Rules Person STOLE my design then put it for sale. Is that allowed?

I posted this design that I've had for MONTHS on my computer yesterday for sale,

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1592507

And then today a person makes a thread selling a design which destroys the color scheme of my layout and tries to sell it for even more money than my design is selling for?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1593097


Here they are.
Mine.

Theirs.

 

Have you tried speaking with the person who is selling the design?

 

Yes, I just did and they removed it.

 

Looks like they have.

While it sucks, there's the legal opinion of the Automattic/ WordPress folks that any theme or plugin that uses any of their code has to be released under the GPL code. While there is a fair amount of bickering of that and a lot of evidence that WordPress itself may not be following the letter of the GPL, if that opinion is correct then yes, it's legal.

As long as the reseller gives credit to you of course and states that the design originally came from you.

Being honest though. Your original design looks like a few I've seen previously. I'm sure you'll disagree with me and I don't have an issue with that. Being honest and I don;t deal with *.psd's that much when it comes to design work. If you say you designed it yourself, that's fine as well.

Looks like they removed it so I wouldn't worry about it.

I'd give reference links but I don;t like linking to hate sites.

 

I don't think that you have a legal case for this one, seeing as it doesn't seem like he's literally copy/pasted anything from your template and not all aspects of the design are similar.

At the end of the day, you can't stop someone copying your ideas.

 

You're an awesome designer, and I'd put you in the top 10 in DP but you can't see the similarity? I'd call you blind but your logos are too awesome for you to be.

 

Thanks for the compliments - slight misunderstanding though .

I'm not questioning the fact that it's obvious he's taken aspects of your design and used them as his own, but the fact is that he hasn't literally copy/pasted anything, so you can't really do anything about that. Taking elements from your design is legal, as long as he's not directly copying it. I definately do sympathise with you though, but good on the seller for removing it at least.