[redboy]

Check this out:http://www.mixthepix.com/

It looks like he has stopped updating his site due to this company:http://www.fwb.com/html/drivetest.html that is using his icons in a commercial product!!

[Jerommeke]

It looks like FWB is aware of what it is doing by the note "FWB Software would like to thank Xicons.com (www.xicons.com), Wessley S.Roche (www.iconizer.com), and Hein Mevissen (www.mixthepix.com) for the useof their icon designs" in the bottom. However, this looks like MixThePix has admitted to use those icons, or they are really jerks.

[SwarmyCurve]

This is sad. It sort of mirrors what happened to PixelJerk (loved his icons).

[m2bored]

Who does he think he is hurting with his protest?

Certainly not the co that stole the icons...

Why doesn't he get a lawyer and sue their ass!?

M2

[Liquidity X]

good call, and i just emailed 2, but get a lawyer!

[Agent69]

Accord to http://www.xicons.com/legal.php , the icons are copyrighted by the original artists and are for personal use only. FWB is totally stupid to use this guy's work without permission.

Maybe I'll buy a copy of DriveTest and make it available to anyone via Limewire. It should be alright, since FWB obviously feels that stealing is alright.

[swiz]

Thats really lame of the company to do. A few months ago Hein and I were working together to create a MixthePix theme and he is really a nice guy.

[ambush]

Hi,

So you guys don't even know where the icons in your app come from? You don't have a designer in your company? You surf the web and take any icon you want and throw it in your app? Very ethical, yeah very very very ethical. Don't blame no one but you.

What you guys want are Beautiful Professional Non Copyrighted Icons You Can Use in Your Commercial App For Free.

And they don't exist, as far as I know.

--Jean-Olivier at Clich� Software

On Sunday, April 6, 2003, at 12:49 PM, Mark Prewitt wrote:

We have first been made aware of this by an email we got from someone else yesterday evening at 6:00 pm on April 5th.
Mr. Mevissen has never contacted FWB that I can find in our archives and we give credit to him on our website.

He is now in contact with me and we are trying to determine what the issue is.

I can honestly say that since I joined FWB this year, that no one has ever tried to contact FWB about this issue until this weekend.

Mr. Mevissen is using the web to his own gain, without giving us a forum to deal with this.

We, to my knowledge, had no idea he wanted compensation for his icons. I know that our company policy is one of a very high ethical standard and the CEO will be shocked to hear about all this. If we used his icons without his permission and he deserves payment, I am sure he will get what is coming to him.
If this is a scam, we will also find out and make sure that everyone knows that too.

Mark Prewitt
VP Sales
FWB Software






On Sunday, April 6, 2003, at 07:44 AM, Jean-Olivier Lanct�t-D. wrote:

Hi,

Hein Mevissen stopped making icons because of you!
http://www.mixthepix.com

You use his icons w/o paying him (in drive test)! that's not acceptable
We're boycotting your products now!

God!

--Jean-Olivier
Co Founder, Clich� Software
http://www.clichesw.com

[Zimphire]

I say you make a story, and submit it to MacSurfer

[Wickedkitten]

this is being posted as a news story on neowin as we speak

[jessejlt]

Originally posted by Wickedkitten:
this is being posted as a news story on neowin as we speak

Hey thanks for that. Posting such a story in a venue as large as Neowin might help expedite the two parties discussions.
jesse ;-)

[fireside]

heh, on the mixthepix website, the dude clearly states that he sent FWB two emails without a response. and fwb saying that they didnt know they were supposed to ask if they should use the icons in a COMMERCIAL product is bullsh!t. how stupid can you get?

[yazoo]

thats sucks, hope he does something about this.

If they are saying xicons provided the icons then why doesn't xicons help.

[FWBSales]

To clarify to all of you, Hein found out 2 weeks ago that FWB was using his icons. He never contacted FWB to question this. He simply launched this website. We have confirmed this with Hein.

He and my boss are working this out. We never approved or knew the code was not original and used w/o permission. We were told by the subcontractor that they had received permissions- which is why we have the disclaimer on the product.
We are very distressed to find the coder may have lied to us.
Makes us not want to work with subcontractors again.
Mark Prewitt
FWB Software

[Hi I'm Mike]

code for what and what coder? He made Icons and you stole them off a web page to be used in your program. why lie?

