Copy Mountain
March 27th, 2008
There is a local web designer named Kaz Raad re-selling my work without my permission. Dear Kaz, stop being a jerk and charging people for stuff I made that you modified slightly. If you are working with him, please know that he is charging you for work that I was not properly paid for. I will not link to his site, but you can google “a dark maze” to find his oh-so-dark-and-oh-so-clever portfolio. As he puts it, “I made this.” Well, not really, you installed the code I made, butchered it, and didn’t ask if you could re-use it. Well played sir.
If any of his clients would rather work with a real web designer you should contact me. Most of the proof is in the code itself, but it is not hard to spot visually either. He is stealing all of this code from my original css/xhtml/php work at okaymountain.com which he recently took my name off the copyright (i think that might even be illegal). As expected though, the lazy Kaz Raad still left my name on the footer of the front page and the mailing list page. Here are the examples…
- okaymountain.com
- msieben.com
- handmadeaustinwomen.com (now changed)
Homepages
Here he at least changed a few font sizes and modified it from my more contemporary div-based layout to a table-based layout that would work with his Dreamweaver install. Notice they all follow the same news format (in the code it is exactly the same), News Headline, then “posted on 12/23/2008″, and then the paragraph. By keeping my stylesheet and css class definitions, Kaz was able to easily modify a few font-sizes and typefaces. The main menus and news items all use the same WordPress generated code that I created from templates.
Inner Page
Whether its the copied left-side navigation, the square thumbnails with captions that float, or the headline, it is pretty clear to me that some serious borrowing occurred here. Maybe I should be flattered?
Mailing List
I installed my customized version of web-insta mailing list for Okay Mountain, an open source software. He copied this installation, which the license allows for handmadeaustinwomen.com and msieben.com. It just bugs me how similar they are though.
If it weren’t obvious yet
I left the saddest example for last. In this screenshot of handmadeaustinwomen.com’s contact page (it’s on the about page also), you can clearly see that the title of this page still says “About OKMT”, which is stolen from the okaymountain.com page. I mean, come on Kaz, check for errors when you copy!
The backstory
This all started in 2006 when I designed okaymountain.com for the local Austin gallery upstart as a favor to Nathan Green and Michael Sieben, two really amazing Austin artists. Michael Sieben did most of the graphic design and came up with a really good look and logo. I spent time coding it out and working it into a WordPress template. They needed to be able to edit themselves, so I worked hard to make it easy to edit through WordPress. Then, I poured in the content they had, setup a custom mailing list php-based application. There was a lot of content because every artist involved had their own portfolio page. It took about 60 hours all-told, a full-time gig as far as I’m concerned, and a donation to the arts community in the hopes that another alternative space would thrive in Austin, Texas. I was taking a clear paycut for this work, as I passed up several freelance jobs to get it completed.
The agreed upon compensation for this site was a work from the opening exhibition by Jason Villegas. How cool is that right? The site was a bit slow because Okay Mountain had to host with really awful and unreliable Dreamhost to save money, but it worked and they were able to edit it, it looked like Michael Sieben’s designs, had a functioning mailing list and integration with flickr. Not bad for a first draft, and I was committed to making changes and updates throughout the year to make it better.
So I went to the preview for Jason’s show, picked out my piece (pictured below) and told Sterling Allen. Jason’s work is so elegant, I loved the little drawing and the details on the whale. I had to have it.
Sterling said the piece was too expensive at 1400, or maybe it was 1600, I can’t remember. Instead, he was willing to offer me $500 store credit…erhem I mean gallery credit. I was completely dumbfounded. Really? Even though we agreed to it? Even though I told you my expectations were for a piece with a market value over $3000, as I had done in previous trades? Even though my 60 hours were already done and you had a functioning site on time? Even though I would have charged you a lot more if you paid me hourly? What a fool I was to trust you bunch of schmucks.
