Another Store Owner covers for a designer caught pirating

[Pickleberrypop]

Enough is Enough - its time to take a stand against dishonest designers and store owners!



This is a long post and I apologise for that, but it is important that you receive all the facts and can come to your own conclusion on this matter.

Before I start I would like to say that I feel for the honest designers at Scrapbird, and the decision to make this public was all the more harder because of them. But having said that I also feel that we need to reveal to you all that has happened so that we as a community can let Scrapbird know that this behaviour is not acceptable and that we will not tolerate it!

So here goes.

Pickleberrypop and 2 of our talented designers have unfortunately had to deal with a rather disturbing case of piracy over the past few days.

In our eyes there is no doubt that items belonging to Elena Designs and Jasmin-Olya Designs were included in kits for sale by Vanilka Designs from Scrapbird.

Elena first discovered items of her own in Vanilkas kits and took the correct steps to inform the Store Owner of the acts of piracy and seek a resolution. A screenshot of the items in question were sent as well as links to the 3 products of Vanilka's at Scrapbird and Elena's product at Pickleberrypop. Elena explained that Vanilka had pirated her items and used them commercially which was against her TOU.

However, even with all the evidence staring her in the face, instead of doing the right thing the Store Owner ( Marzena Fenert aka Mamrotka ) chose to help her designer cover up the piracy and accused my designers of being involved in some Russian smear campaign against Vanilka.

Then, Marenza did not reply to Elena for 3 days to give Vanilka time to redo her product previews and we had presumed that new zips had also been uploaded without the pirated items in them.

Scrapbird denied any wrong doing and demanded apologies from us for falsely accusing "a great designer" of piracy. Marzena sent us screenshots of the modified kit contents which obviously did not contain the items that we originally questioned with them. But the screenshots of these modified kit contents DID reveal even more acts of piracy on Vanilka's behalf, this time the items were from another Pickleberrypop designerJasmin-Olya Designs.

I'm sure that they thought we would apologise and the matter would end there. Luckily for us and unluckily for them, our designers took screenshots of all the evidence we needed. The original product previews as well as screenshots of CT layouts that included the pirated items, blogs where the kit was promoted etc to prove their case.

After posting all evidence in the Designers Conference Room at DSTand discussing it with many of our fellow designers ( including some from Scrapbird who have now chosen to leave that store) other designers have come forward who have experienced similar problems with this store and the Store Owner.

When it was proven beyond doubt and all evidence stacked up against her, with many of her fellow designers, and even some from her own store against her, the pirated images suddenly re-appeared in the kit ( when Marzena insists they weren't there before ) and Marzena has admitted Vanilka did indeed pirate Elena and Jasmin-Olya, and her store at Scrapbird was closed.

While the owner has finally admitted that Vanilka had pirated the items in question though, she disputes that she did anything wrong and continues to blame the innocent designers for her inability to do what was right. Even though screenshots of elements and product links were sent, and the full resolution PNG files ( at Marzena's request ) she claims there was not enough evidence for her to locate the items in question, but yet they "magically" appeared after it was obvious that she could no longer argue Vanilka's innocence.

You can see the proof for yourself in the images below. Please note that these are NOT CU Items that are in dispute. All items were scanned or photographed by Elena and Jasmin-Olya and then extracted.

Elena's items - this screenshot was sent to Scrapbird by elena with links to the kits the items were used in.





Images Elena made to further show how the previews were changed









Jasmin-Olya's Items





Screenshots of the kit contents sent to us by Marenza to "show" that none of the items questioned were in the kit.





We have decided to bring this into the public area of DST where everyone can see it for a few reasons, the main one being that not all designers have access to the DCR. Posting here will hopefully make sure that all designers at Scrapbird become aware of how their Store Owner operates and allow them to make conscious decision about whether or not they wish to remain at such a store.

The other reason - we feel you the customer have a right to know. So that you can also make a conscious decision whether or not you want to support a store that engages in such practices.

Also, it is obvious from Marenza's responses in the DCR, and the fact that she still blames the innocent parties for her inability to do the right thing, that she has not learnt any lesson from this incident.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

[scrappingramma]

thank you for making the rest of us aware of this.
I as a customer of your store as well as others, I am
speaking for myself when I say I am not aware of
any of this unless we see posts like this.

I have now taken scrapbird off my list of stores that I view new products
as well as any designer that sells from there.
thank you

[Jasmin-Olya]

Thank you, Carolyn!
This situation is immoral both from the "designer" Vanilka, and from the store owner. I absolutely agree with you that her designers and customers have a right to know what was happening, and such store has no right to exist.

[e-lena]

Carolyn, thank you! I'm absolutely agree with everything you wrote!

[Pickleberrypop]

Originally Posted by scrappingramma

thank you for making the rest of us aware of this.
I as a customer of your store as well as others, I am
speaking for myself when I say I am not aware of
any of this unless we see posts like this.

