Psyho.ua vs. General Electric: happy end
In February 2009, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GSP) made for General Electric a great energy-saving site :
The site turned out to be excellent and, of course, it did not go unnoticed: it received the Site Of The Month award for February from The FWA and quickly dispersed links to various design sites and blogs. It was on one of the sites that I noticed a link to this site. I came in, looked, and I was struck by the detail, which resembled one of our work. We did a series of illustrations “ A Part of the World ” a little less than a year before, and they also went around the world several times, reprinting from one site to another.
')
I had no doubt that the designer who made the site for GE saw our work, since the similarities were obvious. The use of identical clip-arts was also excluded, since I knew for sure that our work was done from scratch.
On the one hand, it was nice that our work was used as a reference for another, no less decent work. On the other hand, it was unpleasant that an unknown designer, who had completed the colossal amount of work, was too lazy to make at least some changes to this scene in order to avoid similarities. After a brief search, the author of the site was found on Behance.net and a letter was sent to him asking him to comment on the situation. His reaction was strange: he didn’t answer and deleted his profile with Behance. After that, it became obvious that we were dealing with the violation of our rights.
To resolve this situation, we took several steps: a topic was launched on Habré describing the situation and asking for consultation from those who were in similar situations; copies of the site and our work were made, and the employee went for a consultation to a legal agency; On the GE website, a feedback form was found and a message was sent through it stating that the contractor of the site, in our opinion, was dishonorable and violated our rights.
On Habré we were hard-pressed :). There were several adequate answers, but it became clear that the majority did not believe that intellectual property should be protected. From lawyers came the answer that probably there is a fact of copyright infringement and they undertake to write an official letter of complaint to which GE could not fail to respond. But this was not required.
A couple of days later, an email arrived from the New York law firm Davis & Gilbert , which represented the interests of GSP. And began a long months of correspondence and joint meetings, during which we managed to reach a compromise: GSP signed a license agreement to use our work, when listing the authors of the GE website, our company will be listed, and we can rightfully put this website in our portfolio . Thus, the incident was settled.
The moral of the story is: your rights can and must be defended. You should not demand too much from the perpetrator: in this case, GE also turned out to be the injured party. GSP turned out to be sane guys, with whom it is pleasant to deal with and we hope that our cooperation will not stop there. I want to believe that a start has been made to a long and fruitful collaboration.
And further. What is unusual, but at GE they read what comes from the feedback form :)
Special thanks go to lawyer Sarah Edelman (Sara Edelman), representing the interests of GSP for her professional work, and law firm Davis & Gilbert.
The site turned out to be excellent and, of course, it did not go unnoticed: it received the Site Of The Month award for February from The FWA and quickly dispersed links to various design sites and blogs. It was on one of the sites that I noticed a link to this site. I came in, looked, and I was struck by the detail, which resembled one of our work. We did a series of illustrations “ A Part of the World ” a little less than a year before, and they also went around the world several times, reprinting from one site to another.
')
I had no doubt that the designer who made the site for GE saw our work, since the similarities were obvious. The use of identical clip-arts was also excluded, since I knew for sure that our work was done from scratch.
Lyrical digression
- , – . - – . ( , ), . , .How to be?
On the one hand, it was nice that our work was used as a reference for another, no less decent work. On the other hand, it was unpleasant that an unknown designer, who had completed the colossal amount of work, was too lazy to make at least some changes to this scene in order to avoid similarities. After a brief search, the author of the site was found on Behance.net and a letter was sent to him asking him to comment on the situation. His reaction was strange: he didn’t answer and deleted his profile with Behance. After that, it became obvious that we were dealing with the violation of our rights.
To resolve this situation, we took several steps: a topic was launched on Habré describing the situation and asking for consultation from those who were in similar situations; copies of the site and our work were made, and the employee went for a consultation to a legal agency; On the GE website, a feedback form was found and a message was sent through it stating that the contractor of the site, in our opinion, was dishonorable and violated our rights.
On Habré we were hard-pressed :). There were several adequate answers, but it became clear that the majority did not believe that intellectual property should be protected. From lawyers came the answer that probably there is a fact of copyright infringement and they undertake to write an official letter of complaint to which GE could not fail to respond. But this was not required.
How do they do there
A couple of days later, an email arrived from the New York law firm Davis & Gilbert , which represented the interests of GSP. And began a long months of correspondence and joint meetings, during which we managed to reach a compromise: GSP signed a license agreement to use our work, when listing the authors of the GE website, our company will be listed, and we can rightfully put this website in our portfolio . Thus, the incident was settled.
The moral of the story is: your rights can and must be defended. You should not demand too much from the perpetrator: in this case, GE also turned out to be the injured party. GSP turned out to be sane guys, with whom it is pleasant to deal with and we hope that our cooperation will not stop there. I want to believe that a start has been made to a long and fruitful collaboration.
And further. What is unusual, but at GE they read what comes from the feedback form :)
Special thanks go to lawyer Sarah Edelman (Sara Edelman), representing the interests of GSP for her professional work, and law firm Davis & Gilbert.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/75156/
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