[Agent69]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
To clarify to all of you, Hein found out 2 weeks ago that FWB was using his icons. He never contacted FWB to question this. He simply launched this website. We have confirmed this with Hein.

If that's true then he went about resolving this situation the wrong way, IMO.

He and my boss are working this out. We never approved or knew the code was not original and used w/o permission.

I hope that is true, as FWB has a good reputation from what I have seen.

[Super Sayian]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
To clarify to all of you, Hein found out 2 weeks ago that FWB was using his icons. He never contacted FWB to question this. He simply launched this website. We have confirmed this with Hein.

blah, blah, blah...

Mark Prewitt
FWB Software

Hein has had his website going for donkey's years... he did not just simply launch it. What do you mean by what you are saying Mark ? You do know the difference between "code" and an "icon" dont you ? you should if you are working for a software company. According to the author of DriveTest (the program the icons were used in) he was a shareholder of FWB at the time this was made, but left in January, this would seem to disagree with what you are saying about subcontractors. Are you lying ? Was he a subcontractor or a shareholder of FWB at the time the icons were used ?

BTW, I think your "subcontractor" also wrote Privacy Toolkit, Partition Toolkit, and part of SMART Toolkit too, care to comment on whether they are original or not?

[Ian McEwan]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
To clarify to all of you, Hein found out 2 weeks ago that FWB was using his icons. He never contacted FWB to question this. He simply launched this website. We have confirmed this with Hein.

He and my boss are working this out. We never approved or knew the code was not original and used w/o permission. We were told by the subcontractor that they had received permissions- which is why we have the disclaimer on the product.
We are very distressed to find the coder may have lied to us.
Makes us not want to work with subcontractors again.
Mark Prewitt
FWB Software

Mark Prewitt said "We never approved or knew the code was not original and used w/o permission. We were told by the subcontractor that they had received permissions"

ummmmmm

Mark you just contradicted yourself.... if you never knew the "code" was not original, then what did your "subcontractor" say they had received permissions for? sniff sniff sniff.... I smell somebody telling fibs

[FWBSales]

I know the difference between code and icons-, but the 'icons' were not icons in the final program, they were converted into Code to be rendered by the graphic engine in the program- that makes them code to me.. but I am just a sales guy, not my job to know the difference between C code and pixels.

as to other programs "he wrote"
That is a good question, we are looking into whether he plagarized anyone else with these programs.. since he lied about 1- I, at least, am worried he lied about these others.

He was a subcontractor because, in my understanding, a) he was never an employee of the company b) he wrote the code partially before joining the FWB effort and partially afterwards. He contributed this "IP" to the firm for a stake in the company, but then pulled the IP he brought with him out and left the company when he lost a bid to take over the company.
Sour grapes.
How about the real question since you are talking to him?
Ask him why he used icons from Hein w/o telling anyone they needed to be paid for? Why didn't he have the company pay for them?
Lets get to the truth here..

If you want to defend that, you aren't very bright. He has NO business providing FWB with software that wasn't original, and your comments condemn him as a theif and liar.

As to Heins website, the event that triggered this was that for about 18hr or 24hrs Hein had posted a very derrogatory splash screen on his website about how we were robbing him and not responding to his emails. He took that down this afternoon. Get your facts straight, and don't jump to conclusions without ALL the facts.

Agent 69 is right.. He went about righting a wrong the with another wrong. Now it is all public and a mess for everyone.
The only ones who win in this type of situation are the lawyers.

[FWBSales]

Mark Prewitt said "We never approved or knew the code was not original and used w/o permission. We were told by the subcontractor that they had received permissions"

ummmmmm

Mark you just contradicted yourself.... if you never knew the "code" was not original, then what did your "subcontractor" say they had received permissions for? sniff sniff sniff.... I smell somebody telling fibs


No, just not being clear I guess....
The author said we needed to post that.. I wasn't with the company then, so I am trying to communicate something that I don't fully understand myself.. dumb I guess.
The issue to me is, the author said they had permission to use the 'icons' or code- we are now finding out that they were used without permission.
That is all that matters to me.
The author of the program lied to FWB.
The previous poster seems to confirm this in that he talked to that author and didn't deny it.
Now we, at FWB, have to make his theft right.
He of course is not getting any mention... maybe I should post his name so you guys can find him and ask HIM why he wrote a program using other peoples property?
Why isn't he catching flack here?