I have now taken scrapbird off my list of stores that I view new products
as well as any designer that sells from there.
thank you

Thank you for your support, I'm sure it means a lot to Elena and Jasmin.

I really don't want the innocent designers at Scrapbird to suffer because of this though, so please, when they move elsewhere, continue to support them too. They are not at fault - their Store Owner is.

[Belladonne]

What a bad behavior from a store owner and a designer! As a customer and a part of Azur Scrap CT, I'm thanking you for letting us know what happens.

[magicalreality]

so I went on Scrapbird forum and was interested on their guidelines and found this.....
http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/p...guidelines.jpg
and a close up view... of same Print Screen
http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/p...uidelines2.jpg

Hmmmm. " We have zero tolerance policy in regards to sharing copyrighted material"........ really? Thats so great!!! I am glad we agree on something! Thank you! please EXPECT the SAME from us!

[ScrapBird]

Hello,

I'm writing this post due to situation which you know possibly know.

We've got information about stealing intellectual property of Elena, we've took this as a matter of greatest importance.
Every such case is taken care individually because it's really serious accusation - that's why we take special care to investigate.
We're trying to be just, but investigation takes time. We don't want to any of our designers to be blocked/fired because of slander or false evidence.
I think none of you would want to be in such situation.

User Vanilka was blocked and contract was removed as soon as we got real evidence of taking intellectual property without permission or rights. That's the way we do for cases of breaking law or designer contract.

Unfortunately, real evidence of stealing by Vanilka were not sent to us in the first place and that extended process of investigation. As soon as evidence was sent (to DST, not to us!), appropriate steps were taken immediately.

We hope that our explanation will be sufficient to you.

We encourage everyone to send suspicion of stealing to us, we ask only that such email consists of evidence of stealing intellectual property. That could really shorten the time of investigation by order of magnitude.

With best regards,

[magicalreality]

Originally Posted by ScrapBird

Hello,

I'm writing this post due to situation which you know possibly know.

We've got information about stealing intellectual property of Elena, we've took this as a matter of greatest importance.
Every such case is taken care individually because it's really serious accusation - that's why we take special care to investigate.
We're trying to be just, but investigation takes time. We don't want to any of our designers to be blocked/fired because of slander or false evidence.
I think none of you would want to be in such situation.

User Vanilka was blocked and contract was removed as soon as we got real evidence of taking intellectual property without permission or rights. That's the way we do for cases of breaking law or designer contract.

Unfortunately, real evidence of stealing by Vanilka were not sent to us in the first place and that extended process of investigation. As soon as evidence was sent (to DST, not to us!), appropriate steps were taken immediately.

We hope that our explanation will be sufficient to you.

We encourage everyone to send suspicion of stealing to us, we ask only that such email consists of evidence of stealing intellectual property. That could really shorten the time of investigation by order of magnitude.

With best regards,

I am vey sorry but first of all your explanations here and designers chat mean NOTHING!!!!!!!! You say to take the necessary steps? in what? keeping them for few extra $$? is is worth it? BULL #$%&!!!
I have sent to you multiple emails regarding Nancy Lee back in October 2009...YES OCTOBER 2009!!!! we have JAN 2011 now! I gave you evidence of what she has done and what...you removed the product and SHE STILL SELLS THERE!!!!!! WTF????? you are being disshonest about everything! here is my email that i sent to you and your reply!
http://i399.photobucket.com/albums/p...itingEmail.jpg
you are guilty! and should be ashamed to call your self a designer and a store owner! Too all legit designers there.. I really feel for you, as you can see I have been keeping quiet about this since October 2009, but no more! Something needs to be done about this!

[Pickleberrypop]

Originally Posted by ScrapBird

Hello,

I'm writing this post due to situation which you know possibly know.

We've got information about stealing intellectual property of Elena, we've took this as a matter of greatest importance.
Every such case is taken care individually because it's really serious accusation - that's why we take special care to investigate.
We're trying to be just, but investigation takes time. We don't want to any of our designers to be blocked/fired because of slander or false evidence.
I think none of you would want to be in such situation.

User Vanilka was blocked and contract was removed as soon as we got real evidence of taking intellectual property without permission or rights. That's the way we do for cases of breaking law or designer contract.

Unfortunately, real evidence of stealing by Vanilka were not sent to us in the first place and that extended process of investigation. As soon as evidence was sent (to DST, not to us!), appropriate steps were taken immediately.

We hope that our explanation will be sufficient to you.

We encourage everyone to send suspicion of stealing to us, we ask only that such email consists of evidence of stealing intellectual property. That could really shorten the time of investigation by order of magnitude.

With best regards,

I"m sorry, but hard evidence WAS sent to you in the forum of screenshot with links to products, as well as the high resolution png files upon your request.

You covered up for your designer yet refuse to admit it! But yet I have a designer from your store sending me PM's saying you are nice and only wanted to give Vanilka a second chance.