This is the celebrated journal of Mr. Simon Collison A.K.A Colly

No public hangings today, folks

5th November 2004

Further to the previous post, I’m pleased to announce that the battle over the plagiarism of CollyLogic‘s XHTML and CSS has been successfully resolved. So, I feel it’s best not to publicly “out” those responsible, although I have selected a few choice quotes from the email conversations…

I have received a number of emails from the two companies involved in the last 48 hours. I even received a panicky email from the wife of one. Thankfully, all of the changes I requested have been made, and the site in question now doesn’t really resemble CollyLogic at all - well, maybe under the hood a little.

I suppose you are a little disappointed that I wont be “releasing the hounds” on this one. So, I thought I’d share a few quotes from their emails. I think they show how well they responded to my emails. I am not sharing these to give you more ammunition. I mean, do leave comments, but if you find out who the designers are, don’t name them here. Right then…

From the ex-employee and his wife

“AAHHHH! I’m freaking out over here. My husband has been gone since yesterday and is on his way home as I write this. It should be about 6:00 that he gets here. I’m dieing (sic) to talk to him and I’m sure he’s going to shit his pants when he gets the bad news…I don’t know exactly how these things work but it sounds pretty bad. Sincerely crapping my pants.” (The Wife)

“I stumbled across your site and read the “ticked off” tutorial and loved it, wanted to use and did. I couldn’t get it to work in a structure I built and basically was running out of time trying to build and test my own css, my deadline was coming up soon.  So I used your structure and changed what I needed to fit it with my design.”

“Simon I feel like the biggest shit on earth, I am the biggest shit on earth, and I know you can smell me from across the ocean. I was out of my league but was scared to admit it. I should have stuck to tables but didn’t. I was so desperate to learn css and implement it, I forgot to notice the line I crossed in the process.”

“I am actually thinking of changing careers and just leaving the internet behind me. This whole ordeal just completely emptied me as a man, I am ashamed, embarrassed and I can’t even look my wife in the face. And to top it all off, it is my own damn fault.”

From the employer

“(*****) is the one who created the site and he is no longer with my company. This just gives me another reason why I’m already re-designing the site as well as more justification of getting rid of him.”

“Please let me know if you still feel it matches exactly your design in anyway and let me know suggestions on what I should change and I will do it. I’m basically going to change backgrounds, ticks, etc. to resemble the style of the website and make it completely different than yours.”

“Again, though, please let me know if you have more requests. I will be working more on the site tomorrow. Also, I can’t say thank you enough for everything. My client is also aware of what all has transpired, just for your peace of mind.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t say it enough. I’m glad to meet your requirements on the graphical end. I did want to change the CSS names but as you mentioned, it would be a nightmare to change it in every file. You have handled yourself very appropriately and above the call. I’m glad that (*****) is also complying and was responsive to your emails in a professional manner. I guess we can all learn from this as time goes on.”

Please note, the employer also CC’ed the client in on his last two emails. So, no need to release the URLs. I’m actually quite concerned that the employee has now shut his portfolio/blog, and is apparently dissolving his business. I know you all think I’m soft, but the email from him was quite eloquent, and explained things well. Yes, we can all write bullshitty emails, but he was going on about standards and not wanting to use tables. He was learning, and under pressure. Equally, his former employer spent 24 hours recoding the CSS, making new images and so on. He too took time to explain himself, and neither of them suggested I was in any way out of line to badger them to alter the design.

What did I learn?

Well, I learned that you lot are bloodthirsty werewolves, who’ll rip any unsuspecting pirates limb from limb at some kind of archaic kangaroo court. Seriously though, I realised that it’s possible to keep the upper hand in this kind of dialogue. Face-to-face, I may have acted less forcefully, whereas through email, it’s possible to wield a bit of power and balance out the good webcop/bad webcop personas. It’s also quite useful to point the pirates to a blog entry full of support comments and suggestions of torture.

I also spoke to a few boffins about law on this one. I think I’ll dedicate a full post to this in the near future. Suffice to say, get screengrabs of the rip-off site - all the similarities. Get screengrabs of the CSS and XHTML also. Keep copies of all email dialogue, preferably as a “Reply-to” conversation. Having such weapons can only assist you if things move further. Threaten to send Cease And Desist notifications, and even give a date as to when you intend to do this.

From a human point of view, don’t give up. It is possible to force your point and resolve the issue through the friendly/nasty alternation in emails. I’m well aware that most would simply publish the names and URLs straight away, and I did want to do that. Instead, I emailed these to trusted bloggers who assured me that I was right to pursue the issue.

Ah, look. I’m tired of it now. All’s well that ends well. My thanks and respect to those that will remain unnamed, for the way they conducted themselves, and for making the amendments. Nobody got hurt, nobody died. Maybe I am disappointed not to be hanging them in this article, but fuck it. Life’s too short.

Still, thanks for all of your comments and advice. Do you think I handled this the right way? Should I have named them in case they do it again? Keep an eye on your referral stats, and watch out for pirates. Hoist the main brace…

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