I looked around to salvage the deal and discovered the brilliance of Sterling Allen’s business acumen. Okay Mountain doesn’t sell anything for $500. It was $100 or less, or $1000 or more. So I could either have 5 things of questionable collecting value, or I could pay the mountain another $700 for something that was really worthwhile. Genius, get your workers to buy stuff from the company store like them olden days. So I decided better just to grab the cash and maybe buy 1 item for 100 just to have a little memento of the whole thing, nevermind the updates that would have been made during the year as needed, and as part of the collective spirit I thought I was engaging in.
Then, they hit me again with it. Sterling couldn’t give me $500 in cash, because it was store credit and the store had to pay the artist 50 percent, so he offered me $250 bucks. So I said Okay mountain, you win, I’ll take the hush money. $250 for 60 hours of work. Thank you for respecting me as an artist and for supporting my work. Well played sir.
So what, why am I crying about it?
I have a problem with holding grudges. I do it rarely, but when I feel that someone has been a real asshole, and gotten away with it, it is always hard for me to shake. The Austin arts scene is sort of a walk-on-eggshells kind of scene, though, so noone really speaks in public about those things, although in private I hear differently. I have been so privileged with the opportunities I have received to exhibit in Austin, so it just comes with the territory I guess. You take your lumps and move on, and try to do better the next time. However, with everyone desperate for opportunity, any criticism is marginalized as an attempt to derail the potential success of some future austin arts market. My story about Okay Mountain will probably be included in this, we’ll see.
After reading the following article in the recent Austin Chronicle that essentially begged people to buy Austin art, or in more palatable and egalitarian terms “support” austin artists, I was struck by The Sterling Allen’s quote:
Not to reduce art-making to monetary terms, but an artist getting paid for his work translates to more studio time and other resources for making better art. No artist I contacted would stop making art for lack of sales – no one is an artist for the money – but having someone buy work can be the ultimate compliment and motivator to keep on working. And as your career gets more serious, it helps you pay for supplies, studio space, rent, life. As Sterling Allen explains: “[Getting paid] didn’t used to matter. I liked showing, and it was a bonus to sell. In the past few years, it has become more important. I respect my own work that much more, and it simply isn’t enough to have someone like it. I want to be rewarded for it. I also would like to get to the point where I wouldn’t have to go to work and sit at a computer all day and instead just focus on art. I will always make stuff no matter what, but it is very encouraging to sell work. It keeps you going. As we get more mature and ambitious in our practice, the cost of making work also goes up. I didn’t used to need a studio. I also didn’t used to worry about safely shipping work. The more serious and dedicated you become, the more expensive life gets.”Show And Sell by Clayton Maxwell, Austin Chronicle, May 14, 2008, Vol.27 No.28
It just breaks my heart that Sterling isn’t rewarded for his work (image at right) and that he has to sit in front of a computer all day to make art. Welcome to the elite club of privileged college educated kids who are lucky enough to have jobs in this economy working on a computer. Don’t take it for granted!
Clearly, the larger point that artists in Austin need to be paid for their works is correct, and they need to help educate the public on new forms of art and art experiences that they may not yet know about. But, we have been witness to an unprecedented boom in art prices and an unprecedented boom in the very very rich. This can not be over-stated so our expectations have to weathered with this knowledge. In addition, I think it is a little naive to think that you would be making a living as an artist after only 5 years out of college without an MFA from a major arts school in a major arts market, but every little bit of editorial coverage of the matter helps, i guess. If Austin wants to be a successful visual art market then we need to stop thinking that the work going into behind-the-scenes gallery work can all be volunteer. The incentive to make the arts market great will be driven by the potential profits, not just the not-for-profit grants which get sucked into new buildings instead of new works anyway.
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- Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
- topic: personal
This is ridiculous. As you stated in your backstory, Michael Sieben designed his and Okay Mountain’s websites (which explains why they look so similar), you just coded it. HTML isn’t “art.” And expecting a $3000 painting from their first show for coding a website? Nice favor.
Also, classy move mocking Sterling by posting that drawing out of context. That was part of a triptych that was really impressive when seen altogether. But I’m sure you already know that.
