So a couple days ago I’m approving new submissions on hauntedhouse.com and run across a haunt that has stolen graphics from one of my sites. It was a page background and not a whole site like I’ve seen in the past but it still peeved me off. I didn’t approve of the submission and instead contacted the site owner and told them to remove the stolen graphics and that stealing isn’t cool. They respond by telling me that its OK that they stole that graphics because they slightly changed the color and modified it. this is an excuse I’ve heard before and what’s more alarming I’ve actually heard this from people who should know better. I guess because of Myspace and Facebook we have a generation of “designers”, if they even deserve that title, that don’t understand or care that taking an image from another artist and just changing the color a bit is still stealing. These young designers then somehow convince their clients that they’re in the right to steal. Last season I had 2 occasions where I not only dealt with designers that thought it was OK but with their clients as well that argued with me that they had a right to use it!
Its never OK to steal someone else artwork, no matter what you do to modify it. Being inspired by it and doing something similar with your own materials is fine. I’ve seen a lot of haunts with similar designs to my sites and I’m OK with that as long as they haven’t taken any of my hard work to do it. I’m often asked by designers advice about how to get into the my line of work. I usually tell them the same thing. Don’t steal! Do you’re own thing, learn how to do things right and be as original as you can.
