WARNING...Offshore Copycats

[Andy]

All,

Once again I am being plagued by offshore businesses who want me to send a "sample" of my products so they can copy/ripoff ...er ..."quote" me a price to make it cheaper etc.

THIS is the gent today who pissed me off: http://www.theleatherartisan.com/

Grumpily,

100 % made in the USA=Andy

[Tina]

All,

Once again I am being plagued by offshore businesses who want me to send a "sample" of my products so they can copy/ripoff ...er ..."quote" me a price to make it cheaper etc.

THIS is the gent today who pissed me off: http://www.theleatherartisan.com/

Grumpily,

100 % made in the USA=Andy

I also got a mail from this clown a few days ago, like all the rest of the same type it ends up in my delete pile :-)

Could he be a member here going around looking for webpages and or email addresses?

Edited September 8, 2008 by Tina

[Andy]

Tina,

I followed up with a few of his contacts on his web site, he is obviously harvesting email/web sites from somewhere local (here or other sites).

Some of these jokers steal photos from my site and portray it as their own goods...luckily my customers KNOW my stuff and give me a heads-up when they catch it.

Andy

I also got a mail from this clown a few days ago, like all the rest of the same type it ends up in my delete pile :-)

Could he be a member here going around looking for webpages and or email addresses?

[Tina]

Tina,

I followed up with a few of his contacts on his web site, he is obviously harvesting email/web sites from somewhere local (here or other sites).

Some of these jokers steal photos from my site and portray it as their own goods...luckily my customers KNOW my stuff and give me a heads-up when they catch it.

Andy

*Hmmmm* In other words it might be a smart idea that from time to time look into his webpage and check it out? I hope he reads this!!! *Grrrrrrrr*

[Billy P]

If I am not mistaken, this same outfit had some of Peter Main's belts posted on his web-site as his/their own. Peter asked them to take them off, but I don't think that they did. I may be wrong, but I don't think so. Regards BillyP

[Billy P]

If I am not mistaken, this same outfit had some of Peter Main's belts posted on his web-site as his/their own. Peter asked them to take them off, but I don't think that they did. I may be wrong, but I don't think so. Regards BillyP

Yes I was right Peter asked the fellow, Inam, to remove the picture of the belt that was stolen from Peter's website and posted to the eleather whatever site. That was on 6/24/2007. So now we know that he is a thief. He was a member of FLaSah but I don't know if he still is or not. Billy P

[MADMAX22]

Ug I hate what the internet allows some of these Aholes to do sometimes.

I ran into a problem similer but not totally while ordering a new camera. Ordered one from someplace that was somewhat of a good deal. Got it and it was the japanese version of the camera which wasnt suppose to be for sale here in the US. Ended up having to argue with them and was about to make a claim with my credit card company. Anyways finally got it settled (still had to pay the 15% restocking fee).

Anyways when I looked into the person/persons they had about 10 websites, all electronics with good looking webpages and all that. All of them with extremely bad reviews on review.com I think it is. All having been reported to the BBB. Basically just scam artist that use the internet now. Makes me wish I was rich that way I could fly out to these peoples place of business and take care of business.

Thanks for posting, maybe we could look up any affiliated websites and make a list of places to watch out for.

[TwinOaks]

Sometimes, just sometimes, these morals get in the way. C'est la vie.

[tashabear]

Check with your webhost; there might be a code you can put in place to defeat photo theft/hotlinking.

[Johanna]

Geeeshh...you should see the spam the admin gets! They cannot harvest email addys from the site, and any "member" using LW like this gets banned.

Johanna

[Jordan]

Happens in every industry, Motorcycle accessories to leather, unfortunate but some are only in it (everything and anything) for the fast buck.

[whtdove3]

Just a thought....

Is it possible (or maybe there is one already) to have a link on here with a list of sites like one mentioned above to be aware of? Not that they wouldn't change their web address, I'm sure they would. But after a while, I'd think they'd get a little tired of being posted all the time as a con site and go elsewhere, if they can't be shut down and arrested. And it would at least give folks here places to keep an eye on for copycats.

I agree with the tashsbear that there should be a code of some kind that can be used to lock photos so they can't be copied or linked to.

[Johanna]

There are all sorts of fancy programs and tricks to make images difficult to pull off of the web, but I guarantee that if it displays on my screen, I will save it if I want to. Of course, I would never use pics without permission, and I would provide all the information I could to the real owner if I discovered a picture being used unethically or illegally. Happily, Leather Land is a relatively small community, and most of us know who work belongs to and respect other folks' wishes. LW has an unusually low level of anonimity. We know people by their screen name, their real name and their business name. We know lots of us in real life, too, and see each other a few times a year at the shows. We have rarely had problems, and when we do, we act responsibly. I have been grateful for all the times LW has been granted permission to use something just because we asked. We do have a (short) list of "troublemakers", trolls, spammers whatever, and the staff is alert to red flags. If you ever see a suspicious post or something you feel needs attention, click the report to a mod button. If you ever find your pics being used w/o permission on another site, PM a staff member and we'll do our best to help you get a satisfactory resolution. Most people are cooperative and gracious once something like this is brought to attention. Trolls and spammers are dealt with harshly.

