

How Email On Acid stole our work - f4stjack
http://stampready.net/blog/digital-theft/index.html

======
Xylakant
I'm not going to comment on wether I believe the infringement claim or not,
but let's have a look at the way they calculate damage - it's the same way the
music companies calculate damages for illegal downloading: They take a number
with questionable origin (27 commenters), multiply it by a factor that appears
from thin air (assume 1 of 50 downloaders commented) and then pretend that
everyone of these would have bought the template and next thing assume that's
the low-ball figure. Given that per their own claim the template sold 361
times in half a year I find it hard to believe that there was a sudden rush of
I-Must-Have-This-Template.

This "I'll just conjure a number" method of claiming inflated damages just
ruins the credibility of the whole post for me.

~~~
whatshisface
When a big emotional upset is involved, it is important to separate the faulty
math from the real evidence. They could claim millions of dollars in loss and
it still wouldn't change the fact that they were stolen from.

~~~
svenkatesh
So would you agree that the exorbitant losses the media industries claim is
excusable, since their IP is also being stolen?

EDIT: I apologize for going against the popular opinion on HN.

~~~
chc
Two conclusions you could have come to here:

A. "Ah, I've brought up a politically charged tangent and people are
downvoting to keep the discussion on topic"

B. "I'm a martyr to the HN hivemind!"

Yeah, definitely the second one.

------
rickdale
In your account, the funniest part is when the people from emailonacid explain
to you that they have developed this theme with "tricks" that they have
learned.

The only trick they are learning is borrowing other peoples code. In their
minds they have done enough to change the content so it is not plagiarized or
stolen. Seems like their definition of original is copy and paste into a blank
text editor and then change the content. I think to them, they haven't copied
you at all.

I am interested in these stories because for me anytime I build a website I do
it based on the design from another website or two that I like. Usually I do
copy some amount of code, but it has helped me to learn a crap ton about web
development and design. With that said I have come across parts of javascript
that will check what site is running it. It's interesting, but looks like you
need to do a little more safe guarding.

------
Blahah
This is a case of potential piracy, but it isn't theft. And it isn't 'over
$20,000'. If would have been over $20,000 if the number of downloaders that
the author _guessed_ downloaded the pirated version would have definitely been
going to pay for the paid version, but of course that's not true. Call it what
it is, and by all means get mad about it, but don't call someone a thief when
they're at worst a pirate and don't pretend pirated downloads equate to lost
sales.

~~~
zeidrich
That would be the case if stampready were selling it and emailonacid were
giving it away for free.

Instead, Stamp Ready is a mac app which sells for about $30. Emailonacid is a
subscription based service that goes for free to $70/month.

Neither simply offer the theme on its own. Both require some sort of purchase
or subscription at which point the theme is made available.

That said, I agree that it can't really be considered lost sales. If I wanted
to use StampReady I can't in general because I don't have easy access to a
Mac, and the only build they have is a mac app.

Likewise, without this blog post, there is no way for me to know that either
stampready or emailonacid host that theme. Neither of them advertise it on
their site. I wouldn't ever choose one over the other because of the existence
of that theme; I don't even know it's there until I've already got a
subscription to one of them. In that way it's even more ephemeral.

I mean, sure, there is IP theft going on, but the actual impact is really hard
to gauge. You're not losing customers; you're not losing sales. You're
providing the other company with some marginal perceived value that they
didn't have to put the same effort into building.

However, the most ironic thing about this is: without your blog post, I didn't
know about emailonacid. It's actually a service that I haven't investigated
and looks like it can solve some issues I've had with other mailing services.
I can't make user of StampReady as I said because of the limitations of being
a mac app.

I can't say I'm going to use emailonacid, but you've definitely increased my
awareness of the brand, and provided an amount of free advertising that I
would have never got before. I've hunted around their site looking for
evidence of that theme and actually got a bunch of information about them.

If this was a ploy to advertise for them, then it worked very well. If not,
then I think it was very counterproductive.

~~~
gojomo
The claimed original work sells as a template separately from the (optional,
Mac-only) StampReady app.

------
skore
This article reinforces my opinion that the business of selling templates is a
foolish one.

1\. The price for templates has been diluted to comical levels.

2\. Site design is an integral part that needs proper investment. Clients who
invest a double digit budget into the design of their website are clients that
you really, really don't want.

3\. In most cases, templates are used as a start - since most websites need
customization, the templates your sell will quickly become different from what
you sold.

4\. Likewise, if you pay 20 bucks for a template and then modify it to your
site, the quality of the result is often about as good as if you had taken a
free one and modified that.

5\. The only good business models I've seen around templates are the sites who
try to use the "buy in cheaply" model to get clients to something more
sensible - where the provider ends up becoming a go-to cornerstone for design.

All this creates a thievish market that is bound to produce exactly the kind
of situation we've read about in this blog post: Some people are douchebags
who steal, some people are douchebags who whine about it in public.

Sorry, no sympathy. Not a reasonable market. If you set up shop in a hornets
nest, expect to get stung.

~~~
radley
That's far from true. Many end-users don't need to make significant changes.
We've used a few themes successfully.