Lastly, Kaz Raad is a stand-up guy, one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Save your vitriol for people who deserve it. These guys certainly don’t.
hunter -
this is kaz from http://www.adarkmaze.com. thanks for long litany, always a good read on this blog. I would like to address a few of your points here. since you are an upstanding webizen, you will probably allow me to leave this comment on your blog. nothing more delicious than to come back from work to find a poorly executed form of libel.
of the things you posted in this lame attempt to defame me and a few of your-once-upon-a-time-friends, I will admit copying the okaymountain stylesheet over to the prior rendition of the HAW website (http://www.handmadeaustinwomen.com) as a trial website for them. for your information, that was not a wordpress blog, I don’t use wordpress at all. and while you will find some dreamweaver templating in michael and okaymountain’s site, I have since then moved on and code sites from scratch. it’s cleaner and it makes more sense. I do this for a living for a respectable company, and I would venture to say that your wordpress css blog stylesheet doesn’t amount to much compared to the kind of work I have been doing since. anyway — I have since then redone the handmadeaustinwomen website entirely, they just needed a few images slapped together online (http://www.handmadeaustinwomen.com). nothing fancy, just a photoshop sliced image with a few dynamic parts, like the navbar and the header and footer. we will talk more about those later on, you seem to be confused about who invented that. Turned out the HAW Ladies didn’t really need the whole shabang that your original layout was (nobody does apparently. I recently heard of another of your customers coming my way soon… you should hear them talk about it - you sound like a psycho ex-girlfriend).
I hope you will forgive this one mistake on my part. I have, by removing that site entirely, hopefully mended this problem and assuaged your wounded ego. I am sure you have made mistakes before, no ?
To my credit, I also didn’t know that the mailing list software was customized by you - and it is opensource. if you have a problem with other websites using that same software, I am afraid you will have to read the definition of opensource again. if there is any way other than having your name on the footer of the okaymountain site that I can make you feel ok about that part, let me know. HAW doesn’t use that software anymore. Michael uses it, but if you have such a big issue with the look and feel of a form with two fields, i am starting to wonder if you are not simply grasping at straws… don’t you have anything better to do ? Do you go around attacking everybody that has a form with two fields and uses Georgia or Times in black on a white background ?
Trust me, I understand getting credit where credit is due — I would hate it if someone stole my work (which inspite of what you think is not just a copy of your work. see sites like http://www.leadingedgegroupinc.com or http://www.sandycarson.com or http://www.handmadeaustinwomen.com or or or or or…).
i will not however let you insult me or the okaymountain people. when the okaymountain crowd came to me, they were, like several other people you have worked for since, fed up with the over complex design and tools you had implemented their site with, and they just wanted to simplify things. handing over the site to a few different people within the organization eventually led to a misediting of the footer (thus the different footers in different sections - that’s why i use PHP now to avoid this kind of stuff). I did not intend to remove your name from the site layout — I did not make the layout, you did (I would venture to say though that you didn’t invent the wheel there, buddy). I however turned the site into something okmt can use, and love. They didn’t like some of the fonts and kerning, so they asked me to change them - and i did, because they are the customer, and i am the web dude, something you apparently have a hard time understanding (word on the street). it’s not like I copied your stylesheet and screwed it up - we openly used your stylesheet but removed the entire site structure from wordpress because the kids at okmt didn’t like how slow that was for them and how the flickr integration, albeit a cool idea, was actually bogging the site down too much. it was, I must say, a great example of your obsession with tools over ideas, and the actual need of your customer.
i have restored your name on the footer of the okmt site, and I wish you the best in the web world. please check the stylesheets for okmt and michael sieben’s site, I hope this will satisfy your ramping ego.
please inspect these easily available and open to all stylesheets - i give you credit there too now :
okaymountain’s stylesheet :
http://www.okaymountain.com/resources/css/okmt.css
michael sieben’s stylesheet :
http://msieben.com/css/msieben.css
– that done : you can’t really be a king in all lands.
you want to be an artist, and you want to have artshows. that’s great. more power to you. i gave up on that a while back when i realized i didn’t have it in me, that it didn’t hurt my guts when i wasn’t making art. so i don’t go around saying i am an artist (heavy title to bear, if you ask me).
you want to make websites and you want to get business, that’s great. I for one understand that, and that’s what i do for a living.
