Well there mods are talking to me saying the same thing over and over giving me the run around, in my eyes refusing to do any thing. Saying how it's not being sold, soooo.... That's why to me it's basically already escalated. If you have already reported them to all of them then that's allot more then I have done. I was still on the giving them time.. I contacted appropriate channels at the sites that sell our work legally, Ill just wait and see if they have better luck. Can you do me a sold Dave and screen grab my stuff too? Links are on the P5 forum. I can't see straight I need sleep! Hit me up via email though, I'm done here!

As before, not speaking for Stardock.

The mods have to confirm that what you say is actually true.  You could be claiming copyrights on other peoples work too.  Usually this would be handled via a DMCA takedown request in the US as that means you are legally stating the works in question are your own (with legal liabilities if it is not the case) and it also offers the other party the ability to disagree and get the works put back up, but in return they open themselves up to lawsuits.

As I mentioned earlier, your posts have come outside work hours (9am to 5pm EST).  Your first post appears to be after 6pm Thursday which is why nothing will happen until after 9am EST when the paid employees of Stardock get into the office.  The internet may be a global thing, but the staff who actually run the site do not work 24 hours a day - not yet at least!

You can be sure that copyrights are taken very seriously around here.  For many of us thats how we earn our living and we all know the pain of discovering someone is giving your work away for free.  If you look around the forums you will see just such a thread from last week where a pirate site (outside the US so impossible to take down) was giving away premium content developed by some of the artists here.  In this case nobody was aware that the uploader was not the copyright holder.

Thanks Neil.  I'm pretty sure Brian doesn't realize that the people he's conversing through on the forum are not actually from WC or Stardock, although they might claim to be.

FWIW, there is not a clearly defined procedure on the WC web site for reporting copyright violations.  Many sites provide a "report this" link on each item's page.  I ended up sending my list to the general contact email for the site, which I hope is correct.

weird thread, where's the other post?

anyway, looking at profiles, dnavarrojr, radek_pl and EternalSpline all created memberships within 24 hours of each other and here they are, seemingly in collusion, making similar noises.

hmmm..........?

Hi,

We take copyright violation very seriously here.  I'm just getting in the office this morning and will take care of all violations immediately.  

Let me also note that when someone uploads a work to WinCustomize, the responsibility lies with the uploader to comply with the site upload guidelines and policies.

https://www.wincustomize.com/upload-guidelines

The uploads on the site are not owned by Stardock or WinCustomize unless otherwise stated.

https://www.wincustomize.com/terms-of-service

CONTENT SUBMITTED WinCustomize.com/Stardock does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your WinCustomize.com Site. Stardock may quote, redistribute or reproduce in whole or part of your Content (if you have made it public) in order to promote your WinCustomize.com site and/or the WinCustomize.com service, but only on a fair-use-type basis. By using this site, you agree to the following:

All Content uploaded onto this site must be original material created by you. By uploading any Content to this site, contributors are automatically assumed to be the creator and owner of the Content. You may not upload Content created by another person or taken from another source such as another website, etc, without express written permission from copyright owner. Copyright violation could result in account cancellation and in possible criminal prosecution.

By uploading content, you agree to accept the responsibility of supporting your upload. Stardock, under no circumstances, will not be responsible for the support of your upload, nor will Stardock provide support for any upload not produced directly by Stardock.

You can contact me via sscott [at] stardock.com as well.

We all found out about the theft of our copyrighted material yesterday from a member here who posted the information on an artist related web site.  So, here we all are to defend our rights...  What's so strange about that?

Thanks Island Dog.  I submitted my claim to the generic address on the web site, should I resend it to you directly or will you get it otherwise?

I have received one e-mail about "Flower Power".  Any other works please send me the names/links and I will have them taken care of.

I emailed you directly with some links.  I can build a comprehensive links of all products, if that's necessary (or are you just going to disable the guy's account?).  I included links to my portfolio on the primary site where I sell my works.

Also, might I suggest that you add an option to your web site for direct reporting to make the process less confusing?  Perhaps that would prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Issues of copyright abuse/violation are required to be taken up directly with The Administrators and/or Moderators of Wincustomize.com IN PRIVATE.

