I apologise in advance as this is going to be quite a long post. I previously posted about another designer using my items in her kits without permission (Re The More Piracy Issue) and after all was said and done I thought it was finished. How wrong I was.

Two days ago she popped into my mind and I decided to take another look at her blog. The first thing I saw was her newest freebie posted with some elements that looked VERY familiar (http://craftyscraps.blogspot.com/2011/08/cute-freebie-and-blog-contest-news.html). Here is the preview incase the post is taken down:

Since she says in the post that this is an older freebie, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt under the assumption she didn't realise this contained my elements and sent her the following email:

From: Lissa
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 4:00 PM
To: Michelle McCoy
Subject: Freebie On Your Blog

Hi Michelle,

The newest freebie you have on your blog (http://craftyscraps.blogspot.com/2011/08/cute-freebie-and-blog-contest-news.html), since you have posted it is an older one I will go on the assumption that you were unaware it contains some of my items as we had previously sorted this issue.

The little flowers with the hearts in the center are from my Color Psychology kit.
The stamp frame is cut from my Something Funky kit.
The string is from my Grumblebum kit.

I modified those three items myself, and in the case of the frame I made it from scratch and would appreciate the removal of them from your freebie please.

Thanx
Lissa

I got a reply back fairly quickly:

From: Michelle McCoy
To: 'Lissa'
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 10:18 AM
Subject: RE: Freebie On Your Blog

Hi Lissa,

I suppose you would think this cause the stuff is similar….But because of the incident last time, I have wrote down where or how I made everything for every kit I make now….
The flower, that is so easy to duplicate…lol….was Julia Fiahlo’s CU Flower Kit here… http://www.juliafialho.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=35&products_id=770
And the heart in the middle is from my FREE CU Bead Pack here… http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=1413822734&frmid=7113&msgid=851598&cmd=show
The frame originally had 3 stamped squares and it was from Gunhilde…
and the string is from another one of Julia Fiahlo Kits…I took off the bow at the end of it though…. http://www.juliafialho.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=689
I don’t have anymore pieces of your stuff, I got rid of it all…If the stuff looks like yours it’s by complete coincidence this time…I mentioned to you before that that’s not the type of person I am…and am starting to feel like I am being watched/stalked by you now….and it’s kind of uncomfortable…I have proof of everything I make now for this purpose…there is too many things out there that look the same now a days…even some of the things I have made, look the same as something someone else has made..But that’s the fact of life in this business….I do apologize for whatever reason…But I didn’t steal anything of yours…

Sincerely,
Michelle

Checking these links she sent me, I could quite easily see the products (and her freebie) that she linked me to did NOT match the elements in question, so I sent the following reply (the images are posted after the email for everyone to look at):

From: Lissa
To: Michelle McCoy
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: Freebie On Your Blog

Geez, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, once again though you have proven why I can't....I don't trust you as far as I could throw you and I really feel quite sorry for you.... I will also let you know that I have blind copied this to a close designer friend so she can compare the screenshots as well as you proferred "proof".

I downloaded your freebie Michelle and though you are trying to cover it well, I can prove what I am saying. Your proof does not match up.

I haven't been to your blog since all this stuff happened originally, you crossed my mind this morning and I decided to take a look...I do tend to go back to see when someone has done this to me once, just not often.

First here we have the flower. My flower was from Luiza Garay, I have also attached the product preview for you, the bead came from SweetMade, as you can see, they are exact from "your" flower to mine, and neither match the products you linked me to or your free bead. They are both totally different.

The string came from Flergs and Disasterpiece Studios, I cut it from a longer piece. Again, totally different from the product you posted.

Please do link me to the frame from Gunhilde because I have most of her stuff and this is not amongst it, as you can see it is clearly my frame, right down to the texture pattern which I made myself...

You know, I only emailed you about the ones I can prove, I could also tell you I know the staple, two of the ribbons and the bottle caps are from Grumblebum, the curly ribbon is from Candy Town, the flowers on the bottlecaps are from Something Funky....do you really think ppl are stupid? I mean some of them haven't even been recolored to change them *rolls eyes*

Please remove them.

The "proof" she linked me to:

My proof:

I've since removed the string from the Grumblebum kit as these strings are not allowed in freebie kits and I misplaced the folder when sorting (I have my CU folder strictly organised, Freebies Allowed, Freebies Not Allowed, No Collabs, that sort of thing)

You can even see on the bottom of the frame where she tried to erase the other section....it's messy and she didn't do it very well, and this is the size of the frame in the download so it's probably taken from the tagger size zip.

