Why would you steal someone elses design work?

M

mrleesimpson

Guest
Flicking through some websites of other local designers on Tuesday night I came across the site design of Stewart Whitman. When I saw the site I instantly recognised it as the work of another designer I know called Rik Catlow.

No when I say 'recognised it' I don't mean it was similar, I mean it was the exact same design! Exactly the same in everyway and what supprised me more is that the guy that stole it even left in the original links back to Rik's domain.

The funny thing is Stewart Whitman (or Lee Phillips as the site header says) is advertising him self as a 'freelance website design' amongst other things. He has got a few other sites kicking about claiming that he does various other things, development etc set up as 'companies'.

Rik is a super super talented designer, developer and artist, where as Stewart 'Lee Phillips' Whitman is obviously none of the above.

Here is the original: Rikcat Industries : The Portfolio of Rik Catlow
Here is the copy: Lee Phillips - Graphic Designer for logo designs in Newcastle Sunderland

What I don't understand is why would you blatantly steal someone elses design and expect that you could get away with it?

And why would you steal a design that specifically is well out of the league of your own actual work?


The strange thing is that this guy has a family and a business (assuming this is all he does) to protect and by doing this he risks exposing his self as a fraud.
 
I'm confused has he just copied the site or the work too as it doesn't look like there's any work there... but yeah the site is exactly the same.

What's weird his the front page "Don't steal you dick" with that dildo picture WTF??
 
That's ridiculous! But I see Rik got his own back!!! lol
Unbelievable that he even left the image links in too, has this guy come back to defend his site design in anyway?

A complete opposite of your post Lee, but funny timing... just a few days ago I was sent a message on Twitter by someone who'd seen another user hinting that this very forum, DF's design was stolen from another site! I contacted the user and site in question and they've since apologized and removed their tweet, it's incredibly annoying to find accusations when you've worked hard on a site design for months, through sketches, revisions, development, and to potentially have the whole site's reputation damaged.

Greg
 
tbwcf said:
What's weird his the front page "Don't steal you dick" with that dildo picture WTF??

Rik has changed that image on his site of factory.gif, as the guy who copied didn't even bother to change the images or the image links! and clearly he hasn't even noticed yet! :lol:
 
Greg said:
Rik has changed that image on his site of factory.gif, as the guy who copied didn't even bother to change the images or the image links! and clearly he hasn't even noticed yet! :lol:

Yer he did it to get back at him.
 
LOL I just clicked both the links.. i wonder if the other guy has noticed yet :p LOL
 
This is a prime example of someone who wants to design but is too lazy..so he decides to steal someone else's design. You can't call yourself a designer if you have to do something like that...it is pitiful.
 
although the guy who's site has been copied, got that other guy back pretty well/effectively, couldn't he of just added a .htaccess code in to stop hotlinking?
 
Haha, now that's embarassing.
On a side note, stealing someone's work is possibly the highest form of flattery.
 
Imagine how embarrassing it would be, though, to rip off a gorgeous portfolio design and then hand something more, ah, reflective of your true capabilities to a client. I mean, it doesn't seem like you can keep up the deception for too long...particularly as this sort of thing gets exposed pretty quickly. You can't hide anything on the internet.

Hotlinking was a pretty bad idea. =P
 
Lol I think that after 2 weeks he finally figured out that his feature post was actually featuring a dildo :p
 
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