Mike, I'm pretty sure the copyright at the bottom saying "Designed by Audentio Design" might be a dead giveaway as to who designed it
might just be just me XD
(2012-11-15, 12:10 AM)FullMetalBabe Wrote: [ -> ]Mike, I'm pretty sure the copyright at the bottom saying "Designed by Audentio Design" might be a dead giveaway as to who designed it might just be just me XD
No you are right.
I edited my post. No harm no foul.
(2012-11-15, 12:05 AM)Audentio Wrote: [ -> ]We do. And like I said we only design for individual use. He can sell the theme so long as our license holds. I can sell a vBulletin license so long as whoever I'm selling to agrees to their terms, for example, otherwise the company providing the license has no reason to offer support or hold to the original agreement. Same thing here.
In general, I'd be careful with Digital Point and other cheap template sales. But yes it might be the client that purchased it from us that is trying to sell it. They only have the rights to sell it, copyright in tact, for individual use. If whoever now "owns" the product were to break our license, the license between Audentio Design and the product itself is null and void so to speak. In other words, we would reclaim ownership of the product and use it how we see fit.
But of course I can see this is a misunderstanding. So no harm done. When you purchase in the future, make sure the product in question has reseller rights.
ETA: It does say that they have reseller rights on DP, but they didn't. These are easy mistakes to make, no one can blame you for not knowing who the designer of every skin is
Right, I think I understand. It seemed like a good venture to go arond picking up old custom themes and touching them up then reselling them, but obviously if rules are being broken in doing so I will make sure not to make the same mistake again.
So where do we stand on this theme? I mean I would completely understand if you want me to remove it from my product line, I would of course have to file a paypal chargeback to the seller though, as what I did might have been a mistake but I don't think I deserve to lose my money because of it.
But thanks for being so understanding as always Mike
I thought it was implied. But in case it wasn't, no you cannot sell this theme as per our terms. If you decide to sell it, we might sell it ourselves on our shop
. We rarely every offer full reseller rights on work we do (partial comes with every product we do). I've done it like twice actually, and I charge more for the work.
Like I said, the customer that bought the product can sell the theme for a thousand dollars if they want. But the license, like art or code, is bound to us forever unless someone buys reseller rights from us.
More specifically, fancyCollapse (the forum toggle) and editors we make are strictly for use on our products only.
Sure fair enough. I will message the person who sold it me, and point him to this thread and hopefully he will refund me with no quibbles.
Ok, speaking to him on Skype he said the following:
"Oh my that is a problem! However I can assure you that I have purchased the resale rights from the designer in regards to the theme, if you would like I can get an official invoice from the designer to verify this if you need it as well as copyright removal"
Mike can you not verify whether he is speaking the truth or not?
(2012-11-14, 11:55 PM)WebOutfit Wrote: [ -> ] (2012-11-14, 11:37 PM)Californian Wrote: [ -> ]Parts of the theme strongly remind me of Audentio's portfolio example Wii Forums.
Direct link to portfolio example
I knew it! I knew I saw this in one of Audentio's themes but I just couldn't figure it out.
adding to it: http://community.mybb.com/thread-129383-...#pid938106 -- some name you've made for yourself.
Making a forum theme based of some of paypals elements is allowed...
The most well known IPB skin shop used to have a theme called justlikeitunes, and justlikephotoshop, which were just replicas of the programs. So why not justlikepaypal? You pointing out where ive got my inspiration and then assuming that somehow means I've commited a serious crime is just childish. You need to wake up to the real world. Companys steal other companies ideas all the time. So what if I took an idea from another website? Facebook and google do it all the time, and look where they ended up. Not to say that im stealing anything, as ive already said im allowed to make a forum theme which looks like the paypal website.
(2012-11-15, 12:29 AM)ESR360 Wrote: [ -> ]Sure fair enough. I will message the person who sold it me, and point him to this thread and hopefully he will refund me with no quibbles.
Ok, speaking to him on Skype he said the following:
"Oh my that is a problem! However I can assure you that I have purchased the resale rights from the designer in regards to the theme, if you would like I can get an official invoice from the designer to verify this if you need it as well as copyright removal"
Mike can you not verify whether he is speaking the truth or not?
(2012-11-14, 11:55 PM)WebOutfit Wrote: [ -> ] (2012-11-14, 11:37 PM)Californian Wrote: [ -> ]Parts of the theme strongly remind me of Audentio's portfolio example Wii Forums.
Direct link to portfolio example
I knew it! I knew I saw this in one of Audentio's themes but I just couldn't figure it out.
adding to it: http://community.mybb.com/thread-129383-...#pid938106 -- some name you've made for yourself.
Making a forum theme based of some of paypals elements is allowed...
The most well known IPB skin shop used to have a theme called justlikeitunes, and justlikephotoshop, which were just replicas of the programs. So why not justlikepaypal? You pointing out where ive got my inspiration and then assuming that somehow means I've commited a serious crime is just childish. You need to wake up to the real world. Companys steal other companies ideas all the time. So what if I took an idea from another website? Facebook and google do it all the time, and look where they ended up. Not to say that im stealing anything, as ive already said im allowed to make a forum theme which looks like the paypal website.
The fact that it was blatantly obvious to me and it was recognized within a few seconds is bad. Why don't you try being original? Then maybe you'll get some clients. All you've brought to the table so far was PayPal resized with rounded corners, themes from your previous studio, and a theme that you haven't even designed your self!
Tell me how it makes sense that you making a 'justlikepaypal' theme 'justliketheydid' is a good idea?