I can only suggest that you listen to your customers and deliver what they want, as opposed to try to gear them towards what you think they need. that’s the problem with you art school fiends, you think that because you are an artsy person you can dictate to a customer what they want, educate them. same with architects, composers, interior decorators…. it’s not because you know all about it that it is what your customer wants, and if you know anything about business — customer is ALWAYS right. always. truth is, they want the site to be the way they want it to be - sometimes it is a bad idea to let them drive, and it’s ok to suggest or recommend things based on trends — but for them to accept your suggestions, they will have to trust you. trust is not something you earn by being territorial and bigoted about your web work. anybody I talk to about your old site structure says “it sucked it didn’t do what we need it to do”. had you listened to that and, had you not repeatedly missed deadlines (i won’t say who told me that, but you probably know what I am referring to), you could’ve perhaps kept your clientele and expanded it. that’s what i seem to be doing, and it’s working great, thank you.
as far as “copying your stuff” - let’s make one thing clear : you designed the okmt site layout, and when the site was removed from wordpress, it was the gallery’s desire to keep the look and feel. they were happy with your work layout wise, and I would say in that regard, they still are and everybody likes the clean and contemporary look you developed. but, and that’s no shocker to the web community, while you may have created that stylesheet, you do not own the concept of a header, a footer and a navigation bar. a quick google search will return hundreds of articles about how to use PHP includes in a page to create dynamic content. you, sir, did not invent that. at best, you were a wordpress customizer when you made the site for okmt, and your own personal blog. since these early sites, I have gone on to make websites for people that have nothing to do with you, and that do not use anything you have developed. you fail to mention that in your site, because you wanted to make a point and to be true to your reputation, whine and toot your own horn.
also, on your blog you say that i butchered your work and didn’t ask if i could use it — when you handed over the site to okmt, you relinquished all rights to these files and they could’ve deleted them, turned them to pink, or kept them as is and take credit for them. you quit, because you weren’t keeping up with their needs, and your ego was offended that anyone would tell you what to do, that you were a web developer and that you knew better than they did. in addition, slapping (c) at the end of a page doesn’t mean you have a copyright to it — at all. but, i give you more credit than you think, i am sure you already know that.
for instance : I just finished sandy carson’s photography website (http://www.sandycarson.com). oh my god, that has a navigation bar a footer and a header ! I must have copied that from you, you are the only guy in the world that used that I am sure. sandy’s site uses a clean white background, which, I am sure, is also the trademark of your work, and most likely you are the only one in the world to be allowed to use a white background. if you are able to get over these few points, you might notice that the entire site is built around a MySQL database, and driven by PHP and Javascript, which I have entirely made from scratch, minus of course the scriptaculous library which is available for all online to use.
as you can see from this : http://sandycarson.com/css/style.css, this stylesheet and that site has nothing to do with your work. unless of course you still think that white backgrounds and dynamic php content is something that you, and only you should use.
i have developed a framework for small artists websites, in PHP / Javascript and MySQL, that has absolutely nothing to do with your work. as far as your original complaint to sterling, where you were upset that I was “reselling your css and php work on multiple sites”, I have yet to see any php you have made. you are a css maker, and a wordpress template editor. I have not stolen any of your php, as you know - php is rendered before the browser displays it and I can’t really copy it even if I wanted to. (hehe, that’s by the way how I hope people won’t steal my work, but as I know from years of web work, it is the nature of the beast. designers that get their panties in a wad about copying on the net are in the wrong medium — everybody makes white websites with subtle colors, I don’t see apple get mad about that. what about the minimalist artists, painters that made designs that are being copied left and right ? if anything, you should be flattered anyone pays any attention to what you do.)
i am currently working sterling allen’s site, which will also use a white background and a navigation bar, hopefully you won’t call the cops about this one or post a 6 page complaint on your blog about that.
good day mr hunter cross, artist extraordinaire -
kaz
ps: i am available for work if anybody wants to work with someone that makes websites, not toot his horn all day.
please accept my previous post where i explain things. you attack me in public, allow me to respond in the same arena. also, i don’t really think you are being fair to sterling, who happens to be a great guy, a good friend, a humble and hard working local fixture. he and his buddies are successful and trying hard to make it. i think it goes “don’t hate me cause i’m beautiful” or something like that.
there you go kaz,
it was marked as spam, so i un-moderated it for you as i agree you should be allowed to defend yourself in public.
