Tutorials Ripper

[noxcel]

//mods, feel free to move this topic if it is in a wrong place, thanks

Hello,

Today, I found a website that rippes tutorials. http://www.lombergar.com , this person goes around tutorial sites and takes the tutorials that he likes, puts them into movie file and then takes credit for them. He ripped 2 of my tutorials, and one tutorial from one of the menbers of TutorialForums forum.

http://www.lombergar.com/v3/page.php?id=15 is a rip of
http://www.noxcel.com/tutorials/metal.htm
99.9% rip //he changed some minor things.

http://www.lombergar.com/v3/page.php?id=13 is ripped from
http://www.noxcel.com/tutorials/texture.htm [created by Fusion_racer]
100% rip, just look at the result

http://www.lombergar.com/v3/page.php?id=16 ripped from
http://www.noxcel.com/tutorials/sketch.htm
75% rip, he changed the picture, wow

I emailed this dude, asking to give me credit or take the tutorials down, here are some of the quotes from his email:

Domen Lombergar - "I am replying to your pms sent to me today accusing me of ripping your tutorials. How exactly can you prove you are the author of those? Or are you maybe ripping me and now trying to get me to remove mine? I mean wtf. I for one took some of the techniques out of experimentation, books and actions."

"out of experimentation" - as you will see below, his "experimentation" have the same values as in my tutorials. and about me ripping him, lol, I think these tuts are more than a year old, and his are what, 2 weeks old?

Domen Lombergar - "And what exactly do the metal tuts have in common? That they use layer styles? I see two different effect in the end. Or was "me ripping you" referring to the point that you came up with how to make metal text? Hello?"

Here I did some photoshoping to answer his question:
http://www.newtutorials.com/ripper.jpg
As you can see, everything is the same, steps, final result, the only thing
that he changed is some values[like I have 51, he puts 50 ]

Anyway, I think that all of his tutorials are ripped and if I will find the true authors of other tutorials, I will email them. I will not take any legal
actions againts him because of some tuts, but I will make sure that everyone will know that Domen Lombergar is a lame ripper.

Thank you for your time.

p.s. from his website: "All of the following tutorials were created and are copyrighted by Lombergar.com - reproduction, changing or distibution without the consent of the author is strictly prohibited ... and is really not a nice thing to do." what a loser.

p.s.2 I took some screenshots of the ripped tutorials, so that he can't change them and tell that I was wrong.

[Darkape]

i don't think that are all rips.
on the web there are 100 of semilar tutorials.

but when it is realy a tut made by yourself, contact him and say it.
tom

[Koobi]

Thread moved

[noxcel]

Originally posted by Darkape
i don't think that are all rips.
on the web there are 100 of semilar tutorials.

but when it is realy a tut made by yourself, contact him and say it.
tom

yea, maybe not all of them are ripps, but I am talking about the tuts that I did. They ARE ripped. The reason I am posting this is because I emailed him and got a rude reply.
thanks

[SoulScream]

Looks like a direct rip to me. And if I'm correct I heard he ripped some of those earlyer videotutorials from somewhere too.

Oh brother. Funny that you didn't include my whole mail ... so I'll do that instead.

Let's start off with me getting some pms that you are the "owner" of the tuts i made and that you demand deletion. So I wrote you a mail:

Greetings, Oleg.

I am replying to your pms sent to me today accusing me of ripping your tutorials. How exactly can you prove you are the author of those? Or are you maybe ripping me and now trying to get me to remove mine? I mean wtf. I for one took some of the techniques out of experimentation, books and actions. It's especially funny that you are accusing me of ripping simple techniques that:

- are seen on hundreds of sites (several webmasters told me that they found the idea from *my* tuts)
- were published in books (that were probably not written by you)
- were published as actions and layer styles in millions of variations

Two authors that really did create their tutorials and came up with some cool effects are properly credited.

And what exactly do the metal tuts have in common? That they use layer styles? I see two different effect in the end. Or was "me ripping you" referring to the point that you came up with how to make metal text? Hello?