I've been trying to remember how I made the texture for the frame as I did the alpha the same way, I'm pretty sure I modified a string style from Veronica Spriggs (Studio Vivarant) which I bought from ScrapbookGraphics but it looks like she has retired the product.

I sent the above email 2 days ago and have had no reply since, nor has the freebie been taken down, so yesterday I decide to have a look through her other kits and store products, I found two kits she was selling with my items in them which the store have been quick to take down for me. I also found another freebie she is offering with my elements in it:

Her April Store Freebie posted at the bottom of this post (http://craftyscraps.blogspot.com/2011/04/hope-for-brady-blog-train-freebie.html) if you look in the upper left corner, the heart tag and scattered hearts elements are mine, the tag is from Candy Town and the scatter is from Color Psychology. The paper in the bottom right also looks to be a recolored paper from my Forever, My Love kit...I made the pattern myself and though it's probably easy enough to duplicate....given my history with this person already....lol.

In the case of the heart tag, I used a paper heart from Julia Fialho and the string tag is cut from a larger piece of string by Luiza Garay, the heart scatter I created myself from a heart brush.

I am so fed up with this person and her lies and theft, and now I want to make sure other designers know so they can make sure she is not illegally distributing their creations as well, and I will also be contacting both 4shared where she hosts her freebies and Blogger to see if I can get the illegal sharing removed.

I am absolutely disgusted by this kind of behaviour, there is NOTHING even remotely "reputable" about it.

To finish off this post, I'm not the most creative designer out there, or anywhere near the best designers out there lol but I do try to modify most of the CU I use and try to make somewhat unique stuff as well and just have fun doing what I do. I have every sympathy for this woman's medical issues if she is experiencing what she posts about on her blog, but that does not give her the right to illegally distribute someone else's graphics and claim them as her own.

I have allowed comments on this post, but they are moderated. As long as nothing really nasty is thrown in I will allow all comments through.

Update 1: 4shared have deactivated the link to the freebie for me.

From: 4shared Support
To: [My Email Addy]
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2011 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: Feedback [ST-858266]

Hello,

Thank you for letting us know. We have deactivated the link to the illegal file.

If you know any other illegal use of our service, please let us know. We will do
our best to remove the files as soon as possible.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Josh
support [AT] 4shared [DOT] com

I have removed the previous post for the time being as I have had contact from the designer. (Update: As at September 4th and per this post I have republished the previous post.)

She claims that all my items in her kits were sold to her and that it was all a misunderstanding....I REALLY hope this is the case but I am still sceptical as some of the items were from a relatively recently released kit...I would much rather be proven wrong than right however, no matter the embarrassment it may cause.

I would though like to address some of the comments left on the previous post.

Dina commented:
Don't you think you should have contacted the designer first? She is a very reputable person and would not have intentionally done this. I just think you should go to the source first before doing all of this. It is a misunderstanding and if you will talk to her I am sure you can work something out. Now, if you know you have used CU items with no adjustmetns, it is probable that an individual could have the same t hing in their kit and it not be pirated from your kit, don't you think?

Dina, I did try to contact the designer....obviously I did not wait long enough. I have never heard of this person before and have no way of knowing if she is a reputable designer or not, and quite frankly by the time I got done going through her blog I was in tears. If you had read my post properly though you would have seen the items that I screenshot and my post text that these were items I either DID make adjustments to or made from scratch.

Pam commented:
You know, before you go bashing someone and trying to ruin their reputation, you SHOULD give them a chance to respond to your accusations!!! {name removed} is one of the finest, sweetest, most generous people that I have ever known, and would never intentionally steal someone else's designs. She is a good enough designer that she doesn't have to steal from someone else. She has always cautioned her CT members to be very careful of CU products, which she thought she was being very careful, and obviously someone duped her. How sad that you had to go off and say such hateful and mean things ("I really don't think I will get any good result from this designer") without even giving her a chance to respond back to you. You had already made up your mind that she was a horrible person, so as you said, "I don't feel at all guilty in posting who she is and her blog address". Pretty sure that your temper has got you again!!!! It is unfortunate that there are those out there that do steal, like the person who sold these items to Michelle under false pretenses. But to not even give someone, who you don't even know, a chance to explain, is just as sad!!!