[Ian McEwan]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
He contributed this "IP" to the firm for a stake in the company, but then pulled the IP he brought with him out and left the company when he lost a bid to take over the company.
Sour grapes.

I suspect you are lying again Mark... if he "pulled the IP" why are you still selling his products ? In fact would it be fair to say that he wrote ALL of your new software ?

You sure do contradict yourself a lot!

Jeff

[FWBSales]

Originally posted by Ian McEwan:
I suspect you are lying again Mark... if he "pulled the IP" why are you still selling his products ? In fact would it be fair to say that he wrote ALL of your new software ?

You sure do contradict yourself a lot!

Jeff

You try to be coherent when you have a cold and aren't sleeping well.

Anyway- to reply to your concern- He brought in IP, IP was created while this person was at the company- If you are aware of how Ip works, you don't own code you wrote under contract for someone else. You only own what you do on your own time (depending on your employer.. I know at Intel & M$ if you do ANYTHING- they own it)
FWB owns what it is selling. If we licensed something then there are license agreements we hold to that regulate that.
I am not the one who deals with contracts.. .It is my understanding that we can legally sell every product we have listed. If that isn't the case I am sure that my boss will correct it.

Another attempt to deviate from the truth of- The author stole and lied... Why aren't you pointing that out?

[Ian McEwan]

Interesting.

May I ask what IP did the "subcontractor" withdraw?

[FWBSales]

Originally posted by Ian McEwan:
Interesting.

May I ask what IP did the "subcontractor" withdraw?

I don't know. I am relaying only what information I have... I know we used to sell 2 other products that we no longer sell... I would assume it had to do with those products.. But I only know what I am telling you.
If you really want to know, just email "[email protected]" and I'll make sure that my boss emails you back.

For Hein's protection, why don't we take this discussion offline. You can email me at the same email. I'll get it and reply back to you.
This really isn't the appropriate place to discuss the ethics, or lack there of, of a former fwb person (contractor/shareholder or employee or otherwise)

[Adam Betts]

Slightly off the point but Hein have been known for stealing icon ideas from other people. Don't get me wrong, I do like Hein's art skills but I wish he'd avoid "borrowing" icon ideas from other people.

Still, FWB is ******* for using his icons without his permission. It happened to me twice before and I wasn't happy at all

[FWBSales]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Slightly off the point but Hein have been known for stealing icon ideas from other people. Don't get me wrong, I do like Hein's art skills but I wish he'd avoid "borrowing" icon ideas from other people.

Still, FWB is ******* for using his icons without his permission. It happened to me twice before and I wasn't happy at all

Might I inquire as to what you mean by this? That FWB did this twice before? Or it has happend to Hein twice before?

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
Might I inquire as to what you mean by this? That FWB did this twice before? Or it has happend to Hein twice before?

Nope, not FWD... Some other companies did that to me. Sorry for the confusion

[SPOOF]

Well, let's see where we're at here...

FWB has promised a lot of things that they can't deliver...such as an OS X native version of HDT (which I say good riddance to, because it only caused problems on any system I ever used it on). Why can't they do this? No active developers.

As for the blame placing...
1) a programmer would have nothing to do with licensing, only functionality.
2) any licensing would be checked over by the legal department, and would have to be approved (the legal department of FWB is a minor share holder).
3) the people who publish the software are ultimately responsible for checking both with the legal department, and with all original content providers...

Now, let's take a look at a few other things.
Obviously FWB Sales is CLUELESS about communications law and the workings of a company, add to that that they are also contradicting themselves at every turn, and trying to lay all blame for all problems on a single person, who has to date done nothing but possibly save the company by writing all of it's currently sold software.

As for the icons themselves. I believe the company actually DID get permission from the icon author, otherwise it would be both pointless and stupid to put up an acknowledgment of their services and talents. There can be other issues, which I'm sure are being worked out right now as we post, so I will leave that to the people involved to work with. I see this as a bullying on the part of the FWB CEO and/or publishing department and/or legal department in not fulfilling their end of whatever agreement was struck before, but that is just my take on it.

