How to make money on violating copyrights

Not good news

www.motionvfx.com/mblog/how_to_make_mone...opyrights,p2217.html

I am feeling a little sick as I did pay for a few

Shocking story if it is true, as it certainly appears to be from reading Szymon's very detailed account of it.

motionvfx put an amazing amount of work into creating some truly outstanding effects at a very fair price point and absolutely don't deserve this kind of thing, if it is happening.

I feel like a complete sucker. I purchased their iPad app. This is an international problem that makes it impossible for the great people and programs to shine. DA has some explaining to do. We all should have had our thinking caps on when their product lacked documentation and demo videos. For now on, I will stick to the creators that have tried and true origins.

Good that I don't have any Pixle plugins - but I have bought plugin and templates from motionvfx

The evidence appears damning. However, I'm extremely disappointed by the juvenile response by MotionVFX to what is clearly copyright infringement. Unlike typical peer to peer piracy issues that are in our newspapers daily, this is an alleged case of a corporation deliberately reselling your product at a discount to put you out of business.

This is a serious legal issue, not a silly little "he said/ she said" facebook, blog squabble. MotionVFX along with these other "companies" that prefer to remain "anonymous" need to step up or shut up.

Take this to court immediately, slap injunctions, & massive law suits on the thieves or you have absolutely no claim whatsoever.

Just reading thru that page of exhaustive evidence with umpteen videos, realizing they must have spent a hundred hours on that, why? To convince some fanboys in a chatroom? Grow up, run your business like a business, shut the counterfeiters down, just like the real companies do. By foolishly exposing all your evidence now, you've equipped the thieves with the information of specifically which clues they need to alter. Idiocy! Instead if you'd gone immediately to officials, you could have proven them guilty & shut down their entire operation. Bad move by showing your hand everywhere all over the web.

Call lawyers now, bring in video forensic experts, place immediate cease & desist actions against offenders, recruit the other "companies" that have been ripped off, seize assets, yes, home, cars, accounts, everything.

Because if you don't, well you've just told the world that anyone can do it to you any time they want. Even the title of his page describes it as a "How To Manual" for how to rip us off. So have fun sweating & toiling with all your labors because someone else will be enjoying the fruit!

img10.imageshack.us/img10/108/emailmotion.jpg
Just wanted to share the full email

TrixTrax9000 wrote:
Take this to court immediately, slap injunctions, & massive law suits on the thieves or you have absolutely no claim whatsoever.

I get the feeling that Syzmon genuinely wanted to sort this out person to person.

I wonder how easy it would be for someone in Poland to slap an injunction on someone in the USA?

A lot of Europeans are rather intimidated by the thought of the US justice system and the whole lawsuit mentality that the US has (rightly or wrongly that does seem to be a perception people have).

I wonder does a small specialized internet based company in Poland that produces vfx for a small group people even have the resources to start a legal campaign in another country? I somehow doubt they want to get embroiled in a costly legal battle that could drain their resources.

So this guy actually thought that these people would say "Yup, you caught us, good for you, Sherlock. Your email spells it out. Now I guess we just have to dry up & blow away."

There are international commissions against piracy, the US is supposedly championing this cause, if Syzmon spent 10% of the energy he put into wastefully dissipating his case all over the web, into contacting international trade commissions, embassies, local representatives & legal experts, he could mount an actual case. In the US there is such a thing as Legal Aid where one is able to seek representation on a pro-bono or contingency basis. At the very least an injunction could be initiated to stop the sale of his product. The trade commission from his country could be met with where he could prove his case, thus establishing it to be a case of international piracy, theft & corporate espionage. His trade commission could contact the US representatives & pressure for action.

The way he went about it is a complete comedy of errors. The idea that there are other companies with similar complaints against these guys, & they're ALL afraid to do anything legally or even identify themselves or take serious action, is a pathetic joke. Thieves don't fear emails. Since he's blown his case, you watch, the next thing will be PixelFilm will sue him for slander. The levels of stupidity in this whole fiasco make me sick.

I think Europeans are less inclined to have a lawsuit mentality, than US citizens are.

It would appear that yes he tried to sort this out personally by asking them to remove the offending plug ins.