I personally don't really care much if people take the ideas from my tutorials. Stumbled trough your site before ... saw the similar tutorials but never sent you an outraged mail. I actually sent you an email asking if you were interested in link exchanging (but never got any reply from you). Oh well...

Now if you were mentioning a rude reply from me, may I remind you of your reply:

Hello,

ahaha, ok buddy. I am the wrong person to rip from. I am kinda busy right now with the exams and all, but when I will find some free time I will come after you. I do not think that I will take any legal actions because of the ripped tutorials, but I will make sure that when people think about you and your site, they think about a lame ripper. I emailed and asked for some credit or removal of tutorials, but you want to make it ugly. The small thing that you will learn after this is that rippers never win.

One more qustion, does your host speak english?

Oh yea, I just saved your ripped tuts to my site, so no need to try and change them. lol

In the mail you are clearly threatening me, telling me that you saved the tutorials and put them on your site without any permission from me.

I fail to see where in your mail you show me that *you* are the author of the so-called-ripped tutorials or that you ask me that you want credit (you demanded immediate removal). Please do you mind sharing this with me and the rest of the people here?

If not who the hell gives *you* the right to accuse *me* of ripping the tutorials on noxcell and not vise versa? Huh?

With regards,

Domen Lombergar
Lombergar.com

[noxcel]

Well, I kinda have the right to be rude, because YOU ripped my tutorials. About prving that tutorials are mine, you can read my first post of this topic.
thanks

Domen Lombergar, are you saying that you did not rip the tutorials? Comon, they are ripped step by step, value by value, color by color. I am asking you to remove MY tutorials and about others, you will get email from their true authors.

p.s. "In the mail you are clearly threatening me, telling me that you saved the tutorials and put them on your site without any permission from me." - I was going to say harddrive, not website.

I fail to see where the hell you prove that *you* are the author of the tutorials. Where? I fail to see it. Just because you started this thread an saying that I RIPPED YOU (and not vice versa) doesn't now automaticly make you the author. Is a simple proof too hard to come up with, huh?

Other than that you could just be somebody that ripped me and now trying to get my site a bad word. Is proving so difficult?

As I said in the email (for all those who want to know we are having an email discussion also) I am waiting for some solid proof. If there isn't any your words here are without meaning and your actions would be pretty low.

Oh one other thing. I am the one running a non-profit site and do not have like a zillion ads on it like google and mediaclick. Ppl that read this might find it interesting to know...

[digitalmind]

First off, let's see if we can get a timestamp.
Noxcel, see if you can find the tutorials on your harddisk, rightclick, properties, and see wich date you have for last change. Lombi, do so aswell. That should be able to rule out one option of Noxcel ripping Lombi.

I can see Lombi's point, Noxcel, there really is hard proof needed to prove that you are the author of those tutorials, otherwise it's just his words against yours, wich will eventually lead nowhere. (No, I'm not taking any sides here)

[noxcel]

Originally posted by lombi
I fail to see where the hell you prove that *you* are the author of the tutorials. Where? I fail to see it. Just because you started this thread an saying that I RIPPED YOU (and not vice versa) doesn't now automaticly make you the author. Is a simple proof too hard to come up with, huh?

Other than that you could just be somebody that ripped me and now trying to get my site a bad word. Is proving so difficult?

As I said in the email (for all those who want to know we are having an email discussion also) I am waiting for some solid proof. If there isn't any your words here are without meaning and your actions would be pretty low.

Oh one other thing. I am the one running a non-profit site and do not have like a zillion ads on it like google and mediaclick. Ppl that read this might find it interesting to know...

Just because my site actually gets some visitors, and I run ads to support it, it gives you the right to rip my tutorials? About the proving that I wrote the tuts is not hard. See the screenshot that I made and it will prove that the tuts are the same. How old is your site? My tuts that you ripped are more than a year old, everyone knows that I wrote them because back then, when I was just starting out, I was starting a new topic everytime I wrote a new tut. I do not know if you can check the creation date in a psd file, but if you can, my date will be a lot earlier than yours. Thats all the proof that I need, i need to go now, will reply to your reply when I get back...