Johanna

[Art]

Hi Johanna,

I am dedicated to the obliteration of spam in my lifetime. This just means that I must live forever. Can you imagine waking up in 2929 and the first thing you see when you open your email is SPAM, mind you, you ARE the last person on earth.

Art

There are all sorts of fancy programs and tricks to make images difficult to pull off of the web, but I guarantee that if it displays on my screen, I will save it if I want to. Of course, I would never use pics without permission, and I would provide all the information I could to the real owner if I discovered a picture being used unethically or illegally. Happily, Leather Land is a relatively small community, and most of us know who work belongs to and respect other folks' wishes. LW has an unusually low level of anonimity. We know people by their screen name, their real name and their business name. We know lots of us in real life, too, and see each other a few times a year at the shows. We have rarely had problems, and when we do, we act responsibly. I have been grateful for all the times LW has been granted permission to use something just because we asked. We do have a (short) list of "troublemakers", trolls, spammers whatever, and the staff is alert to red flags. If you ever see a suspicious post or something you feel needs attention, click the report to a mod button. If you ever find your pics being used w/o permission on another site, PM a staff member and we'll do our best to help you get a satisfactory resolution. Most people are cooperative and gracious once something like this is brought to attention. Trolls and spammers are dealt with harshly.

Johanna

[Jwalker]

a fellow member here has been kind enough to send me a note advising me that this topic may affect me...*blush* im flattered that one of my peers would recognize my work...and indeed 2 of the pics on that site have been swiped from MY site...funny thing is...those are pics of gifts made for people close to me...and are STOHLMAN designs printed in books which are of course copyrighted...to the best of my knowledge, those designs are NOT suposed to be used on items to be sold for proffit...therefore i will contact my friend Jim Linnell and ask if Tandy is interested in taking action- considering that the pics are being presented as items available for sale~

thank you Leather Bum!!

[TwinOaks]

About the only thing I can think of to discourage pic stealing is to print lettering across it. Of course, with the right software, and 18.847509 seconds, the lettering can be removed too. I agree with Johanna, if an image displays, it's copyable.

[BradB]

Watermarks across the picture is quite effective, just make it translucent

[wolvenstien]

What Johanna said about grabbin pix is true. I have yet to find a pic I wanted to keep in my private collection that I could not get... and the scrips that disable right clicks are just irritating... go to the mouse settings and most of the scrips (or atleast a few years ago) you could change the button functions from right to left and there you go...

These days, they only thing that is effective is watermarking.... not just putting a site name or whatever across the pic (this in itself is effecting, but you cant track it) and adding a pixel to the pic that is loaded to your server. when the picture loads on someone elses page, your server logs the ip and any other info it can of where it was loaded from. They steal the pic, but the pic is embeded with the pixel. You can track them and do whatever you need to to get them to take you pic down.

I have read of a method that works somewhat the same just from a PC... if I "steal" one of your pix for my personal collection, every time I open the pic, it essentially "calls home" and I am logged by your server with my IP addy...

is this the belt that belongs to Mr. Main? I see the right lower side of the pic is kind of blacked out... and I know Mr. Main puts his signature on the lower right of all his pix he shares with us.....

[OutBackP]

You can't stop people stealing your images, but you can put a comment in them. When an image is taken or saved it adds information like camera used, date taken, camera settings etc.

I use the Gimp for editing my pictures and try to remember to add a comment in these settings like "copyright 2008 - A Peters"

You can do this by going to image properties.

It can of course be deleted but most people wouldn't think to check.

[Billy P]

I think that Peter's pictures were stolen from his web site. I do know that the people doing it were members of flasah, at least for a while and Peter asked them, in a public email to remove the picture that they stole from his web-site, from their web-site "theleatherartisan" that was on June 24, 2007. I don't think that it has been removed yet,but don't know. Billy P

[TwinOaks]

Despite whatever we might do, getting other country's Law Enforcement to get involved with the DMCA isn't always going to be easy. For terrorists, sure, it gives LEO's a place to start, but for stolen web pics? They'll smile, say 'we'll get right on it' and that's the end of it, unless there's some major money behind the complaint (Think Record Labels vs. Napster).

[Johanna]

The man we're talking about is registered here as Inam Malik, but he hasn't been active since Christmas. I remember the FLASAH thing, but I don't know how or if it was ever resolved.

Johanna

[Andy]

Jo,

Same guy...he is at it again. Spread the word!!

Andy

The man we're talking about is registered here as Inam Malik, but he hasn't been active since Christmas. I remember the FLASAH thing, but I don't know how or if it was ever resolved.

Johanna

[howardb]

Drop him like a bad habit...

[wolvenstien]

Howard, ever heard the saying, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer...?