As an Android App developer, we don't even need a website - we just keep one
up for our blog and basic product info. 90% of our communication goes through
our apps & Gmail.

~~~
skore
> That's far from true. Many

That appears to be a contradiction.

Furthermore: I'm a developer for software that is mostly used by people making
their own website or by service providers who use software like mine and
templates to build websites for clients. So I think the impression I got out
of that is a little more precise than your N=1 impression.

~~~
radley
Or I could just look at the site. One theme sold > 22k copies:

[http://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-
th...](http://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-
theme/2833226)

You saying 22k-1 were all changed by service providers? Unlikely.

~~~
skore
Well, I suppose I should quote the page you linked to:

> 23 Layered PSD’s for customization

I guess at 22k copies, they probably have a good reason to include those.

Actually, I can make a pretty good (and I think, educated) guess at what that
reason is: Because people have been bugging them about including psd's day in
and day out. Trust me, it is very, very rare that I see an untouched template.

------
pvnick
Some damning evidence you've shown. One small suggestion I would make is to
compare the md5 hashes of the images. Obviously they appear to be the same as
per the evidence you've shown, but I would see that as extra convincing.

I see only a handful of people have pressed the tweet button. Hopefully the
front page of hacker news is a welcome bit of exposure that you weren't
expecting ;)

Now the question is: Will email on acid man up? Or should you lawyer up?

~~~
MichaelGG
If emailonacid's explanation is correct, they were "inspired" and wrote their
own HTML and CSS. They could have easily designed the same image.

Given the pixel dimensions of a triangle, and the same software, should we
expect the antialiasing or JPEG compression to be unequal? I'd be interesting
in knowing which part of, say, Photoshop, adds randomness to such a
deterministic process.

Now if there's EXIF data with timestamps or names, sure, good evidence. But
this post seems like they're really stretching the "evidence". It's still very
plausible that the other company looked at things, perhaps took some pixel
measurements, and "recreated" it.

Edit: Also, check out where that triangle is used. The three images beneath it
are very differently aligned. By their level of evidence, this disproves their
point.

I'm surprised how HN is so uncritical in evaluating evidence and alternative
explanations.

~~~
pvnick
Yes but notice the mistakes the developer made when adding extraneous
whitespace. Also the use of the same class names. At the very least some of
the code was copied verbatim without attribution.

~~~
MichaelGG
A single space at the end of a line? That's extremely common. I don't catch
those until I check my diffs before commit. And on that particular line, the
width attribute was "removed".

And the class name is "plusIcon", which has to be extremely common.

While it certainly looks like they might have copied the design, the evidence
they provided is extremely flimsy and doesn't point to them copying the HTML
or CSS.

------
RossM
Well, Email On Acid appear to have removed the blog post already.

Google Cache link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.emailonacid.com/blog/details/C13/emailology_a_free_responsive_email_template_using_media_queries_-
_part_i&ion=1)

~~~
uladzislau
It's back up with this update:

"May 27, 2012 Update: It has come to our attention that the original layout
for our responsive template was being sold on Themeforest. We are truly sorry
for any misunderstanding or misappropriation of content. We would like our
readers to know that we had written all CSS on our own (which is the power
behind responsive design) and our intention was only to share in those
findings. As we stated in our response to the notification we had agreed to
redesign the layout of our template so it does not match the layout of their
template. We are currently in the process of updating the template and should
be available shortly."

~~~
Legion
Heh, they really did date it 2012.

------
onemorepassword
Wait, wasn't the discussion about Wordpress themes having to be GPL (being
purely derivative works) over and done years ago?

You create a derivative work of GPL-ed software and call somebody else a thief
for doing the same to you?

~~~
gojomo
The claimed original work here is not a WordPress theme.

~~~
onemorepassword
_"Our template has as we speak been sold a 361 times within half a year and
it's still increasing. Themeforest rated our template worth a $17."_

Yes it is. Which basically means the author is refusing to acknowledge the
copyright of the WordPress authors and the license rights of the ones he's
calling thieves.

There's one pirate here, and it's StampReady.

Also, I think Email on Acid have a good case for libel. This is willful public
defamation.

