Hi there, I recently made a facebook page and had some graphics made for it (profile photo and cover photo) Unfortunately a page with the same theme and hundreds of thousands of 'likes' or fans has stolen our property - both the profile photo and cover photo. (due to the nature of this type of page, they will be rapidly growing... estimate 35k fans per day) I know there is probably nothing I can do... but I was just wodnering if anyone has experienced anything like this and can offer me some guidance or help on taking them down/ getting something for our troubles/ etc thanks!
Sorry, but how can you estimate their growth to be 35K per day. And what kind of niche are these pages in question? Also if your page is so new, how did they catch wind of it? Technically i do not believe there is really anything you can do. You could try messaging them and asking them to take the graphics down.
I started a page around a week and a half ago on a hot new topic. I knew obviously there would be many others trying to do the same thing, but it seems I was beaten to 1st spot. With anything new, it's always a race, as once you have the 'main page' of something 'hot' or 'viral', you gain huge followings. In this case I was beaten, and this fan page has grown to almost 400k likes in around a week and a half... so that's kinda averaging 35k (will rise)! Unfortunately I was beaten fair and square, but I was dissapointed to see my graphics used! I suppose I could message them but theres only a small chance they would see it. I guess theres nothing Facebook can do? Thanks for your reply!
Oh i know that feeling all too well. If you don't have the right jump start, you'll be crushed by your competitors when it comes to these viral news based pages. Bare in mind those could be fake likes to make the page look more popular to passing users. Depending on what the niche is and whether you feel passionate about it, i say go for it still! Feed off their fan base by liking users comments as your fan age. Unfortunately i am not experienced in this area, but i wouldn't have thought so. Unless you have some kind of watermark of signature on the graphics?
If they're yours and you can prove they're yours, FB should be able to force a removal (DMCA, effectively). It's generally better to ask nicely first... or suggest a partnership where they get to use your graphics in exchange for their traffic...!
@swood - I know for a fact that the majority of likes this rival page has are legit. The 'snowball effect' works very well on social network platforms and they are just gaining more and more momentum. The activity on the page is ridiculous, its literally exploded. I think I can admit defeat in regards to competiing with them, but accumulating fans to the page whilst I can will help me in future projects I'm sure! @tiero - thanks for your post. I have read a little into Facebook's policies and they do say that they prohibit users posting and using content that violates another parties intellectual property rights, so maybe this is something to look at. The idea of asking nicely is great, I have considered it and it is probably worth a go to help me with other/upcoming projects. (Although it will be hard to have my message/posts read on such a busy fan page). The graphics designed somewhat represent the viral news based page as a brand and it can actually be valuable for them... I think as they continue to establish themselves on facebook with my own graphics they will become recognised through their profile photo/cover photo - which will make it annoying to change to something else. I'll send them a few messages and try and gain some form of advantage from them using my graphics, since they seem incapable of making their own quality stuff.. If I have no luck, it could be time to report my intellectual property stolen - after all they were/ are competitiors Thanks to you guys, if anyone else has any ideas or input please go ahead!