Kaz,
I love that you are telling me about running a business, when it is clear that noone, not you or me, can run a business from doing work for free. Why not just ask me to use it? I would have said yes. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m clearly a big pushover, plus we both know the web is one big copy and paste. Don’t worry, I get it, people re-use code. But if you are going to give me advice after re-using my work, let me give you some small advice, ask first.
But really, do you consider Okay Mountain a customer? If you think that I consider them a previous customer of mine, then I’m not sure how you define customer. How much do they pay you? From what I understand you make your living working for Apple. If that is not true, please correct me.
I make my living only from freelancing and I work to support my art. That means that anytime I do web work for free is work that I don’t spend with my family and don’t spend on my art. Whoopdy-do right?
The stealing doesn’t really hurt my ego, but it is certainly within my rights to point it out when it is blatant. Its more funny than anything else. I don’t think you would have needed to write so much, if deep down you didn’t know it was just a wee bit shady. Michael Sieben’s site has been up for a long time, so it wasn’t until you re-used it a third time that I thought it too much. I didn’t seem like a temporary site to me, as you were using it in your portfolio on your website. What am I missing?
I think you overstate my argument in your sandycarson.com example. OF COURSE, you didn’t copy that one from me. I didn’t mention it did I? Am I supposed to be fair and balanced? I don’t think so. You obviously can code and design, so thats why it is so strange that you weren’t inclined to do that for all your sites. From what I’ve seen, people in this “web world” you speak of point out copying all the time especially when it is obvious. I usually find it just hilarious.
I appreciate all the ways in which you have corrected this. It does show a lot character and makes me think twice about writing what I did. There are some phrases I regret. I should not have called you lazy, that was a low blow and spiteful.
But I don’t really find it necessary to insinuate what all of my customers think. It was more than I expected to be sure, as I have never wronged you except in this clear exposition of you using my work. Had I been properly paid for it or had you simply dropped me an email, the issue would never have come up.
as for this:
“when you handed over the site to okmt, you relinquished all rights to these files and they could’ve deleted them, turned them to pink, or kept them as is and take credit for them. you quit, because you weren’t keeping up with their needs, and your ego was offended that anyone would tell you what to do, that you were a web developer and that you knew better than they did.”
Maybe I relinquished the rights to okay mountain, but when does that mean they transfer to you to re-use? What am I not understanding? As for quitting, it wasn’t really a job, since I wasn’t really getting paid appropriately, so I’m not sure I can quit something that isn’t a job. But, I mean isn’t your best friend Sterling arguing that artists should be paid for their work? This is another point where I just don’t understand, but maybe I’m still totally egoing out from all those art classes.
I’m not saying that he should pay for my websites as “Art”, as in capital A, but I couldn’t put anymore time into it. It was an awful experience start to finish, and I regret agreeing to do it. As you said, everyone makes mistakes.
I wasn’t offended by the “client” telling me what to do, I was offended by someone agreeing to a deal and then going back on his word. Maybe the solution wasn’t simple enough for them, but it was good enough and from what they told me, they appreciated it. On several occaisions they complained about WordPress. This is true. But, I was very clearly in saying that I would work until they were completely happy with it. That was until I felt that we were no longer working together in good faith.
If they felt differently than they should tell me. I don’t think it follows from one pro-bono-client’s experience that I am obsessed with tools or don’t listen to my clients. That’s a bit of a low blow. I can only survive with my clients satisfied, so I do everything I can to support them.
