I wasn't sure where to post this but this section seems the most appropriate. There was a discussion in the contests section about designers using stock images from paid stock sites. I think it's important for everyone to know that usually those designs are not allowed to be used in logos, at least not logos that get trademarked, which contest holders won't know unless the designer tells them. Isn't it better to be 100% original than to risk bringing contest holders in trouble?
That's right. None of the major stock photo/clipart companies allows using their images in logos. So for a buyer such a logo is worthless and more - it puts him in legally risky situation.
I think the major problem in contests is that most the newbies using stock images / icons with copyrights are in a get rich quick phase. They may feel that they can make a bunch of money at it & then get out before getting caught. There is always the chance that they don't know how to read English & have not read the Terms Of Use on the stock site they got the image from. The old saying goes in litigation that "Stupidity & or Under education is NOT a basis for criminal defense", Thus meaning the designer is STILL fully liable & prosecutable for providing the client with infringed materials. Some may not know this, while others living outside the clients country feel that the legal system does not travel over seas (Sad, but true). I've found it More common that overseas designers tend to knowingly infringe copyrights and not care that they are doing it. It's a fast cash idea system to them & most of there economy's are far lower than others. $10.00 in the U.S. isn't much money at all & is laughed at most the time, however in India, $10.00 goes a long way. You'll find News articles all over the internet that talk about how 60%-80% of India's population live on an average of $1.00 per day or even less. That alone gives you an idea of how some may view contest based design. It's sad that infringements happen, However you can always send a DMCA notice to the infringers Host & ISP. Under international treaties the Host & ISP must honor the DMCA take down notice. It may also cause the infringer loss of hosting, loss of internet connection, loss of wages, charges being filed, etc.. all depending on the severity, the country in questions laws, & if they are under treaty with the country they infringed within. Just my 2 cents on this
Well said Scorpionagency The sad thing is that most contest holders have no clue stock images are being used. Some users who call themselves designers get their images using Google Image Search, which is even worse because it shows that they really don't care about copyright infringement. At least when users pay for stock images it still shows that they think they're doing the right thing. I really hope contest holders start looking out for things like this.
@scorpionagency r u trying to say Indian Designers are immoral? Is there any direct relationship between weak economy and immorality? Is your country free of scammers? Is there any country on earth that is free of scammers and immoral people? What do u think????
India is but only one country with a low economy & high on the international scam index, there are several. India was an example used, I can use several countries as examples (E.G. China, Nigeria, Pakistan, etc..).. And yes, ALL countries have scammers, some more than others. And yes there is a Direct relationship with poverty & higher theft rates, it's been proven throughout history. So it's only natural that a country with higher poverty rates will have a higher crime rate. Just simple logic really. Even the U.S.A. has high crime problems. The fact of the matter remains, that no MATTER what country you come from, if you infringe on copyrights, you deserve to be punished!!!!!
I agree with you Ecreation that it is not fair to target any particular group and I do not think that was Scorpian's intention. The example using India was just an example. There are too many people in our own country whose morals should be questioned. I wonder how many of the ones who post the contest pass others work off as their own and charge $150 to $300 to their clients for a logo they paid $25 for or $500 for a web design they pay $30 for. Half of the time, the clients are probably not even aware of where the design came from to start out with. If a client gets caught using an image that is not legally theirs, it is going to be the client that is going to end up paying financially. Anytime an photo image is used that did not come off of the clients site, there is a good possibility that they will not have legal rights to use that image. I use the contest area to practice and update some of my design skills and familiarize myself with what current demands are. I took off a couple of years from designing to go back to school and have spent most of it taking courses that are not even related to design so my skills have gotten somewhat outdated. There are some extremely talented people that contribute original and exceptionally good work to these contests and I wish I could see them getting the prices that their work is worth. I hate it when I see some of them lose out to designs that have been "borrowed" from sources on the net. Sometimes I am not able to visualize exactly how something looks and have to look at photographs to see, then I wll make my own image. I often search Google images to look. Today, I saw a site design for a Poker site in the contest area that used an image of poker chips taken right out of Google image search. I am sure that the designer probably has no rights to that image.
@scorpionagency Thanks for not making this a violent battle of posts between you and me. I honor the decency of your language and I really apologies if I have said anything rude in my posts. I disagree about your view that "And yes there is a Direct relationship with poverty & higher theft rates" , but I don't think this is the main discussion topic in this thread. There are more qualified people than me who are researching on this matter. And I am assuming you are using real statistical data while making such comments. Now , coming down to the topic of stealing images from the net, I think this is mostly done by the inexperienced starters who try to get a foothold into the market by any means. I think they are mostly design school students who are not very aware of the fact that how they and the client can suffer for doing unethical things. Professional designers will never use such methods. This trend is mostly observed in the contests forum for the reason I think people (buyers) in this section tend to get "Killer", "unique" graphics only for $10-20. It is rare to see contests above $50 in that sections. And a royalty free stock image comes for $1-$75 .Moreover , if they loose the contest then that money is forefeet. However, I have seen that if the buyer clearly mention in their original post that "All the artwork must be 100% original and legal , he will cancel the payment if he finds the artwork is illegally borrowed from elsewhere" then nobody will do such unethical things. However , I completely agree that the use of stealing art work must be stopped and people who using such malpractice must be notified about the dangers of it.