Again, I will verify that this is false. We do NOT offer full resale rights on our themes. We offer copyright removal and that is all.
(2012-11-15, 12:29 AM)ESR360 Wrote: [ -> ]Making a forum theme based of some of paypals elements is allowed...
The most well known IPB skin shop used to have a theme called justlikeitunes, and justlikephotoshop, which were just replicas of the programs. So why not justlikepaypal? You pointing out where ive got my inspiration and then assuming that somehow means I've commited a serious crime is just childish. You need to wake up to the real world. Companys steal other companies ideas all the time. So what if I took an idea from another website? Facebook and google do it all the time, and look where they ended up. Not to say that im stealing anything, as ive already said im allowed to make a forum theme which looks like the paypal website.
Pointing the finger at "real world realities" isn't going to help. You need to understand that you've gambled with a product that you didn't design entirely yourself and now your vendor's entity has been dented by reputation.
Part of why I purchase themes from Audentio is the fact that they have a very good reputation. They earn my hard earned money, it becomes a win-win situation. Plus I love a vendor who enforces their policies against counterfeiting, manipulation, and failing to maintain author crediting unless a license was purchased.
If you want to survive the market world of designing digital products ethically, then I'd advise you to only release designs from scratch.
Ok theme removed from my shop, cleared it up with the person I bought the theme from, just waiting for a refund.
I feel like I have to clear my name here as it's quite obvious from the replies that for some reason I am the bad guy in this situation, when I am the victim. You need to see this from my side.
The first thing I would like to point at that as I run a Business. I may just be a student operating a website from my apartment but that's irrelevant. Businesses by each other out and their products all the time. The most recent example I can thik of is Disney buying the rights to Star Wars. As far as I'm concerned this is no different from me buying the rights to a foum theme. There is nothing illegal or immoral about selling something you own the copyright to even if you didn't make it yourself. This situation was just unfortunate in that I was mis informed. No one tried to deceive or trick any one, which is what I feel a lot of you think. I definitely did NOT steal Audentio's design and try to pass it off as my own, even if they were the original author. I spent my own money and all night working on the Ski Blu theme, whether you agree or not I deserve some credit for that.
Now that that is cleared up I'd like to end by saying I will never do something I geninely believe to be unfair. I have my own beliefs and I stick by them. They might differ from yours, and I might sometimes take the easy way out or try to turn situations to my advantage but I'm not a criminal, I'm just a business man (I know same difference right?).
Please can this thread be locked/removed?
Also Mike, just so this doesn't happen again in the future to anyone else, if it isn't already clear on your website please MAKE SURE your clients know that they do not own the copyright to your custom designs, as this is by no means the first time I've seen someone selling their old custom skin, and if it wasn't clear to the guy who sold this to me it might be be clear to your other clients.
And Californian, there was no "Gamble". You are implying I have somethign to feel guilty about or there is somethig worth "Gambling" with. The only thing I gambled on was whether or nor I was being told the truth when I was told I had re-sale rights. The fact that I did not design it is completely irrelevant and I don't understand why all you people are so shocked by this when I even said I didn't design it. I can't be blamed for the assumptions this community makes. It's great you're a loyal customer, but don't misconstrue a business' efforts of covering their own lime as anything more. The way I see it, some poor guy has paid hundereds for a custom theme which he was under the impression he owned legally (and quite rightly, I mean he said he paid $350 which is a lot of money), only to find out that due to legal terms and cinditions he cannot even re-sell his own custom skin he paid so much for, because technically the guys who designed it still own it. To me that's just selfish, and I don't see how you, as a customer, would support this. But from a business perspective it makes complete sense, and I respect Mike and Audentio for enforcing it, it's how businesses get ahead. As you said win-win situations can occur, customer loyalty is extremely important, but just make sure you understand that sometimes the "I'm in a crazy mood and slashing all my prices in half so you can enjoy cheaper products" approach from any business normally means "My products aren't selling and my marketing team has informed me in order to increase profits we need to temporerily lowre prices". Forgive me for being so blunt but I'm a realist and I'm not afraid to say it how it is. If a business says they are doing something for you, in all likelyhood it's probably for them, despite the relationship being symbiotic.
Thanks.
We don't own it, we have licenses that bind our services to it though. He can sell it to whomever he wants for however much he wants. But we hold an agreement with each theme that allows us to offer support for the lifetime of the product. I wouldn't call that ownership, I'd call that enforcing that our quality is kept up. If you don't require support, you don't want anything to do with us, you can try to purchase a reseller license which is just a fancy way of saying that you do not want us to be able to:
--show the product in our portfolio
--include a copyright in the footer, regardless of our copyright removal license
--use the product on unlimited sites (which we don't care about if its custom)
--support you if you need help
In general, under almost no circumstances, would we ever want or allow someone to take our code and resell it. Now if he had purchased reseller rights from us, he would've had to talk to us directly, and we would have told him most likely that it would've been okay so long as he does not include products of ours which will never have reseller rights such as our MyBB editor, our ranks, our fancyCollapse jQuery modification, etc. There would be shades of gray, which we generally just want to avoid altogether. But if someone really likes something we did and wants to resell it, I suppose we will work with them so that they can. It just opens a whole can of worms such as this, with people claiming that they recognize our work, license issues, etc.
And lets be clear on our
terms of service, which I've added one clause (second to last) to. We purposefully made this easy to read. And while perhaps we could make it more specific and more inclusive, that just makes people not want to read it amongst other things. So we have this list which does have some shades of gray. If there are questions, please direct them to our contact form or our ticket system.