Now for the interesting one...FWB Sales is committing libel against the programmer who brought these programs into being, due to his desire to help a company he owned shares in and, according to FWB Sales, tried to take over. Now, also consider that if you look at the public documentation, he didn't fail any sort of hostile take-over, nor would he need to do so, as a major shareholder. Why don't we focus on the programmer? The answer is simple, we shouldn't be, and to try to is not only immoral, but also illogical and libelous.

My educated 2 cents.

[mstrathdee]

Dear Community,

FWB has been a loyal developer staying true to the Apple brand throughout good and bad years while other developers bailed to develop only on Windows based systems. I am personally saddened to see this kind of thread develop.

At no time did anyone stop to ask if they had the facts. Instead the people in this thread chose to write on their own knowledge.

I have visited www.mixthepix.com and the issue in question seams to have vanished. That would indicate that FWB is telling the truth. Would you all agree?

Additionally, I know a person placed well at FWB and they indicated that a decision had been made to make DriveTest available for free. This person also said that the developer defrauded both FWB and MixThePix and some legal issue was going on behind the scenes.

So lets give them a chance to come forth before we judge them.

Thanks,
Long Live Homestar and Strong Bad!!!

[Ian McEwan]

Originally posted by mstrathdee:

Additionally, I know a person placed well at FWB and they indicated that a decision had been made to make DriveTest available for free. This person also said that the developer defrauded both FWB and MixThePix and some legal issue was going on behind the scenes.

So lets give them a chance to come forth before we judge them.

errrr, you call that honesty Mr Mark Strathdee?

You are on here pretending to be a third party, when you are the CEO of FWB?

Do you really think a shareholder lookup is that hard?

I met you at MacWorld, I have your cheap laser printed card right here... you promised me HDT OSX by February if I purchased it at the show.

That would indicate that FWB is telling the truth. Would you all agree?

I dont know fellow readers ? what do you think of this ?

I suggest you phone 650.637.8500, ask for m.strathdee (also known as Mark Strathdee, CEO of FWB) and ask him if it sounds like the truth or perhaps, contact Hein, at www.mixthepix.com and ask him

[Wickedkitten]

as posted on neowin

As a VP of Sales (and the guy quoted on the main article)
I would like to comment on a couple things.

1) FWB did not write the program in question, we licensed it from a 3rd party. We had no clue the programmer in question would not be ethical and use property that was not his. We did what we were told and posted the thanks to Hein as we were told we must for his freeware products.
2) Hein at no time contacted us after finding out 2 weeks ago that we were using his Icons.
3) How were we supposed to know the Icons were 'stolen'?? They were pictures of the Cube,G4,TiBook which are all copyright Apple, and who we are a licensee for- 4 icons are apparently unique but were pictures of hard disks with extra graphics thrown in.
Do we as a company have to check every icon site on the web now to make sure one of our programmers didn't get lazy and steal an icon?
It isn't possible.. We dealt with honesty and integrity with the programmer and apparently we got screwed.
As for Hein, we immediately replied to his first email to us and started a dialog and he has provided proof of creation to several of the icons.
With this in hand, we are investigating with the contractor who did the program to find out what their side of the story is.
Once we have BOTH sides, we can then determine what happened and how to keep it from happening again I hope.
I am certain after a conversation with my boss that if Hein is due money, he will be paid.
I am also certain that the programmer who stole from him should also have some consequences.

I would ask that you stop and think before you judge. Recall that there are 2 sides to every situation. Don't jump to conclusions based on hearing only 1 side.
FWB had no intent or knowledge or desire to steal, now or ever.
My comments about not knowing stemmed from the fact we gave him credit for his icons.. and I assumed we were using them with permission.
Anyway, the gist is this, he has contacted us, we are talking to him- If a company does something by accident, as FWB did in this case, they should not be crucified as some kind of evil corporation.. We only have 5 employees.. we aren't some huge company like M$...
We are working in good faith to fix a problem we didn't know about.
Please give us the benefit of the doubt while we work on that.
Mark Prewitt
VP of Sales at FWB Software

must be a bull around cos I'm smelling ****

[Ian McEwan]

while we are on the subject of FWB staff (those posting in this forum) being "honest"

thanks to the ever amazing google.... I searched about Mr Mark Prewitt

I found this review he did of a product he bought from Fry's as an honest consumer

http://www.macmegasite.com/modules.p...owcontent&id=5

wow a 5 star rating of the product, that is great, shows he is really unbiased and keen on the product

Until....

the same google search shows this site...

http://homepage.mac.com/ydkm/trivia0...ndorHall02.htm

You guessed it, Mr Mark Prewitt was (before moving to FWB) was the product manager for THAT PRODUCT at that time

ooooo FEEL the honesty

[spishack]

Right. This thread is getting a little out of control.