I doubt they will have the resources to slug this out in the court. If they do go down that route probably the only winners will be the lawyers.

The only option left was to 'out' the company amongst their peers. The video editing community is fairly small, and the news would travel very fast around the interwebs (as it has done). I guess the idea is to shame the company into acting, and to deny them any business if they continue.

This is assuming that the information is correct (I have not actually seen the clips myself).

Mandix Tave (the guy who posted above my first post here) is David Austin; so it would appear that PixelFilm is going down the same route in dealing with this through the internet and appealing to the customers.

Its early days yet; lets see how it all pans out.

TrixTrax9000 wrote: … Take this to court immediately, slap injunctions, & massive law suits on the thieves or you have absolutely no claim whatsoever. …

as already mentioned by simonpwood:
it's a mentality thing.

injunctions, court, claims, … aaaand …?

the transparency, the internet allows lead to the wanted effect:
the other company is out of business.
or, at least, lost any integrity.
Now, and forever, 'cause the net never forgets.-

this is self-justice, I don't like, nor support.
but I don't like stealing too.-

What makes me really stumble is the stupidity of that business-model.- to 'adopt' ideas or concepts…? maybe, but to believe you can steal such a unique recording like those dust-videos, and nobody will notice .... that is … impressive. :woohoo:

"Mentality"... really? This is business. If someone steals from you, there are proper recourses, this is the same worldwide, that's why we have laws, courts, police, etc. Again, I reiterate, how naive to think that if someone has no moral compunction against stealing, that you could possibly assume that "shame" would stop them.

If everyone outside the US is too weak willed to do anything about it, then this case is aptly titled How To Make Money Violating Copyrights. It's just a free for all invitation to come steal our stuff. Not just for your own use, but hey, go ahead & sell it for way less than we can. Make yourself a bundle of cash, build up your name, because all we'll do is point a finger at you from across the sea & say "Shame Shame you bad boy Americans."

Next, the whole "small community" idea. Economies are tight all over, 99% of people looking to buy a product are influenced primarily by quality & price. Here you've got a few people talking in a forum about alleged infractions, but one guy says this, the other that... ehh, the buyer goes for the price point. He doesn't have time to do a major investigation into the allegations. He's got a deadline to meet, needs the effect now, he's thinking, if it were stolen, surely they would have taken it to court. I'm not stealing it, I'm paying for it & 25 bucks is a great deal.

Just this past week I posted something here about how busy they must be over at PixelFilm to be cranking out a plugin a week. Now it's all starting to make sense. However, if you get ripped off & you're not willing to fight or do anything about it other than whining in a forum, you really are setting yourself up to be a perpetual victim.

The Japanese say business is war. Part of the success of Steve Jobs was vigorously suing companies that stole his intellectual property. The attitude is, if you're getting rich off my product, I'm going to make you pay. If you can't manage to muster up that kind of mettle, you probably shouldn't be in business, choosing instead to go develop your plugins on some hippy commune surrounded by rainbows & unicorns.

I agree with you both in principle and in theory.

However, in reality you may be overestimating the resources that a tiny company like these plug-in developers have.

A lot of these companies live and die on the internet, and in the forums. Probably without a forum like fcp.co we would never have heard of Pixel Film Studios or even Motion VFX. A lot of these companies rely on forums and twitter and facebook to get their business in the first place; there are no large marketing departments.

So by the same token, there would be no legal department either. So it stands to reason that when something goes wrong they recourse to the same tool that got them where they were initially, and got them their business; the internet, forums, twitter facebook etc.

Some of these companies are probably a bunch of friends in a garage or a basement. I bought some plug-ins from a small Danish Company called Skippor recently. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty convinced they could be a couple of teenagers in their mums basement (sorry if thats not the case guys - great products & prices!). But I would never have heard of Skippor if not because of social media; and thats there whole business plan. Its a brave new world, and the internet can make people, and break them, if you're savvy enough to exploit it.

