I was forced to pick a new layout design. Why?
Because I received a comment from a follower letting me know that they just couldn’t let it go anymore, that the spelling of Santa Claus in the Believe template was spelled incorrectly as “Santa Clause”.
I thought that was great to let me know so I passed on the information to both the layout coder and the graphic owner. Thinking that they could both work together to correct the spelling.
I contacted them both: Butterflygirlms Blog Design, who wrote the code for the layout and Candace Duffy Jones, who created the graphics that were used in the Believe template.
Candace states that Butterflygirlms is violating her Terms of Use (TOU).
No commercial use is allowed. You may NOT sell, share, or distribute my products in it’s original or altered form. You may not make copies except for backup purposes. If you share your work online you must give credit. Any other use will be considered infringement on the copyright laws.
Candace’s graphics are for digital scrapbooking and by “sell, share or distribute” I believe she means the graphics should not be “shared” so that others are getting her products for free.
Obviously taking her graphics and using them to create a layout is only slightly going against her TOU but REALLY, what is the problem?
If someone found your graphics that awesome to use them to create another product and distributed that to others to use, thus, making another form of FREE advertising that gets pointed right back at you. How is that a bad thing?
The bad thing now is that I’m pretty upset that I have to take this awesome layout off and replace it with a nearly equally awesome layout designed by Butterflygirlms with graphics done by Just So Scrappy.
I will, however, frown upon Candace’s decision and will probably never visit her site ever again. :P
I hope you enjoy the new layout I chose. Butterflygirlms has a lot of great layouts to select from.
This is the week for people people with sticks up their butts to be jerks...you didn't know...sorry I didn't forward the memo ;)
ReplyDeleteIt does look awesome though, I am completely jealous of your html skills...I have zero.
UGH, what a pain - but I DO LOVE the new lay out :) The colors are awesome!
ReplyDeleteHi :)
ReplyDelete*blows raspberry at Candace*
:)
I like your new layout very much.
Happy Holidays,
RKCharron
Guess I'll have to be the voice of dissent here. It may suck and be inconvenient for the end user, but TOUs are kind of important to the original creator. I've done some stuff that's required a TOU, and even though my terms were pretty explicit and easy enough to follow, people still violated my wishes. And that's upsetting. For me, it wasn't so much that I didn't want more copies of my stuff out there. It was that 1) people were distributing it on a site that engaged in some bad behaviour and I didn't want to be associated with that, and 2) it was disrespectful not to abide by my wishes; after all, I was the one who spent hours on the stuff... so I thought I should have some say in which sites were going to take credit for my work. I've said it before and I'll say it again: just because something's on the Internet in digital form doesn't mean it's yours to do with what you wish.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your new layout looks great! "Santa Clause" would have bothered me, too (I've seen it misspelled that way a lot; I blame that silly Tim Allen movie). :)
I like the new layout..looks good.
ReplyDeleteSuper cute! Your site is always lovely.
ReplyDeleteI have recently been looking into starting my own layout design blog. I have found it to be extremely difficult to figure out which images I can and can't use. I willing to pay for them and all but if I make it to give away for FREE how is that considered commercial use? Like you said as long as credit is given to the creators it's a form of free advertisement. What it really comes down to is e-mail each individual person that creates digital scrapbook images that I like and asking them if I can use them. LOL But I really enjoy making them so I'll do it!
ReplyDeleteMAN, that is ANNOYING!
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend and I were also just talking about how it is annoying, rude people week.
In any case, I love the new blog layout!
I like the layout better than the other one. Love the little gifts.
ReplyDeleteI definitely like this header better, and the overall layout. You'd think that people would double check spelling like that before releasing art to the world. But it's a common mistake.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand the TOU issue but it would appear that the owner didn't take necessary measures to make sure her work wasn't stolen. There is an Orphaned Work law that indicates if you can't find the original owner of said image or work then you are legally free to use it. While internet pirates irk me to no end, if you don't take the proper measures to ensure that your work doesn't get very far, what do you expect? Having a TOU is great and all but the internet isn't the most honest place so, you know, watermarks and disabling right click go a long way and all.
Water off a ducks back. The new layout is great.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the new blog layout. I like it better than the last!
ReplyDeleteits stinky people week. i don't get it. if you give it away aren't you telling people they can do with it what they wish?! it doesn't matter about their wishes..people do what they want...so they have to be aware of that and willing to take the risk.