Public accusation is often erroneous and can lead to issues of libel, hence all communication is to be kept out of the public domain.

When someone finds his/her works unlawfully on this site [just as with any other site] the very first information that is required in order to resolve the situation is actual clarity of THREE things.

1.  The claimed unlawfully used item/s in question [link].

2. The claimed original artists' work [link]

3. Terms of use of the source site of the author's distribution [link].

Without any one of those items it is painfully obvious that no action can be taken.

On [private] receipt of all three of those 'items' action can be taken, and will be.

No-one is being given a run-around.  It is simple reality that without a target or a source just saying 'User A has pinched my stuff....take it down" means absolutely nothing...in reality or in Law.

What stuff?  Where? From whom?  How was the 'stuff' obtained?  How has its specific use violated your IP - relative to the source site?

The Wincustomize Admins/Mods are good...but they are not magicians.

The royalty-free license on that site really should be more clear.  The .dreams on this site are not being sold which seems to be what is restricted.

http://www.pond5.com/index.php?page=legal&agr=rfla

dnavarrojr ....that's been on the 'to do' list for a while, now.  It is often found handy on Deviantart.com ....

Island Dog i`ve sent you email with links

Um, since when do I relinquish my rights whether or not my property is being sold?  By giving away my property he is interfering with my business and by accepting money for better access WinCustomize is profiting on the distribution of my property.

Also, this is from YOUR OWN Upload Guidelines:

Ripping/Art Theft

Also to be referred to as copyright theft. No uploads containing in part or in totality another artist's work will be accepted without a written authorization from the original author.  Permissions for use must be included in a .zip file with your upload.  Repeated offenses can result in removal of uploading privelages.

Copyrights/Trademarks

Images taken from other sources cannot be accepted without permission, including but not limited to pictures taken from movies, television shows, games, web sites, magazines, celebrity pictures. However, although they are theoretically also copyrighted, we will be lenient concerning corporate logos and OS ports, unless we are approached by the companies and asked to remove them. An exception: sports logos. Sport organization make money selling the right to use their logos and explicitly forbid the distribution of art containing their logo unless a license is purchased.

According your your guidelines the submitter needs to provide you with WRITTEN PERMISSION to use my property.  I assure you, if he did, it's a forgery.

And if I actually have to get a lawyer involved in this, I not going to settle for just removal of my property. I going after monetary damages.  This is my livelihood we're talking here and I take it VERY seriously.

As do we.

It is patently unfortunate that Pond5's TOU is so unclear and makes no apparent reference or inclusion for media such as 'dream' files which may or may not be considered inclusive within that 'royalty free' licence.

Were there a clause defining recurrent/looping animations used as desktop wallpapers [dreams] and/or 'screensavers' as allowed [or prohibited]then there would be no confusion and/or claimed breach [or otherwise].

No-one from Pond5 has yet clarified the mechanism their site provides for the purchase and subsequent legal use/distribution of [their] Uploaders' Intellectual Property.

Today is [our] first notification of a potential/perceived issue with Pond5's distributable product, however action has already been taken for its resolution...

Some of my items are still in his account, but I'll wait another hour before I email Spencer about them. 

I am curious as to what the threshold is for removing an account.  There are at least another 40+ products with footage from other artists still in his account (stuff that I recognize and found the originals on Pond5, ShutterStock and or Istock).  I've emailed all of the artists whose stuff I recognize, so I'm sure you'll wait until they contact you directly.  But at what point do you realize this guy is a thief and remove everything...?

Once an item is removed, it can take a bit for it to propagate through the system.  

Okay, thanks Spencer, I'll wait.

They also might be stuck in your browser cache too, so deleting that helps too.  Either way, they are removed.

Alright, I found a bug...

When I use your search engine to locate one of my items, it does not show up.  Great!  When I browse the offenders profile, it no longer shows up. Woohoo!

When I go to the direct link I saved in my bookmarks, it's still there and can still be downloaded.  And when I search Google for that particular file, I find the direct link which takes me right to the supposedly deleted file and lets me download it.  The same goes for all of my items that were removed.  They don't appear when you search on the site or browse for them.  But if you know the product URL it's still valid and the file can still be downloaded.