Sure, I took into account they're a small operation. That's all the more reason to fight for what is yours. Every nation has development enterprise departments set up to encourage startups, they want to see their nation's little companies grow into big ones. This is basic enterprise & industry. Those government agencies have a vested interest in protecting their citizen's corporate property because it's a vital component to that nation's economy. That's why we have international laws. These are men in suits, sitting behind desks, with official titles, they will go to war for teens in basements if the case is presented in a proper way. Szymon had the opportunity to pursue that route but because he didn't, he basically gave away his product. I would bet money Pixel won't pull the product, they've just concealed the evidence since he exposed it. Their banner may be down from this site, but they're not going anywhere, & I wouldn't be surprised to see them sue MotionVFX for slander.

Sorry if I come off sounding brusque or callous on this matter, but I really have very little empathy for people who won't take a stand & fight for what they worked hard to build.

Just a dumb question by a legally uneducated person: What does copyright violation mean here? As I understand after reading the original blog, somebody bought digital files from somebody else--royalty-free and for derivative work--and used them in this way. Did the seller specify that the resulting "products" must not be used commercially?

Motion VFX license as follows:

1. The mProduct may be used in perpetuity in one production only. If the file will be used in more than one production, it needs to be purchased with Extended License.
For example, if you purchase a Motion Template file and utilize it in a corporate video, you can show or display that video only once. However, if you will be using the same file in another different production, on different workstation or you would like to broadcast your video periodically or multiple times, you would need to purchase Extended License of that file.
2. You may use the mProduct alone or you may incorporate the mProduct into another work you are creating.
3. The mProduct purchased under Standard License is limited to a single workstation only.
4. You must NOT incorporate the mProduct in a work which is created for Resale by you or your client.
5. You may NOT advertise customization service of mProducts on your website.
6. You may NOT create any competitive products based on mProducts.

Reselling: Items purchased under a standard or extended license may NOT be redistributed or resold "as-is" or as part of any other collection of project resources or files. In other words, you may not re-sell our files as stock footage/media in any way. Items purchased under a standard or extended license may NOT be advertised as "your product" in any way.

Thanks for the swift response and the information. That sounds pretty clear to me.

TrixTrax9000 wrote: "Mentality"... really? This is business. …

I think, I made my point clear - I'm against self justice and against stealing.

business=war is just one perspective.

I know of lot businesses based upon trust, relationship, continuity etc. I did 6-digit-jobs just signed by handshake.
'Moral' has no function in Excel, so for some minds beyond imagination.
(not meant as a personal offence!)


.... sorry for getting off-topic by dropping the 'human factor' into this discussion.-

Why would someone add fake dust to there video in the first place?
Yeah this is not a respectful thing from Pixel Film Studio if it is all true.

There are always two side of the story.

Pixel FIlm Studios has come under fire lately from MotionVFX. The shame is it is justified to an extent. We had a employee resign yesterday after feeling an enormous amount of pressure on the things that were done to complete Produst.

Unfortunately young employees sometimes don't realize the things they do and how they can effect the people around them. This employee is great person who just made a bad decision.

We created all footage in our office and have hours of film shot with our cameras to create the desired effect. After reviewing the first 20 pro dust composites with this employee, everything was fine. We left him alone to do his job and tell us when he was done. We packaged it, made a demo and sold it.

The next morning I got an email from motionvfx staying we were pirating footage. To my knowledge… "That was CRAZY!" We had spend the whole day recording the necessary footage to complete the day earlier. Meanwhile the employee was already fixing the mess after guilt. I still have not seen the footage containing the Motion Dust. Lesson learned… When your name is on something… Make sure you know every dent and scratch!

We looked at our records after and it showed new versions of the video were uploaded from his house and the office. 8-10 hours after the original release. Therefore we will be refunding all the customers who purchased in the first day and require they delete any footage off of their computers immediately. We will also send them a new download of our footage Produst as an apology.

This can happen to anyone and unfortunately MotionVFX capitalized on this moment to ruin competition. Mission accomplished? Maybe… However, we have awesome effects and will continue to do so moving forward. We would like to take responsibility as a company for this and apologize to MotionVFX. This is the only time this will ever happen.

This does not reflect our company culture one bit. Our company culture is to have freedom, treat our workers like gold with an enormous amount of trust. Moments like this… it didn't work out for the best.

Thanks everyone for the support!

David Austin