[digitalmind]

Originally posted by noxcel
About the proving that I wrote the tuts is not hard. See the screenshot that I made and it will prove that the tuts are the same. How old is your site? My tuts that you ripped are more than a year old, everyone knows that I wrote them because back then, when I was just starting out

That screenshot doesn't prove who ripped who. And "everyone knows" also isn't hard evidence. Try to get the timestamp, with a screenshot. You get that, you can atleast prove that yours we're created before his.

I'm not defending Lombi here, just trying to get this thing solved

Originally posted by noxcel
Just because my site actually gets some visitors, and I run ads to support it, it gives you the right to rip my tutorials? About the proving that I wrote the tuts is not hard. See the screenshot that I made and it will prove that the tuts are the same. How old is your site? My tuts that you ripped are more than a year old, everyone knows that I wrote them because back then, when I was just starting out, I was starting a new topic everytime I wrote a new tut. I do not know if you can check the creation date in a psd file, but if you can, my date will be a lot earlier than yours. Thats all the proof that I need, i need to go now, will reply to your reply when I get back...

Well I'm not running a 1-hit site either you know. imho putting ads on personal sites is highly unprofessional. But that's just my 2 cents, oppinions differ from person to person.

Funny thing though ... i'm currently running my personal portfolio at a daily visit of a minimum 1k unique (2056 today, record at 3240 unique on march 7th) and got a number of mails that i should check out your site (amongst others) because you have similar shit, but I didn't report you, cause I don't really give a damn what you do. Post doggie porn and casino ads for all i care.

You can check the creation date of psd files, but you can very easily fake it so that's really not proof of anything. It may proove something to you (why on earth you?) but you were asked to prove your accusations.

And once again ... if you can't prove me and the people that are reading this, than what you did (accusing me of ripping) is truly low.

[noxcel]

Originally posted by digitalmind
First off, let's see if we can get a timestamp.
Noxcel, see if you can find the tutorials on your harddisk, rightclick, properties, and see wich date you have for last change. Lombi, do so aswell. That should be able to rule out one option of Noxcel ripping Lombi.

I can see Lombi's point, Noxcel, there really is hard proof needed to prove that you are the author of those tutorials, otherwise it's just his words against yours, wich will eventually lead nowhere. (No, I'm not taking any sides here)

I will look at the file when I get home, but here is some proof for now.

http://www.good-tutorials.com/author/noxcel.com
April 03, 2003 - Metal Text Tutorial - noxcel.com

- I posted this tut at good-tutorials more than a year ago, and it was on my site long before that.

from his site, "Tutorials ~ 10: Metal Text
Created by Lombi on 23.12." - no year, but I am sure that it is not 2002 LOL.

I do not think that I need to prove anything more.......

and I also will try to find the file, but I do not know if I have it on this PC, will need to look in my old one.

Any legal actions I can take against him for ripping tutorials?
thanks

[Yaniv]

lombi, I remember a post a while ago about you having a tutorial very similar to a tutorial made by one of our users - Monk, am I right?
I remember your claims that is was not a rip. The discussion was very long and was decided to be denied due to lack of evidence.

[billynomates]

Hi,

This is an interesting problem in terms of legality and ownership...

i am an indutrial designer so have a fair bit of experience with patents, copyrights etc...

the way it works is that once your work is in the public domain unprotected be it images or desings, whatever...you FORFIT the possibility of later claiming ownership of that article...

hence unless you put a copyright on your original tutorial images when they went on the web, lombi is entitled to duplicate them. the moral side of it apart, it is not illegal for him to do so....

also since you are using software with finite variations, it would be simple to argue that lombi simply used the same combination of settings to produce the exact same effect...

my advice to you would be to in future put a copyrigth symbol and the year on every image in your tutorial files, because as it stands i dont think you have any proof what was done when...

i can 99.9% say no court would accept the date given in the property section of a file as evidence, but a simple copyright symbol goes a long way...

im afraid intellectual property on the web is incredibly difficult to protect! EVERYONE should copyright their sites, even taking a copyrighted image and modifying it slightly as lombi would have been doing is ILLEGAL...

i hope this helps a bit

Billy