Again, I was in much distress yesterday and as it turns out I most likely didn't make the right decision in making the blog post. IF it turns out I was wrong I will make the necessary apologies. I am not normally a hateful and mean person, I am just a regular person like the rest of you and I make mistakes, even whoppers, just like the rest of you.

Debbie commented:
I think the way that you have named and been so horrible to this designer is a disgrace. You should have waited for a reply from her before you made any of these comments. I dont think you would like anything like this to be said about you. So I think you should have thought how you would feel if someone said this about you.
Just because something looks similar and designers use CU items, does not mean that it is necessarily your stuff. I have seen so many items on the web the whole web that you could say were the same. I think you should apologize to this designer for your very hurtful and uncalled for remarks. I am sure there is a very good explaination for why the items look "similar" to your items.

Debbie, if you had read the comments, especially the one from the designer you would see that there is no question on the items being mine, the question is where they were obtained from. I don't disagree with the rest of your post though.

Again if I am wrong, I will deeply apologise, I'd like to know though who this person is that is allegedly selling my items on DVD.

Update:

I had another reply from the designer...

I already spoke to the designer I got the stuff from….She said she downloaded every free CU item you had on your blog, and since she liked your stuff she also downloaded your personal use stuff as well, and mixed it altogether….when I got her stuff that she offered to me, all your stuff was in one folder…no individual folders…I have about 120 items of yours from her….she didn’t give me it all obviously, cause looking at your blog, I noticed you have a lot of stuff….I know from experience, that you get to know what you have in your folders, etc…so maybe she made a mistake as well…without realizing what she was giving me…I am not going to bash her over this either…It was a mistake…and something I normally haven’t done….I looked back in my kits and found 4 kits with your items in, and you were acknowledged in all of them as well…so obviously I wasn’t thinking I couldn’t use them or I would have never even credited you for them ...

As a designer she really should have not only made sure to get the items directly from me, most if not all designers do not allow the type of distribution she described (herself included!) and the designer had already stated she credited me so she know they were mine, she should also have made sure to check my blog for my TOU on those items before usage. I am really sorry she got caught up in this.

This is why I usually leave it alone though.. if I find my kits offered somewhere else I will usually contact the file-sharing site for removal of the zip and leave it at that. Sometimes it gets taken down, sometimes not.

In a case like this though, even if I am in the right I will still end up being attacked... it's not exactly a win-win situation lol

Given that most of my stuff is free, I wonder if it is worth the aggravation at all. Maybe I should just close down this part of my site and let all the thieves and pirates and "unintentional" usage carry on to their heart's content. I don't design for income, I design because I love it, and I design when I have time and mojo...and mojo is getting very thin on the ground lately...I have many things to think about.

Yesterday I followed a link for DST to the 2nd Chance Charity Kit for AngelPAWS.org as I was interested in checking it out. While looking through the previews I saw some items that looked very familiar....the first thing I saw was the bow, an exact match right down to the color of the bow in my Grumblebum kit. Thinking this was all and possibly just a coincidence I was going to leave it alone, as I posted before I try not to get too worked up as I used to get really angry in the past and my temper can be my downfall a lot LOL and sometimes it's really just not worth the aggravation.

So I continued looking through the previews....and saw a tag with a very familiar pattern....lo and behold the exact pattern....and colors...as one of my papers from the same Grumblebum kit and in fact she also included my striped paper in her portion. I made those stripes myself so it's not a commonly available CU item. She also had two more of my papers from Grumblebum recolored, plus two paper hearts and a string.

I contacted the store owner, Angel Baby Scraps, who was VERY quick to reply and take action, letting me know who the designer was and linking me to her other store...the charity collab is currently disabled but I really hope Angel puts it back up after removing this designer's items....I'd hate to see one bad designer ruin the whole collab

I have also contacted both this designer and the other store in the hopes of getting the items removed...we shall see on that one.

I really don't think I will get any good result from this designer (Michelle McCoy of Crafty Scraps @ craftyscraps.blogspot.com) so I don't feel at all guilty in posting who she is and her blog address.

In the meantime I have been going through this person's blog....and finding more of my items in "her" kits....there's too much altogether to be just a coincidence..

The three square frame is from Faded Memories, the tag is from Daddy's Pride And Joy, again I made and modified both these items.