I don't think I've ever seen such a lack of professionalism before. FWB should not be arguing with people on a discussion board. That is not how you handle a PR situation like this.

The point here is that it doesn't matter how this happened. Or why. The fact is, FWB used icons they didn't have permission to use. It doesn't matter if they subcontracted or not.

I've got news for you, FWB--if you subcontract ANYTHING, it becomes YOUR responsibility to manage it. You cannot blame this on a 3rd party, because the moment you began selling this product, there was no 3rd party.

Don't post anonymous messages claiming FWB is a great company. Don't lie. Don't do any of this. Fix the problem, and admit the mistake.

[Super Sayian]

Originally posted by spishack:

Don't post anonymous messages claiming FWB is a great company. Don't lie. Don't do any of this. Fix the problem, and admit the mistake.

Yep. If you want to post annonymous messages, go to www.versiontracker.com. Your products need a lot of help there.

[SpringArmor]

Originally posted by mstrathdee:
Dear Community,

Additionally, I know a person placed well at FWB and they indicated that a decision had been made to make DriveTest available for free. This person also said that the developer defrauded both FWB and MixThePix and some legal issue was going on behind the scenes.

It's still not free... When can I get a free copy?

[kovacs]

Originally posted by mstrathdee:
Dear Community,

FWB has been a loyal developer staying true to the Apple brand throughout good and bad years while other developers bailed to develop only on Windows based systems. I am personally saddened to see this kind of thread develop.

At no time did anyone stop to ask if they had the facts. Instead the people in this thread chose to write on their own knowledge.

I have visited www.mixthepix.com and the issue in question seams to have vanished. That would indicate that FWB is telling the truth. Would you all agree?

Additionally, I know a person placed well at FWB and they indicated that a decision had been made to make DriveTest available for free. This person also said that the developer defrauded both FWB and MixThePix and some legal issue was going on behind the scenes.

So lets give them a chance to come forth before we judge them.

Thanks,
Long Live Homestar and Strong Bad!!!

Oooh this is so embarrassing, why are you pretending to be a third party when in fact you work for the company, almost as funny as your first sentence...

Please think twice before you write your next reply !

[SpringArmor]

Originally posted by mstrathdee:
Dear Community,

I have visited www.mixthepix.com and the issue in question seams to have vanished. That would indicate that FWB is telling the truth. Would you all agree?

You should just post a press release on your site telling your side of the story then.

[joelcpa]

Originally posted by mstrathdee:
I have visited www.mixthepix.com and the issue in question seams to have vanished. That would indicate that FWB is telling the truth. Would you all agree?

No, it would appear as if the issue has been resolved after Hein took the measures he did. Too bad you didn't contact him up front and this embarrassing display could have been avoided.

[bbxstudio]

Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens more often than it should - there seems to be a perception (and generally amongst those who can't create but would like to be able to) that non-commercial GUI-enhancement graphics of any sort (desktops, icons, themes) are somehow public domain and up for grabs, that any copyrights attached do not apply and that their ownership is indefensible. It's this perception that causes these problems to arise again and again...

Only last year, the popular entertainment website IGN.com's 'Insider' subscription area and promo banners were constructed out of graphics lifted directly from one of my Audion faces. I tried for days to get in contact with someone with some authority at IGN but was forced to take matters into my own hands when it became obvious I was being blown off - I posted a webpage called "IGN ripped me off" and posted the same message (both with screenshots clearly illustrating my position). I would have preferred to keep it all behind-the-scenes but felt I had no choice. As it turned out, one of their head 'web designers' was the culprit, having lifted the graphics without telling anybody where they came from. Originally the company denied that the graphics in question originated in my design, but after a pixel-to-pixel photoshop overlay in 'difference' mode showed no difference, they admitted the mistake and promptly redesigned that portion of their website and the offending banner graphics. I accepted an apology and an 'IGN Insider' subscription and all was well.

