*EDITED* - The owner of the page has asked me to remove her details from the screenshot, so I've done so.
So... last night I got a message from someone on FB advising me to go and take a look at a certain business page, so I did. From what they'd said I was expecting to find someone else who makes name banners, etc, and I really wish now that's all it was.
I took a look at the page, and noticed similarities straight away. It was obvious that this page had been taking a lot of inspiration from my own work. If it was
just inspiration that would've been fine, I appreciate the fact that a lot of people make similar things to me and it doesn't bother me so much now, not like it used to anyway.
But then I came across a few status' that looked extremely familiar. I'll post a picture of one of them so you can see what I mean...
Of course, this made me angry. I had never come across this page before this point, and yet there I was looking at my own words that they had obviously copied and pasted onto their status. I looked for a while longer to see what else I could find and there were a few things on there that had been taken from my page.
I messaged the owner of the page and politely asked them to remove any content that had been taken from my own page. I didn't receive a message back until this afternoon, and she claims that she had taken inspiration from my status about postage costs as she liked how I had written it, but she didn't think in any way that it was directly copied. Hmm, the screenshots tell a different story but never mind. It seems to me that she's only bothered to change the last sentence slightly.
I expressed my anger and upset at the situation but she still claimed she had done nothing wrong. She then went onto her own page and posted a status saying that people had been nasty about her and she was being bad mouthed simply because she makes similar items to me. That is so far from the truth it's ridiculous. I said from the word go that I DO NOT care if she makes name banners, hundreds of people do. I just don't appreciate the fact that she is a 'fan' of my page, yet instead of ever posting or interacting with my page she just steals my statuses instead. I don't understand... if you lack the creative ability to even write a status on your own then you're not going to get very far.
As usual, all of my fans and customers were brilliant and gave me a lot of support. There were a few people (who also happen to be fans from the other page LOL) who said I should just take it as a compliment. If she had copied one of my items, for example, then maybe I would. But being inspired and stealing are two totally different things in my opinion.
I removed the photos and comments from my FB page as I made my point, people had their say and I didn't feel it was right to carry it on any further. However, I've seen on her page that she's still making out I'm angry at her for copying my designs, and I wanted to let everyone know that this ISN'T the case. It's not about her work, it's not even about mine. It's about the fact that I work hard and then someone can come along and just steal content from my page whenever they feel like it and use it as their own without so much as a mention of Heartworks. I watermark all my photos, it seems like now even that isn't enough :(
Anyway... apart from that, the bank holiday weekend has been really good :) Hope you've all had a nice time too!
xxx
