ****ed it up.

I also sent the contest holder the notice by Yahoo Messenger. Here's the conversation after I sent him that:

clubtattooaz: Wow, you know how to do a whois!!! anyway... we owe you 250 dollars. dont be an ass, maybe if you checked with the copyright office before you sent that you would have thought first. ALientongue has already been copyright, its was dont the same day the domain name was registered with godaddy. You do not own that, feel free to take whatever action you need, I have sent a copy of all the required documents to the said authorites. If you want your money, fine, I am still waiting on mine for the webiste I did for them. I registered the domain etc for them, but you will get nowhere suing me... besides, they beat you to the copyright... anyway.. they pay me, i pay you... i didnt know it worked that was, but I am just as pissed... you will get your money, I have your paypal info i believe
atondex: No, you don't have my paypal info. And this doesn't change anything. I have the proof that you have stolen my copyrighted artwork, and I will continue with my legal actions. Unless you remove all of my copyrighted artwork from all of your sites. You know the deadline from the email message.
clubtattooaz: No problem. If yuou would rather remove it then get paid, thats fine by us.
atondex: And the prize amont was $300, and also some runner_up prizes, as you have said in your post.
clubtattooaz: I posted what they told me to, I have submitted all your email and they will remove it, end of story. I told them you didnt want to wait, so they will use another logo and decline any further submissions from you.
atondex: Until I see it has been removed I will continue with my actions
clubtattooaz: lmao... whatever, its not me.. i dont control the website... im just one of many djs.your barking up the wrong tree... im am exempt from any of this, so it doesnt bother me.. when they remove it they will remove it... besides, I highly doubt you can afford the type of lawyer you would need to fight these guys, so I would shut the **** up and wait before they take action against you .
clubtattooaz: your about to back yourself into a corner
clubtattooaz: take care.
atondex: I know there's only you and no other client because you have also put the logo here:http://jamespatrick.podshow.com/
atondex: that's a personal profile
atondex: you're in big trouble and you start panicking by inventing other clients
atondex: that's lame

hey dex...just curious, i got to thinking, he had said that the contest was a registrar/hosting site..now he says it's a radio site? did he mention anything about this?

He was (and still is) bluffing, don't you see that ? Did you check out the site ? That should probably answer your questions. It's probably some shady starting-up radio station or whatever. Although from the content it looks more like a begginer's personal site.

oh yeah, i see, i was just curious if he had mentioned anything about it. i had talked to him on yahoo as well. about the support website logo, and he had wanted me to do some other graphics work for him, and when i told him i would need him to finish up the contest and award payments first, before i did any more work just to be safe (which was a great idea, apparently). he said no problem and it would be done by the following monday (it was like wednesday at the time). and that was probably a month ago. then when i started messaging him about resoloving things, he blocked me. soooo, i can def see it was a bluff. good luck though, dex...

Thanks ! Now I just want to see the logos removed, because I know he'll never send the money.

Man , this man is something. He wants more work done for free when he didn't even sent the money for your previous work !!! You should definetely take some action against him.

i will. i had given him 10 days, ending this saturday, before i took actions. still debating whether to do it through small claims, or take the route that you are taking. i've heard that i should take both routes, so, just deciding which way's the best. but, he won't talk to me or respond to any of my messages, so, there's nothin else i can do on his part, so it's looking like i'm going to have to pick one of the 2 routes.

I hope you took a screen shot of his websites with the url showing as evidence of what he did before he takes the logo down.

During the AllCitrix contest he sent me a private message (see attached).
I didn't trust him from that point and now I know why.

It's a shame what happened. Take action and hope for the best. :tup:

Thank god for the DMCA and DMCA take down notices. Any legit operation would have known that they can't use a logo without permission. I do not know what this guy was thinking.

I know watermarks suck and distract from a design, but if it has been said once it has been said a thousand times, designers need to watermark their designs at least for contest holders whom do not have a proven track record.

Thanks Dex for educating us with this unfortunate experience of yours. I submitted a couple of domain names ideas in that contest and was keeping track of his (Jim Biddles) comments and post ...I figured something was amiss when his comments were too syrupy sweet rather than constructive Hey I have some "friends" in Arizona if you don't get your money (ha ha) Good Luck

I don't even want the money anymore. I just want the logos removed.
He removed the image on his site, but the main logo, which is exactly the image I have submitted in the contest thread is still online. Have a look here:

http://jamespatrick.podshow.com/

You'll have to send out another DMCA take down notice to the hosting provider of podshow.com. It is obvious that you will be chasing this guy around for some time to come. I'd recommend filing for a formal copyright with the U.S. copyright office so that you can collect maximum damages and recoup legal fees if it comes to that. The fee is something like $30 and it needs to be done within three months of the art being first created to have full affect in this case.

Thank you for this information.

KLB;16400 wrote:

I know watermarks suck and distract from a design, but if it has been said once it has been said a thousand times, designers need to watermark their designs at least for contest holders whom do not have a proven track record.

Does anyone know anything about digital watermarks and if they'd be useful in this sort of situation?

No they aren't really useful because they won't stop someone from using your images they will only make it easier to prove that they are yours and these cost money to implement.

The best method to prevent someone from using a logo is simply to put a watermark across the logo (as sucky as this is).

It is ashamed that this happens.

I have my own instance but it is more ambiguous to me than this clear stealing by jimbiddle. I created a logo for a contest at Sitepoint. A similar logo was chosen, perhaps "inspired" by my submission. Today, a new contest was created for the template for the contest holder's site. The logo they provide for the site is clearly more than "inspired" by mine. My logo versus the logo the contest holder linked to in the new contest.

I came here first and have yet to contact either the winner of the other contest or the contest holder. What should I do? Do I even have a leg to stand on?

Baba36, it is obvious that one logo is a copy of the other. You would have a leg to stand on, but the question is whether or not you could succeed. Then again, you'll never know unless you try.

Thanks Ken,

I'll try and let you know what happens. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

For future reference, I am also a moderator at SitePoint (same name). So if anything like this happens in the future, please feel free PM while the contest is running so I can take action.

Okay thanks Josh, I'll remember that, thankfully I resolved this issue with the CH relatively quickly.

Just an update on this matter:
I just visited the two sites where the logo I designed was posted without my permission, and I saw that it was removed from both places, even from his podshow page. The letter I sent was worth the effort !

Hey, Misterman, how about your logo for AllCitrix.com ? Did you resolved the issue ?

hey dex, i'm glad that everything worked out well for you. unfortunately, i didn't have such luck. i sent a couple notices, one of which was the take down notice that you used, and he still didn't take it down. the original plan was to go the next step and go through court, but i got caught up with moving and a couple job offers at new firms, so i just chalked it up as a lesson learned. and i figured that it's been too long since then, so i didn't think there was much i could do.
oh well

but i'm glad you were able to get things resolved! your work is too good to get taken advantage of:tup:

Hey Dex and Misterman, thanx for sharing your experiences. I think most people start contest for grabbing/collecting ideas/reference images for further editing/vectorizing. It only takes few bucks or nothing on some sites and they don't have to pay 100-150&s on the end of the contest.

Just an example: gfxcontests.com . . .
the Pufinek's contest.... It's still unfinished. Too often happens.!:disagree: isagree:
Too bad for this great site too!

Yeah, this site isn't what it used to be, and that's a pity.