In both cases (my own and this one), the moral ineptitude and stupidity of a single employee or subcontractor - and his or her twisted perception of ownership - seems to be the culprit rather than a company-wide conspiracy. Unfortunately, in those first few moments when these things come to light, the offending company's initial response can be pretty ridiculous. Shifting the blame, citing differences between code and graphics, etc. etc. is exactly the kind of embarassing behaviour a reputable company should try and avoid. A simple acceptance, apology, compensation tactic is the best way to deal with this stuff.

[FWBSales]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
.


In both cases (my own and this one), the moral ineptitude and stupidity of a single employee or subcontractor - and his or her twisted perception of ownership - seems to be the culprit rather than a company-wide conspiracy. Unfortunately, in those first few moments when these things come to light, the offending company's initial response can be pretty ridiculous. Shifting the blame, citing differences between code and graphics, etc. etc. is exactly the kind of embarassing behaviour a reputable company should try and avoid. A simple acceptance, apology, compensation tactic is the best way to deal with this stuff.

In this case, Hein neglected to try to contact us first and launched a complaint website before trying to contact us.. He'd been blown off by other companies so assumed we would. He is being taken care of appropriately and I, in retrospect, shouldn't have posted so much.. but understand, what makes me good at my job is my drive/passion and emotion to take care of the customer... So I over-reacted to the negative comments on here. I now realize there are a couple people posting this and using it to bash fWB and we are pretty certain at least 1 of these is the former employee who perpetrated the original theft... very disheartening..
We are finding the same exact comments, copied and pasted, with different names and emails on different sits and have traced at least 1 of those back to its origin...
It is sad, I didn't handle this well- I am learning... When I stop learning I'll be dead... I appreciate both the constructive comments and the admonishing ones... I will take those to heart and try to be better at our PR in the future.
For now, Hein is being taken care of, we are making this right and working with him to solve it how he wants..whether that is making Drive test free (noncommercial) or just paying him.. is up to him now.. We are in contact with him and giving him some options on how to best deal with it to make him and us happy.

This is one of those time when you wish you could go back in time...

[kovacs]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens more often than it should - there seems to be a perception (and generally amongst those who can't create but would like to be able to) that non-commercial GUI-enhancement graphics of any sort (desktops, icons, themes) are somehow public domain and up for grabs, that any copyrights attached do not apply and that their ownership is indefensible. It's this perception that causes these problems to arise again and again...

Yeah unfortunately this happens a lot, just take a look at this site:

http://www.jonmega.com/~clotz/

You will find my mozilla icons and other icons from some of the best icon designers around, these icons are ripped from resex or xicons and converted to the png format or to a windows icon, they are stripped from all read me files and all reference to the original authors has been deleted... makes you very mad

[joelcpa]

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
A simple acceptance, apology, compensation tactic is the best way to deal with this stuff.

Absolutely. The responses by the VP of Sales and the CEO of this company are clear examples of how not to handle these situations.

Stuff, deliberate or not, happens. Correct it and move on.

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by FWBSales:
For now, Hein is being taken care of, we are making this right and working with him to solve it how he wants..whether that is making Drive test free (noncommercial) or just paying him.. is up to him now.. We are in contact with him and giving him some options on how to best deal with it to make him and us happy.

Not that it's any of my business, but having his work in a piece of commercial software could be a real feather in his cap, a nice portfolio piece, and the precursor to future commercial interface work. It's obvious FWB is pleased enough with his work to emblazon the identity of their software with it - FWB could always hire him to design all of the icons (both inside and out) for this particular application (simply paying him what it would have paid him for those already coded in), and if that works well, have him develop new OSX-style iconography for the entire product line (consistency and all that). That's what I would shoot for if I were in his shoes... sew a purse from a sow's ear, so to speak.

