BMW Marketing Consultants Ripped Off Our Work
posted by sean on February 26th, 2008
This really just makes me sick to my stomach and at the same time, angry enough to rip the head off a Chia Pet. BMW Marketing Consultants ripped off our work - pretty much in its entirety.
When developing the Kelly Homes site, we worked with Bonnie Williams of BMW Marketing Consultants. The project, under careless misdirection and disregard for the cost that Kelly Homes was footing, took a 2 month timeline and turned it into more than 6 months.
Months later, we received an RFP from BMW Marketing Consultants for the Silver Palms RV Resort site. The RFP was a spiral-bound book that rivaled the thickness of the phone book for Vermont.
We sent out a quote, and never heard back from BMW Marketing Consultants. A few weeks ago, I was reminded about this when I found this "book" during our move to our new office. Curious to see what happened with the project, I decided to pull up the site.
Lo' and behold:
Funny, guess they couldn't find their "own place in the sun"
Kelly Homes
The CSS, HTML, and most of the images were ripped off. If you pay close attention, you can even see some images were not completely ripped off.
Note the beige/orange color from the Kelly Homes site on the left edge of the banner image).
BMW's response? Well, from what I hear, the response was "well all sites on the internet are templates and can be copied." One of my favorite articles about this subject is Scab at Airbag Industries regarding the Joyent / Corkd design theft. Talking about Ray from Falkner Winery, the company that ripped off the designs…
Ray continued to tell me that all designers borrow ideas from other designers and that his web site design was no different. That line of thinking is the biggest cop-out, bullshit excuse (can't think of a more appropriate term) used over and over by those who simply don't care about how this affects the person who's work has been copied.
…
A real designer does not cut-and-paste the work of others, change some colors and resell it … that would be called a hack. The web is filled with hacks because the web makes it easy to hack. Hacks have about as much talent as the guys who "create" stickers at mall kiosks typically featuring Calvin either pissing on an auto manufacturer's logo or praying before a cross.
Couldn't agree more. Granted, I did not design this site - but I feel the same way about the months of work I put into it. I know Jeremy feels the same way.
No one wants their hard worked ripped off. Least of all, by the company hack that sends you the RFP for the project.
More to come…
Update: Googling "bmw marketing consultants" wields this post as the 2nd hit... got to love the Google juice, eh Hallett?...
3 comments »
Very sorry to hear this. Had similar situation happen to me not long ago. Since then I have been reading hard about copy right laws in US. Had a friend whom outsourced some work to India. The Indian firm basically stole works from a popular website. Did that stir up a can of worms. Had another friend outsourced in the Philippines. Same thing they stole another websites work. Sure they were cheap but look what they do. My point here is they may have outsourced to a cheap service from another country and they in return stole your work.
Best of luck to you.
I think you need to research a bit more regarding this issue before you blog it all over the place.
I am a graphic designer who does work for BMW Marketing. Her client, Silver Palms wanted to use his own designer to build this web site, against the advice of BMW. I know for a fact that BMW only provided the copy. The person who designed Silver Palms ad is not even a graphic designer, however this was their choice to build their web design.
As far as I know BMW dropped this client because of similar problems.
It appears to me that you should be venting your anger towards the web designer that Silver Palms insisted upon using. You need to contact them.
Having worked with BMW marketing, I know that she is professional and very much aware of copyright laws. She is very reputable and I feel that through this blog, you have unfairly represented the facts.
Bridgette,
Thanks for your comment. Although I must apologize because I know I didn’t unfairly represent anything in this post.
Regardless of the choice of designer used for the Silver Palms site, Bonnie both requested us to submit an RFP for the Silver Palms project, and also worked extensively with us on the Kelly Homes project. If it was some random designer picked by Silver Palms - I wonder then how they knew to pick the Kelly Homes site to blatantly rip off.
I might believe it, if you came back and said that she maybe touted the Kelly Homes site as a personal triumph - a means to peddle BMW services to Silver Palms and that’s where they stole it from.
But I said “might”. “Might” because if repeated attempts of communication to both Silver Palms and BMW weren’t left un-answered - I “might” believe it. I “might” believe it if the first response received from BMW wasn’t akin to “well all sites on the internet are templates and can be copied.”
If she was so professional and aware of copyright laws, as you CLAIM - maybe she would have said to them when she realized what was going on - “Hey, I’m not really about to provide you copy for a site that isn’t yours. I’m too professional and knowledgeable on copyright laws to partake in such activities.” Or, to contact us or Kelly Homes and say “Through no fault of my own - their designer ripped off your work and we should do something about it.” Neither happened. We all know, and I won’t type again, what BMW’s initial response was.
Mixed with sarcasm and my personal opinion, I think the actual facts here are represented as just that. Facts.
Here are the things we know to be fact:
* We worked with BMW on the Kelly Homes site
* BMW ran up the bill
* Kelly Homes project completed, we receive an RFP from BMW for the Silver Palms project
* We submit said RFP, we never hear back
* Months later, and out of curiosity, we browse to the Silver Palms site and realize it’s exactly like the Kelly Homes site
* Kelly Homes contacts BMW whose initial response is along the lines of “well all sites on the internet are templates and can be copied.”
* All this time, BMW and Silver Palms knew this had happened. There was no contact (returned or initiated) to us
* Google Ranks this post higher than the actual BMW site. Awesome.
* You post your above comment.
So other than your comment, which pretty much states your personal opinion and feelings towards BMW, and your demands on things you think I should do - do YOU have anything to bring to the discussion that can be represented in the form of a FACT that relates to this specific issue? Whether BMW works with Silver Palms anymore or not - doesn’t really change the fact that this happened.