Viope online course
Copy and paste…
I am in the middle of writing this tutorial series and pass my experience and knowledge FOR FREE. Suddenly, I get an email from one of the blog readers telling me about a course offered on 2d game design and art using Inkscape:
The “TRY FOR FREE” section offers more lessons that are just copies of my blog entries.
They charge 129 EUR for the complete course.
(Thanks for the find Oron.)
I am more than just a little pissed off right now. Viope contacted me last year to create this course for them but we couldn’t agree on a price for my services.
Now one of the readers of this blog took my articles, added a few dots here and there, changed some colours and sells it off as his own. Thank you!
I am no lawyer and I am not sure what I can do to stop this from happening but it puts a huge damper on my motivation to continue.
Being screwed over by people obviously knowing how to make money off my work sucks. It’s something I have not figured out yet.
They are on twitter and facebook. Hunt them down there together with your following!
I already contacted my lawyer to see what can be done. Finnland is not out of reach and they are a proper company. I hope there is a way to get the course removed quickly but it's frustrating nevertheless.
Good luck Chris. I believe it's the ransom of success. Think about all the readers who don't try to screw you. ;)
These things will happen as long as people don’t get an unconditional basic income, unfortunately.
I put a message on their facebook, now they've taken the course down. Easy as that, probably only one person in the company who believed this was a good move, or someone who sold the course to this company..
LOL, there are plenty of good arguments for basic income and against capitalism, but this isn't one of them… Please fight this war with sanity.
Issue a cease and desist. If they don't remove it than you can proceed further. At this point it may not be enough to be worth taking to court with. Sorry Chris some people are greedy off others works. But that's because your work stands out. A compliment and a curse in one.
hope this gets sorted Chris, and you continue these intuitive courses to help noobies like myself ,as ive learned a great deal from them, all ways in life someone got to spoil it for the rest of us and in this case your hard work,hope they get the message and see sense.
I check it now, the course was removed
I contacted viope and they took the course of to clarify the situation. I will get their reply by Tuesday. Let's see what they come up with.
Report them to Google get the blog site banned from the Google search that will really f him up
Maybe you could do an agreement with them instead? What about an official course over there using your art?
PS: Love the site, and can't put a price on the effort you make to help people!
You welcome mate.
Even it pissed you off, I'm glad this was exposed in your blog because now your readers can put some pressure on Viope too.
Thanks again for spotting it… I asked for it's removal and also for the video on youtube to be taken down… I should hear back from them early next week… and by then the good mood should be back as well. :)
I asked an insulting question as a review on their FB page. Reviews don't go away ;-)
The course probably had readers. Ask them to give you a share of the profits instead of just taking it down, since the content is actually yours. And maybe also to review the other courses from the same author (they're probably copied as well).
I Hope this story will end fine for you Chris, even if I can understand your moods. There should be some kind of copyright/license on your work to prevents/discourages that kind of actions. Anyway regarding your concern about making money from your work, have you ever thought to write a book? I don't know if it is a good idea or not but what I know is that I would buy it and maybe other blog followers would do the same. Check out this site https://www.packtpub.com/ , I use it to buy a lot of good books (pdf) at reasonable price. It would be great to have all your tutorials grouped in a well organised book, sometimes is very difficult to lookup a particular tutorial on your blog site.
+1 to Anonymous above, these days, it seems that a simple public message is more efficient and less expensive than contacting a lawyer ;)
Please Chris, don't loose motivation to continue, this blog is awesome !
On a side note, I've discovered your work from the authorized (I hope) french translation of yours tutorials (https://jeux.developpez.com/tutoriels/graphisme-2d-programmeurs/)
@Pat… It will take more than that to stop me from having fun writing tutorials. :) I was down for a bit and it made me wonder why I am doing it in the first place – it's the fun I have and the readers that truly appreciate my ramblings. ;)
Yes. The moderators of the developpez.com site asked me if they could translate my tutorials for their French audience.
Hi Chris. You have to weigh the cost/benefit of hiring a lawyer. Find out how much a lawyer will charge you to send the blog owner a cease and desist letter. This will inform them that they they have a certain amount of time to pull down the copy righted material and if they don't, they will get slapped with suit. The lawyer will probably charge you for the initial cease and desist. If the blog owner is smart, he will pull down the material. If they aren't, your lawyer will be happy to take them to court for you.
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Your art was better than theirs anyways… ;)
Keep up the good work!
Hi Chris, I hope you have received a satisfactory resolution to this issue. It is pretty sad when out right theft like this happens.
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Copying is the ultimate form of flattery. Keep up the good work Chris. I often refer to your blog for inspiration. I only wish that I found it as easy as you. Very talented.
Regards.
Hey Chris, I love your tutorials and I would also like to write tutorials for inkscape though I learnt them primarily from u :P, But now I got pretty good at it so can I help u create some tutorials ,if so let me know :)