[bbxstudio]

Originally posted by kovacs:
Yeah unfortunately this happens a lot, just take a look at this site:

http://www.jonmega.com/~clotz/

You will find my mozilla icons and other icons from some of the best icon designers around, these icons are ripped from resex or xicons and converted to the png format or to a windows icon, they are stripped from all read me files and all reference to the original authors has been deleted... makes you very mad

Why not write this clotz dude and ask him to pull them down (or have you done that already)? Find his ISP and inform them that he is illegally distributing copyrighted material from his site and they may pull him down for you (true - any unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material is a serious no-no with most ISPs and they see it as a violation of the hosting contract). Get together with the other guys he's ripped off and as a group contact his ISP - surefire results. If it really bothers you, pay your lawyer to write him a cease and desist letter (even in an email) - for $50 or whatever it costs to have a lawyer do that for you, you'd be surprised at just how well that works.

The worst for rip-off artists around are these Windows-side hacks with brass balls... I was being ripped blatantly by some Windowblinds assh*le named 'Mercury' forever. Even after I called him on it (and Stardock was zero help - they didn't care one bit, he was generating downloads and interest after all) and he removed the first violation, he was back at it again and again with other designs... ripping off the same guy again and again is the ultimate disrespectful 'f*ck you' and takes some serious balls. I don't mind 'ports' with proper credit to the original given, but this guy was actually cutting bits and pieces from my schemes and incorporating them into his own otherwise badly-rendered designs. A titlebar here from DarksidePrototype, the entire scrollset (just 'colourized') from BBX Mercury, etc. etc... another loser named 'Dangeruss' had ripped off tons of stuff from other established Mac designers as well. They all seem to think there's nothing you can do about it (an attitude supported by if not fostered by Stardock in my case, by the way). Like I said, it's the weasels who couldn't design their way out of a paper bag that are responsible for 99% of this stuff. The rest just don't have a clue, I guess.

[kovacs]

Someone informed me about this website and she has send letters to all icon designers that she could recognize. I have send a few mails to him but never got a reply...

I doesn't bother me enough to hire a lawyer, I'm just a small fish, these were the only icons I ever made available on the web, I don't make money making icons or doing other graphic related stuff, like some other icon designers, I didn't write those e-mails for myself but for the other icon designers who I admire and respect ...

I would be more than happy to send him the psd files if he asked for them. The quality of the conversions is so bad that I'm ashamed to see my own icons and I'm almost happy my name doesn't appear under them...

[Agent69]

kovacs,

Use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Using that, all you have to do is complain to whatever ISP is providing bandwidth to the site and they will pretty much have to take it down.

[Tritium]

Is anyone sure that any of those people were really from FWB and not another agitated user trying to make them look bad? I doubt any CEO would be dumb enough to register under his first initial and last name and pretend not to work for his corporation while defending it. Not to mention the following poster calling him out with a brand new account.

[ambush]

This thread is so funny - it all looks like a FWB bashing thread, IMO.

it's funny because at least 3 new users registered to post in this thread... Ex-emplyees? or what? it's too funny... and now we have the CEO posting and pretending to be a third party.

Originally posted by FWBSales:
[B]I know the difference between code and icons-, but the 'icons' were not icons in the final program, they were converted into Code to be rendered by the graphic engine in the program- that makes them code to me.. but I am just a sales guy, not my job to know the difference between C code and pixels.

So your images are hard coded? Wow, that's a pretty bad way to use manage resources in an app. Oh well.

But, funny nonetheless, it's the first time I hear this: images converted into C code.

I'll try to get into technical details now

It'd probably take 1000 lines to draw it in C code (you'd have to draw every pixel one at a time in hard code - no loops using external rsrc)... If's hard coded, you must be using a string or something (a file or a PICT rsrc).

Mark, don't try to get into technical details, you fail to say something useful everytime you do.

[Tritium]

As a totally "off topic" aside, xpm images are valid C, meant to be #included as a method of storing them in x11 apps. Save one with the gimp or photoshop and open it up
What he said may not be too far from the truth...

[ambush]

Originally posted by Tritium:
As a totally "off topic" aside, xpm images are valid C, meant to be #included as a method of storing them in x11 apps. Save one with the gimp or photoshop and open it up
What he said may not be too far from the truth...

well it's still an image?

We could say every single jpeg image on earth is code, too, if you open as a text file or something.

His point doesn't make sense, anyway.

I'm going to convert all my images to code and escape copyright laws ! yay!