One of the in-vogue euphamisims for design contests is ‘crowd sourcing’ and there’s a ton of related sites popping up all over the interwebs. The concept of crowdsourcing is simple – would-be buyers post design gigs on a bulletin boards and would-be ‘designers’ post concepts and designs, hoping to ‘win’ the gig. Like most design contest models, crowdsourcing sites are rife with rip-offs, knock-offs and purloined design work. One of the newer ones is Lime Exchange – a new crowd sourcing site created by the developers of Limewire (one of the only peer-to-peer sharing platforms left after the RIAA crackdown) and like most crowdsharing and logo design contest sites, we were able to find examples of our work being pawned off to unsuspecting buyers. This time it’s a logo for a Chinese restaurant, a logo design gig that boasts a princely budget of $15.00. That’s right. Fifteen bucks. Amazingly, at time of writing, the project has 99 entries.
Trouble is, one of the entries (posted by some cat in Hyderabad, India calling him/herself Vvdesigns) is a complete knock-off from our Daily Logo archives, a design we created for an oriental cooking show back in 2004. There is a certain amount of irony in the way Lime Exhange previews the images on their site – each features a Lime Exchange watermark, ostensibly to prevent anyone from ripping off their designs.
Shouldn’t come as a shock that not too many ‘designers’ are going to give a design project their all for the price of lunch. Nor, should it be terribly surprising that those that do enter their logos are going to take every shortcut they can, including pinching related logos from other websites, usually found through a Google image search. Guess I wouldn’t mind about all this hackery, if such sites weren’t marketed as a so-called alternative to working with legitimate professional designers. But they are. So I do.
Update: Setting some sort of record, yet another design pinched from our galleries has been entered into the Lime Exchange contest outlined above. See Design Crowdsourcing Part Deux for more.
Related: I want a logo just like theirs.
Related posts:
- Design crowdsourcing part deux
- Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
- Children designers on design contest & crowdsourcing sites?
- Yet another 99designs logo contest knock-off
- Twitter graphic $6 proof that design crowdsourcing works? Not quite.
Tags: advocacy, business, crowdsourcing, rants, spec work
Hi,
Understand that this has been some weeks, before we responded on your feedback, but please also take into account that LimeStand (Under LimeExchange), our design & creative specific marketplace has been and still is in Beta stage and has not been formally launched.
We have been trying very hard to create a balance for both designers with original work and buyers looking for quick creatives.
Happy to say, that thanks to your and our users feedback, we have been able introduce an ‘Abuse’ facility on the creatives (using which the 2 entries in question in your blog have been deleted and the users warned of strict actions against them for a repeat violation under DMCA regulations.
Along with working towards safeguarding original design work (we would continue to evolve our platform and introduce all regulations and policies as per DMCA requirements) we have also as of now introduced a minimum industry standard pricing dis-allowing buyers looking for original designs for the price of a lunch.
Again, we would continue to evolve our platform to create a platform which ensures safeguarding designers interest as well as buyers getting originality for their price.
LimeExchange Team
Thanks for dropping by and clarifying your position. As you can imagine, it’s not terribly pleasant to find our artwork being entered into logo design contests such as these. Admitedly, I’m not a big fan of these platforms (the issue of copied work being one of many) but I’m heartened to see that you’re taking a stance on both copying and minimum pricing standards.
For what it’s worth, I think that ANY instance of ripped off work should lead to a permanent banning of a user, as opposed to a ‘warning’. This is the only way to protect people who are using your service, as well as other designers whose work is being ‘lifted’.
In any case, appreciate you taking the time to comment.
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