As a freelancer, wouldn’t it bother you if a client told you they would give you 1600 and then write you a check for 250? I worked 60 hours on it, and the work was clearly good enough to use on several sites. The fact that my time is not worth much to Sterling, favor or not, is just hypocritical. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
hunter
Dear Allison,
Maybe we don’t know each other, maybe we do. It is hard to tell on the interweb. But I am sure if you were to really know me, you would probably know I’m a nice guy too, just like your friends. I think that just because someone is nice does not mean they can’t do un-nice things to other nice people. Do you?
I don’t understand your reducing my work to “just coding it”, as in that it takes no time or creativity. Yes, Michael Sieben sent me 3 jpg’s from which to work. Yes I coded the site from these, and yes it took a lot of work. It is also strange that you suggest that I view my HTML work as art. I don’t.
Now, your misunderstanding of my “nice favor.” That was our agreed on deal. I realize 3000 would have been way outrageous.
But do you really think 1600 was really that outrageous for a website? Its a beautiful drawing, but I’m not sure it took 60 hours to make. Maybe his time is just way more valuable than mine. At most it would have cost OKMT 800, which is a great deal for that site, and would have been something they could have afforded. If they could not afford it, then I would simply not have done the site, no harm done right?
But, whether or not it was a good deal should have been worked out in advance. It is a classic story in all the freelance world, Customer needs something really quick and perfect, agrees to pay, Worker finishes work, doesn’t get agreed on payment. I was not surprised that it happened, just disappointed.
Do you do work for free? I hope you never have to and I really hope you stand up for those artists that do.
hunter
hunter -
all points taken. nothing worse than working for free. i think we should move on. i am willing to continue this conversation offline or in person if you like.
i don’t like to work for free, and i have had my share of stingy customers. i see where you’re coming from. it’s a pretty tough audience here in austin to get paid what we’re really worth.
thanks for letting me post my tirade, which i now consider to be a little on the angry side. honestly, i have nothing against you personally, i just felt attacked and wanted to settle the score. i wish i could take some of the things i said back, and it maybe best for all of us if we just scratched the whole thing and started from scratched. do you really want this flame war on your blog ?
it’s always so easy to type things out rather than say them in person.
i second your sentiment about coding as art. i take pride in the development work i do, and i understand that you would too. allison was defending me and her friends, and you and i both know that people that don’t work on the web don’t really think of coding as an art (thus the difficulty getting paid what we’re really worth). that said, i had forgotten a little bit that michael was the original designer of the layout — he’s the one who should be pissed ! :)
If i were in a situation where someone else coded someone’s design, I think as a result of this and my experience now, I would ask for permission. Things seemed a bit hostile when the switch happened, and you and I never talked.
I ask for 1/2 payment upfront, and 1/2 payment upon completion to prevent these situations from happening: no secret there, I learned that the hard way (no pay, sliding scale, etc…) — but after years of bad moves, I feel like my work is paying off, and although I don’t rely on it to live, I am relying on it to build my next life, away from all this.
i have read lots of articles about plagiarism online, and it is mostly hilarious, i concur. the bignoob has an article about that a few months ago, and i thought to myself i would be mad if that happened to me. from where you stand, i understand how you felt. i hope we are able to move on now that the score has been settled. (has it ?)
I hope you can work things out with Sterling, I personally have never had any problems with him or anyone around OKMT. But again, I demand half upfront. I have a great relationship with Michael, Sterling and OKMT and I don’t intend to change anything with them.
i have had to work with people that are awful from start to finish, and it’s one of the worst things out there - some of my clients to date even have cost me countless hours for free. i try to avoid these when i can. i am sorry okmt and the bunch is that experience for you, and that they’re great to me. lose some win some, no ?
anyway - i think we both have a much better understanding of the situation at this wee hour of the night. for what it’s worth, i want to say that i would have preferred to not get into all that, and i am starting to think you neither.
i feel like there are two things going on here, one’s personal and one’s business, and these two don’t mix. if we can’t mend the personal, i hope that the steps i took will mend the professional.
best to you and your endeavors, all i really want is for people that do websites to be compensated appropriately (cause i am one of them) and for nice people that are cool and friendly to not be insulted publicly (i am one of them too :P). anything you can do to help with that cause, i am behind you 100%.
signing off -
k.