 __Edit: Apparently, I'm wrong about this being a WordPress theme. My
apologies. __

~~~
bdcravens
You seem stuck on the idea that it's a WordPress theme. It is not. The theme
(linked from the article):

[http://themeforest.net/item/the-talk-responsive-email-
templa...](http://themeforest.net/item/the-talk-responsive-email-
template/4085374?WT.ac=portfolio&WT.seg_1=portfolio&WT.z_author=StampReadyTemplates&ref=StampReadyTemplates)

It's a responsive email template. Not a WordPress template. None of your
proselytizing about WP themes and the GPL is applicable to this situation.

------
yochum24
Stamp Ready, I like how you could only cite 2 lines out of 1,000. If I had 10K
for every line of code I write, it'd be a millionaire. You should probably
share the entire source if you are making this type of accusation.

You said it yourself, you sold that ribbon image 300+ times, it is now
circulated on the internet and there is no way to prove it came from your IP
address.

Out of curiosity, did you obtain rights to profit from the art used in your
template? Did you take a screenshot or just RT click?

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/01/06/freebie-
gemicon-i...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/01/06/freebie-gemicon-icon-
set-600-psd-source-png/)

[http://www.colorproprint.com/blog/design-freebies-brushes-
fo...](http://www.colorproprint.com/blog/design-freebies-brushes-fonts-and-
more/)

<http://dribbble.com/shots/676411-Free-Vintage-Icon-Set-gif>

I believe it clearly states the following on dribbble.com:

Copyright © 2009–2013 Dribbble LLC. All screenshots © their respective owners.

Welcome to the hornet's nest. Slander is never the best option but judging
from your tweets over the past 3 months, this is not your first time.

------
emtee65
I'm sorry to all the people who disagree with this but theft is theft.

Imagine you spent your time building something this elegant just for a bigger
company to rip it off, and for them to reply with "oh it may look the same but
we just used your template as "inspiration" and changed a few images." is
pretty much an insult.

The only thing I don't agree with is that you can't price how much they would
have lost, only estimate, and $20,000 is way over the top.

~~~
xordon
Theft is taking something away from someone. Since EmailOnAcid didn't take
OP's "possession" of the original template, therefore no theft has taken
place.

What has allegedly happened is that a copy was made without permission. A
violation of copyright law, much different than actual theft.

~~~
emtee65
Ah so what you are saying is that if there is no victim and it's not
_stealing_ then it's ok?

~~~
h2s
I think you know quite well that this is not what xordon is saying at all.
Whenever something like this happens, people throw words like "theft" and
"stolen" around. This widespread conflation of stealing and copyright
infringement is the deliberate outcome of a long-running effort by the
copyright lobby. Reminding each other of the difference is healthy for the
long-term balance of power between the general public and rights-holders.

------
ppradhan
sorry to hear. i feel sorry for you guys because you have to fight someone
stealing your work + waste time and resources chasing these people. on your
website though, i noticed something I couldn't overlook (screenshot in link).
you have also copied xcode's icon no?

<http://cl.ly/image/2a412E0B0d3G>

------
f4stjack
Hi, just for clarification I am not affiliated with stampready and/or email on
acid. Saw that, found it interesting and wanted to share. And there were
quotation marks around the title when I posted, wonder why they disappeared?

edit: holy hell, whole title is edited! Original title was: "How Email On Acid
stole worth over $20.000."

~~~
soperj
The original title doesn't make sense. So many typos on their page too. Can't
even spell internet properly in the screenshot. Gross.

~~~
f4stjack
But current title gives a wrong sense. I am not working with stampready nor
their theme is my work. The title, now, suggests it so.

------
renownedmedia
It's quite obviously stolen. I'm surprised they didn't throw the sha sums of
the images into the article for good measure.

$20k in damages is an exaggeration. It's not like stampready would have
received an extra $20k in revenue if Email On Acid didn't exist. Sounds like
Lawyer math to me.

~~~
gcb0
On the other hand, if I'm researching companies, and see a small one trying to
sell me something a bigger one is giving for free i just consider them scamers
and move on.

How do you calculate the loss of sales for cases like this?

Edit: ...and this argument is totally invalid for what zeidrich said.

------
brandon272
Where's the line between something being "stolen" and something being
"inspired" by something else?

People say that as soon as you "copy and paste" a line of code that isn't
yours, you're stealing. But it seems that without the "copying and pasting"
that is inherent, not only in the learning process, but often in the process
of innovation itself, we wouldn't have the products we have today.

And what's the difference between copying and pasting something and creating
something similar, but not an exact copy with similar code that you viewed and
then re-typed in a similar way? Can one be outright theft and the other be
acceptable?

------
thomaslutz
So, if they can prove it, why not sue them?

~~~
ams6110
Assuming the $20,000 claim has some basis, it's borderline not---actually
probably not---worth pursuing. Bigger than a "small claim" and legal fees will
cost you more than that to actually get in front of a judge.

------
skatenerd
"Even the typo's" :-)

------
mwetzler
same thing happened to our site design. We felt flattered rather than mad, but
our business isn't selling templates. Sorry man.
[https://keen.io/blog/46309336554/the-highest-form-of-
flatter...](https://keen.io/blog/46309336554/the-highest-form-of-flattery)

------
oddshocks
It's obvious that whoever designed Email on Acid has never taken any good
acid.

------
da_maire
Looks like someone stole a noun from their post title too. Crazy stuff.

~~~
Xylakant
maybe a root-kit would have helped to prevent that.

------
pettycash
awful stuff.. good job calling them on it...

------
shizzy0
If this is the downside of having a DRM-less, open web then so be it.

Isn't it the case that anyone who has purchased this template and uses it on
their site that someone can then scrape the template? The source code is
already out there. You're fighting the medium not the man.

~~~
ninjac0der
I cannot for the life of me understand why this was down-voted. I think it
points out why this kind of thing falls into a gray area that should really be
addressed in a completely different way than I see the conversation falling
here on HN.