There is a preview also of her portion for a Mother's Day collab, I can see several of my items in the kit (which is where the above QP came from).

There are lots of others that look like they *could* be from my kits but because in my earlier days I used a lot of actions without really modifying much I can't be totally sure....just the colors of some items are extremely close to mine....and there's that whole done it once (twice, three times) thing lol I guess that's one of the hazards of using CU and not modifying at all (a lesson that should be learnt early in one's design career lol)

What I really don't understand is why?? Why risk it?? Looking through her blog she seems to have some creativity of her own. Is it because she thought she wouldn't get caught? *sighs*

It's a total kick in the guts to see stuff I spent hours making, and offer freely (or have offered freely in the past) on my blog only to have somone else not only claim them as their own but SELL them when they have NO right to

Follow Up Post: Re The More Piracy Issue

Ok, so today, quite by chance I discovered one of my graphics being claimed as another "designer's" item.....and I say quite by chance because I spotted a frame used on a tag in an email and thought it looked familiar.

I try not to worry too much about these things...they will happen and not much we can do will stop it but having seen it I won't just ignore it. I emailed the tag owner and asked if she remembered which kit she used in the tag. I was given a link to the kit which was freely offered on another blog. The post has now been removed but the replies to my emails are quite (unintentionally I spose lol) hilarious.

I am reposting the emails here but removing identifying info...though I have my moments I don't quite feel that bitchy today LOL if anyone is really that interested in who this is you can email me

Emails read from bottom up....top ones are most recent and I couldn't be bothered to reply any more:

----- Original Message -----
From: xxxxxx
To: Lissa
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: Items in your kit.

Ms.
You're pretty famous for your "virulence" in the world of scrapbooking ... I do not even know how I got this item ... certainly not at home but I buy all my items! So, you say that someone is selling what you do ... then good luck to you! You must now find a small needle in a haystack MDR big ..... And the date of the kit, and well aware that I run my articles in my blog and then the date changes!! I still know what I say, no but! I personally do not waste my time with people like you, and especially I have no lessons to learn from you. You make me threats! it is not a pretty thing! advice: make your way far from my blog and more spies!

----- Original Message -----
2011/6/10 Lissa

Thank you.

Perhaps in future you might be a little more careful that the items you offer in your kits are yours to offer and not belonging to someone else.

Have a nice day...

Lissa

----- Original Message -----
From: xxxxx
To: Lissa
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: Items in your kit.

Madam,
I do not see what is not rude in my comments!
You are a maker of stories ... I like that!
To make you very very very happy I'm going to remove the kit graétuit ... and go with your frame ... put it under lock and key in a museum!
Good day to you and full of happiness with your pettiness!
xxxxx

----- Original Message -----
2011/6/10 Lissa

Really?? Then why does the blog url state 2011 as the post date?

I was very polite in my contact to you, however I see now that will get me nowhere and I must contact your stores and blogspot and report you as a thief and a pirate instead and let them judge from the evidence themselves.

Lissa

----- Original Message -----
From: xxxxx
To: Lissa
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: Items in your kit.

I'm sorry ... I do not even know what you mean!
This kit is a freebie on my blog for over two years .... remain in place!
Sincerely,
xxxxx

----- Original Message -----
2011/6/10 Lissa

Hello,

You have used a ribbon off my frame from my Back To Nature Mini (free download here: http://www.hunnybeedesign.com/blog/2009/06/back-to-nature-mini-kit-freebie/) and extracted it, stretched it out slightly and added it onto a frame in one of your kits (here: xxxxxxx.blogspot.com/2011/03/xxxxxx)

This item has never been offered for CU, nor have I ever given permission for items to be taken from my designs and claimed as someone else's.

I would like you to take this item out of your download and replace it with something of your own design.

Lissa
HunnyBee Design

I do think I was quite polite, I don't understand the use of the word virulance, but maybe that is a language barrier thing....nonetheless I'd rather be known for "virulence" than piracy and petty theft and certainly I have had many moments of discord with others over the course my design history

The whole reply reeks of guilt, I would think if it was purchased elsewhere or downloaded elsewhere a simple, "Oh sorry!! It was a mistake" would suffice and certainly I am adult enough to accept that.

So what do you think dear blog readers? I am an Aussie and we are known for our whacked senses of humour

The frame in "question":

Mine:

Oooo and I HAVE to add a thank you here to everyone who has left me such lovely comments on my blog....thank you!