Kaz,
In your first post you said -
“I have yet to see any php you have made. you are a css maker, and a wordpress template editor.”
I’m not sure where you got this, but just to set the record straight - I coded custom WordPress plugins from scratch for Okay Mountain in PHP. I have as paid consulting work coded ecommerce systems, content management systems, and point-of-sales systems from scratch in PHP and have coded several sites exclusively in PHP. I know the object-oriented features in PHP5 like the back of my hand.
To be sure, the portfolio on this site is woefully out of date, but I have been coding PHP since I worked for REAL Software as their only web developer in 2004. As you know the CSS and XHTML structure are inter-dependent, so the choices made in both are where the real work comes in.
WordPress templating is certainly nice because you get a lot things for free like built-in search, caching, nice url’s, a cool admin that you can edit anywhere, a working news system that creates lots of google traffic, a bunch of plug-ins, but it is not used on all of my sites. It takes a lot of PHP skills to template WordPress by the way. My choice to use it, though, is primarily in the interest of saving my clients money so they don’t have to pay me to bug-fix my framework or purchase DreamWeaver or one of those other visual editors. They get the bug-fixes, and new versions for free because it is open source, y’know? They also get the freedom that if they need to work with someone else, they can just find someone that understands WordPress and they will be good to go. Its a win-win and value for my customers.
As far as I’m concerned the issue is done. I will gladly move on. I hope you do make it to supporting yourself with your web work. The personal and the professional between us are fine, it’s a small town after all. Thanks for the efforts to correct the issue, i will make note of it in the post.
hunter
Allison,
“You just coded it.”
Do you have any idea how ignorant that is? php does not = HTML. Do you even know how to code? It’s not like choosing which myspace layout you want! And no, that piece was not any better in context.
Hunter was not asking for a $3000 painting. I was actually present and he was asking for something that was $1600. I told him if he really wanted something from them that badly we could use something from the Urban Outfitters catalog. That’s basically what it is, right?
Let me break it down for you, since you clearly missed part of his message. OKMT asked Hunter to do them a favor because they knew they couldn’t afford him, so they came to an agreement. That agreement was bullshit at the time, but Hunter chose to go along with it because he really wanted to help them out (ie. Nathan asked him and he loves Nathan). Yes, most of those guys are really nice, but no one stuck up for Hunter when they knew they were wrong. The thing is that if you even knew Hunter you would know that he would have done it FOR FREE if they were upfront with him. He just wastes his time like that. He’s really sweet in that way and this really hurt his feelings. Yes, it’s like 10 years later, but it was a shitty thing to do.
However, I guess $250 for 60 hours of work is a fair trade. The work he did for them would have cost them over that $3000 painting you think he wanted. How rude of Hunter to think he got screwed. Oh and they sent a 1099 for $250!! So he made 70% of $250. It’s fucking hilarious.
Kaz — When it comes to updating a site, I don’t think anything could be easier than WordPress. Maybe Hunter was quick to judge thinking they would be able to use it, it’s pretty straight forward.
I’m sure you’re a great guy. I think Hunter was a little harsh, he knows that and he feels badly. But guess what, Hunter isn’t that bad of a guy either. Yes, we live together, and most of the time I think he’s wrong, but this is one of those times where I think he’s actually pretty spot on.
Hunter is a big supporter of open source. Like he stated, he would have been fine if you would have just asked. He’s a hard worker, even when it’s for free.
Hey Hunter –
I know where you’re coming from. I keep getting myself into situations where I’m building a site for a friend, an artist, a non-profit, and other well-meaning folks who don’t exactly have money falling out of their pockets. Some turn out great, but then there are those projects that end up sucking out a bit of your soul, not to mention eating up way more of your time and resources than you originally intended. I’m preaching to the choir, but it’s these kind of projects that really beg for a simple written contract, anything so that both parties involved know upfront what’s being offered and what’s being given in exchange. I’m still bad about writing up contracts for projects like these, and I usually end up wishing I had one by the end of it…
In any case, just wanted to say that I’ve always admired the Okay Mountain site. I’d credit it as being the site that turned me on to using WordPress as a simple but elegant CMS!
