66 | BAD GUYS? WORDS | John Howell This looks familiar
How would you feel if you saw your images, sales documents and website coding – in short, months of hard work and expense – copied by someone else’s company? Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz, received an email that alerted him to a serious problem. OPP editor John Howell tells us the details and the outcome.
This month’s case: Images, documents and coding from a luxury development project plagiarised
re you an estate agent who has not been paid commission by a developer? A developer who has been let down by a bank? A media owner whose exhibitor has not paid you? Are you or your clients’ buyers in a development that has not been delivered when promised – or, perhaps, not even started?
A
If so, are you tired of not being able to do anything about it? Do you want to warn others in the industry that they might want to be careful before dealing with these people? We have decided to give our readers the opportunity of telling us about industry-related complaints. We will then offer the other party the opportunity to comment on the
“We are not a court and won’t pass judgement on the disputes”
allegations and, where possible, we will try to help the two people reach an agreement to solve the problem. This is the fi rst of an occasional series of columns with this title. The columns won’t appear every month – only when our readers draw appropriate problems to our attention.
Of course, not all the people reported to us will be bad guys. Sometimes it might even be the person who is making the complaint who has behaved unreasonably. Sometimes there will just have been a misunderstanding. Sometimes there will be a genuine commercial dispute. We are not a court and we will not pass judgement on the disputes raised with us. We will simply try to help the parties solve their diffi culty, let the two sides have their say and then publish the result. We will not be able to take up cases that are pending before the courts or disciplinary tribunals. We will not be able to publish in every unresolved case. Sometimes the
allegations might be such that, if we published, we would run into problems with the law of defamation (libel). However, in many cases the facts will be clear and we will be able to publish both your allegation and the other person’s response. Our readers will then be able to make up their own minds as to what to make of the situation. We think that this will be a useful and valuable service.
This is for two reasons. First, it will be able to help you sort out disputes without the legal fees, the bad feelings or the irretrievably broken relationships that occur when you go to court. Second, if you can’t settle your dispute, you can at least warn others so that they don’t fall into the same trap.
If you have a problem and you would like us to get involved please let us know. E-mail
editor@org.uk. We will need a short (maximum 1000 words) description of your problem and copies of any relevant letters, contracts and emails. We will also need your contact details and the contact details of the person or company with whom you are in dispute.
One of our staff will then contact you to make sure we understand your problem before contacting the other party for an explanation and to see whether the problem can be solved. If we help you fi nd a satisfactory solution to the problem, we may print the fact that this has happened – but we will not name the parties unless you both wish us to do so. If you cannot fi nd an acceptable solution to the problem we may print a summary of the allegation and the response but we will be under no obligation to do so.
If the other party remains silent, we will say so. We may also print relevant background information if we think that it will help our readers better to understand the situation. We hope you fi nd the column useful and that we don’t have to print the Bad Guys? page in too many issues.
A Case in Progress
What would you do if you came across an email, distributed as part of a mar- keting campaign, offering beachfront villas and apartments with unbeatable views? Perhaps nothing. But what would you do if most of the photographs and CGI images promoting this paradise were yours: created for you (at great expense) to promote your development thousands of kilometres away? What would you do if you then saw that the sales documents were also close cop- ies of your own? What would you do if you saw that much of the HTML code behind the development’s website was also a direct copy of your own code? In this case, the person concerned (“the Complainant”) got angry. These
were his images and his intellectual property. If the images were seen on an- other website then his buyers might think that he, too, had just stolen what was available to create a seductive illusion and part them from their money. He decided that he needed to take this further. First, he gathered the
evidence: copies of the offending photos, documens and web pages and re- ports from the members of his staff who had unearthed the problem. He also obtained a copy of the email in which the CEO of the company concerned personally signed off the email making the claims as being accurate. He made contact with all of the parties concerned and stated, clearly and
forcefully, his concerns and what he expected to be done about them. He also made contact with OPP. Of course, this is a collaborative industry and there were companies other
than the developer involved in this chain of events. The main one was the company dealing with the distribution of the email and processing the leads generated. They, too, investigated the position and, to their credit, they moved quickly and decisively. Crucially, they suspended the advertiser’s account (so that no leads generated by the mail would be passed on to the developer) and they published a warning for their readers. As for the developer, the position is less clear. Some offending materials
have been removed from his website, but much of the copied code remains in place. In an email to the Complainant he has claimed that this whole affair was a mistake and the fault of his web designer. Yet, according to his various websites, the developer is a highly experi-
enced businessman. How, if this is the case, did he sign off images of his project that were, in fact, nothing to do with it? If this was an error by his web designers why has he not immediately removed all of the offending materi- als? Does he own this land? Does he have consent to build? Does this project even exist? In short, was this ‘just’ stealing photos, code and documents or is this a total scam? After several calls and emails the developer responded to OPP’s questions.
He again suggested that this was all the mistake of an over-enthusiastic web designer and claimed that the complainant were over reacting to the situa- tion. We requested further clarification of the key issues. He has now produced what he claims to be title to the land, which he
claims has planning permission and a fully worked architect’s project. He also says that construction will start in two months. We are investi- gating further. If these documents are not what they claim to be or if development does
not start as claimed, watch this space. If you have a story to tell, contact
john.howell@opp.org.uk.
FEATURES
www.opp.org.uk | JUNE 2012
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