Just a few interesting reads Below out of literally thousands on the internet: http://copyright.gov.in/maincpract5.asp (India Government Copyright Office - study of copyright piracy) www.cybercrime.gov/intl.html (U.S. Department of Justice International Cyber crime divisions) www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm#cc (Reporting Cyber crime in the U.S.) www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/05/crime_and_econo.html (Article on Crime relations to Economy) http://law.jrank.org/pages/2224/Urban-Crime-Explaining-variation-in-urban-crime.html (Article on Poverty related crime) http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02220/dci-inside-out/reasons-behind-dci/index.html (Article where The IFPI has identified Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Russia, Spain and Ukraine as the top ten “priority†countries in the world plagued by music piracy) Thought you might like them too
I've kind of been doing that...:/ For banners. How else do you get a pic of say, David Beckham? And unrelated question - what are 'review copies'? People are asking if I do 'review copies'.
A review copy is something that you give to somone for free or at a discounted price so they give an honest review about your service/product. you should give review copies to reputable members with decent itrader so you gaurantee that they will really give an honset review about your service/product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real)_growth_rate (GDP= gross domestic product (real) growth rate ,check the countries with bold letters) http://www.rttsweb.com/outsourcing/statistics/ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/38080.htm Now the crime rates in figures/statistical data http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_com_by_you-crime-murders-committed-by-youths http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19789995/ http://h20271.www2.hp.com/SMB-AP/cache/332410-0-0-155-121.html?jumpid=em_nz1to1_sotjun/article ................. We all love our own country and should also respect the feelings of other people about their own country. U.S.A., till date is the most superior economic force in this world and will continue to be the same for about another 50 years(By that time probably i'll retire ), But other countries are also making their true efforts as well. Thanks "twizzlers" for pointing out a burning problem. As I said earlier Banner contest holder pays about $15-$20 per banner(or even less). How can a designer buy legal images and put those images into the banner and make profit out of it?
@Ecreation Link 1: yes, all countries are growing (wasn't part of your original dispute) Link 2: Interesting enough this has both BAD & good reviews on outsourcing (50/50) Link 3: This ones along the same lines as the US & India gov. links I posted - Nice to see we agree here Link 4: Statistics on crime in general is of course higher in The U.S., However, we were debating about Cyber/Computer related crime, not all crime Link 5: Again, the statistics on Murder have nothing to do with cyber crime Link 6: Again, Murder commited by Youths have nothing to do with Cyber crime. Link 7: This ones a great article related to the subject about china becoming the #1 cyber threat Link 8: This ones also on topic but the title is decieving, it talks about china again being a top cyber criminal country & really dosent mention india at all in it even though the title says india. All in all, I appreciate the reading material, however only 4 were on topic.... Thanks for the links
I saw a show on ID.com about a teacher who failed a good percent of her students for plagiarism. Parents raised hell and the BoE over-ruled the teacher. The did an interview with one of the students and he said that his aspirations were to attend Harvard because a sure way of making it in this world was to attend an Ivy League School. If he had to cheat to make the grades to get in, he would. It is sad that so many people everywhere have the opinion that you have to cheat to make it in this world. To me, a cheater will lie and steal too. I don't really see any difference. If you cheat to get to the top, then how do you cover your ass when you get there? Hire more cheaters to do the work you are not capable of doing yourself? What's wrong with doing it the old-fashion way...get out there and work for your money! I may not be the greatest designer in the world but I work my butt off trying to learn what I need to know to improve myself. I would rather be an unsucessful honest person that an sucessful cheat. Where is the pride in that? Does it feel good to say "Yeah, I didn't have to lift a finger to earn that money, I just stole someone else's work and ideas"? Ecreation said that he/she thinks many of these people using the images illegally are probably design students that do not know any better. I am a design student myself, going back to school after 10 years of learning on my own. The first class I took thoroughly explained plagiarism and its consequences. We have to cite everything in all our work. If we get caught even forgetting, we stand a chance of getting kicked out of school. But, it did not take college for me to understand plagiarism...I was taught that as early as Junior High. People know that they cannot just take other peoples work and there is not excuse for it. Ignorance is not an excuse for being dishonest.
Yet another Great post jwilkins, .. You hit the nail on the head. I fully agree that being a student is by no means an accurate excuse to plagiarize. The simple fact that anyone would over turn a teachers decision to flunk there students because they cheated is wrong. All that does is teach the kids that not only can they cheat, but if they get caught, they still win. I do admire the fact that you have shared your current experience about being a student & that the education system here in the U.S. is now cracking down on plagiarism & flunking students that are caught cheating / infringing others rights. It is very sad to see so many designers taking countless hours / days / weeks / months creating unique & original work, just for someone else to steal it in a matter of 5-10 minutes & try to pass it off as there own work.
If you are paying for a service which provides you images for use then they are fine to use in logos, however if you are jsut taking htem without paying the licence fee you would be liable.
That's not true. Have you read the posts above? Can you point me to just one photo stock that allows using the images in logos? All of the major ones clearly forbid this.