(I’m staying out of the issue of design ownership that your post raises, but I thought I’d share this: we spent all last summer trying to hire a new web designer, and one of the applicants tried to pass off a stolen version of shauninman.com as his own portfolio site. Chutzpah!)
Keep your chin up.
SEO rapper on design coding
Now bust a move.
A web designer snagged a template from another designer on the web and incorporated it into his homebrew cms as the “default” pre-tailored config. How is this news? The only reason I find the even mildly interesting is that you guys happen to live in the same city and overlap in social circles.
I’m guessing (correctly) that he’s working with local Austin artists who don’t typically have the budgets to afford a lot of post install configuration and tailoring. Hence they all get the same standard template, which unfortunately uses much of your markup.
Anyway, I’m not that sympathetic to your cause. In fact, I’d rip your CSS and layout if I needed a clean white default skin as well. It’s well done, readable, and easily modified. Such is life on the web, and in the world of code.
I’d say this blog post is bad for business for the both of you. He ends up looking like a douchebag to those uneducated in the ways of the web, and in turn you end up looking like a whiny little bitch (pardon my frankness, no personal disrespect meant).
Perhaps you guys can come to an agreement on a one time template rights fee ($99 at gooeytemplates.com gets you something far more useful than what I’m seeing here) and you can send this blog post off to /dev/null.
Just my $0.02. It’s your blog, do what you want.
Dear Walls-of-Text,
I am running a business. This business employs other contractors, provides me with health care and supports my family. Perhaps you will be more sympathetic to that cause. Unlike Kaz, I am not working for a large corporation and doing websites on the side, working to eventually freelance. The stakes are a bit higher if he chooses to market himself using my code in his portfolio, but I understand how you could see this as just part of life on the web.
The weird thing is, you can’t have it both ways, by that I mean be gainfully employed by day with corporate healthcare and freelancing at night. So, Apple by contract rights surely owns all of Kaz’s code anyway, regardless of the fact that he developed it in his free time. Corporations get to own everything and every invention their employees create because their contracts require it. Is it right? Probably not, but our immature economy has no precedents for how to handle such issues in which a created good can be infinitely copied without much additional cost of production. Apple doesn’t blog about infractions, they just sue your pants off when it even resembles something they made, not to mention using the actual thing they made. That is the world of code I know.
I am no expert on intellectual property (a dubious term, all those in this conversation would probably agree), but since my code has been integrated into his while he works for a large IP-paranoid corporation, it is not far-fetched to think that Apple now owns that part of my code as well.
If he was working for himself or this other world of kum-by-yah code sharing you envision just magically created itself, all of this would be a different story. I know this only from personal experience having had to leave REAL Software in order to retain any sort of copyright over my work.
Further, as part of my business it is in my interest to point out the bad business practices of others, especially those that would seek to compete with me for clients. Your point is that these practices are so widespread therefore not worth speaking about. I simply don’t find rampant copying in the work of the web professionals I admire, so perhaps we are looking at different sites.
My feeling is that criticism is an important and integral part of the trade. In that light my complaining was effective, because Kaz changed the offending sites so quickly, albeit criticism tinged with whiny little bitch particles (gee, no personal disrespect taken). You clearly disagree, so I won’t try to make the business case any clearer to an anonymous poster, except to point out a particularly nerdy example: Panic’s Ripoff Express.
As for Kaz: He and I are coming to some sort of agreement with regards to remedying the fact that my post makes him look like a douchebag. After trading emails with him, I don’t retain any animosity towards him personally, as it sounds like he is working through a lot of the same problems that I had to work through when I started out.
I wrote out a gigantic masterpiece of a response, but then I realized the futility of trying to argue my thoughts point by point on a stranger’s own blog. I’m less concerned about winning arguments than I am with seeing fair and swift resolution.
What my previous post would have said if I had removed the inflammatory filler text is this:
Do you have any intention of removing this blog post once you guys sort things out?
It sounds like you guys are getting that figured out, and that’s all that matters.