EDIT (2):
This evening I received an email from Handango. They thank me for “bringing attention” to the copyright violations of the user named “SymbianShow”. They explaied me that Handango is not a big corporation owned by Microsoft, as I wrote previously on my post, but a relatively small company ( I read somewhere 70 Employees). Many people last week where travelling for business, and they apologize for the delay in solving the issue. The developer “SymbianShow” was banned and all his (my) themes removed from the Marketplace.
Finally, an happy end, at least this time. Sorry for my mistake about Handango property ( I remember I read somewhere that their company was held by Microsoft, but it seems this is wrong).
Thank you to all my friends for the dozens of email received, and so many posts on weblogs supporting me.
Hi to all, friends, This is a “special post”. No theme publishing today. Instead, I’d like to share with you some thoughts about something that is really putting me down.
First, I’d like to explain the first part of the title. Honesty exists, yes.
Before running this blog I was unsure about real honesty, for people you don’t know (not the kind of thing like “i buy, and I don’t steal. Because i’m honest”, but real honesty, like “I can get this free, but I prefer to buy, to thank the author).
I’ve had, during the last year, great experiences with real honest people. Like all the people that sent me donations for the free themes. First of all, thank you to all the donators, and to all the people that purchased my Premium Themes. Then a special example come from a guy named Stefano, he sent me donations during all the year. And he also bought all the premium themes, including older and newer ones. A big thanks also to Mr JackH., for his sincere appreciations and suggestion about my themes. I sent him for free some premium themes, but he decided however to buy them. A big thanks also for the guys that reported me violations on copyright, and forums hosting illegally my premium themes.
But unfortunately, not all the people act like this.
The problem is that I discovered, some days ago, that somebody is selling some of my FREE THEMES, the ones you get weekly free from here, on HANDANGO, for 10$ each.
Handango(.)com is the biggest marketplace for mobile software in the world.
Of course this is a violation of my license terms, but also a violation of US, International and Italian civil and criminal law. (intellectal property violated for commercial purposes).
Of course this thing made my furious.
I immediately alerted Handango, to remove the fraudolent themes for sale, and to have the NAME of that person.
I received a quick reply from Handango after some hours. The guy told me that my email was turned to the copyright manager, to quickly solve the issue.
I really hope to see that problem solved rapidly, but however I will have to wait until next week.
Fortunately now the stolen themes have been removed from Handango.
I don’t like the idea that he is making money on my work, but the worst thing, that is really making me furious, is that is really SCAMMING people by selling freeware, and I would be very pleased to give him a some worries.
But even if I managed to solve this problem, this stuff really makes me unsure about the future of thememaking. I’m really losing the happiness and the enjoyment of making themes. Now I just make themes, and then I must spend my time checking that my themes are not been sold somewhere, or published without my name etc.
Long time ago, I found people selling my free themes and Babi’s Themes on Ebay.
Another time, I found that an Handango customer, after buying my Premium Themes, was publishing them on a forum. Just today, I got an email from a user, telling that somebody was uploading my free themes on a rapidshare-like service, and got payed 15$ for every 1000 download.
I also found, some months ago, a russian site that modified and renamed every sis file, to delete the author’s name and to put a popup with the website address instead.
And another time, I found a chinese website where there was a thememaker making “clones” of my premium themes. Chinese fake premium themes! (this was instead very funny…)
I really don’t understand why people act like this. Making something that is free is great because you have much feedback about users, many traffic, many comments and many downloads. But unfortunately there is also some people that only want to destroy or use your work for their personal purposes. So don’t blame me, if in a remote future (and I hope NEVER!), I will give up making themes, or if my themes will be no longer free.
That’s all folks, thanks for reading this very long post.
I have to admit with grief that i saw this coming… What really stirs my guts is the outrage Handandgo pulled off on you with the 72-hour deadline. On the other hand if your themes are still up and on sale there you can keep mailing them about the matter.
And again it just makes sick to my stomach… petty theft, petty people, petty conciousness. Maybe we, your fans could help you. Maybe we can mail the sh*t out of Handandgo till they remove the items and get the seller to suffer the consequences of his illegal actions. I hereby call out to all who have downloaded a theme from this site. IF not money, we can donate a tiny bit of our time to put together a mail and flood handango's “support”, “service” or whatever thst's called.
So what we need is the Order Reference Number and the Product Name for that sack of sh*t copycat so that we can flood them with the relevant information.
Here's the link for submiting a Customer “Care” request (honestly, I had to browse for 5 mins till I found a way to contact them): http://www.handango.com/CSSupportItem.jsp?siteId=1
So Pizero, if You read this, please provide us with the info about the fake product and we'll fry their mail server. Standing by for your reply.
For once we can make sure that a scumbag will not escape unpunished. For once we can try and put things right. For once we can stand up for what's good.
-mynick(attt)yahooo(dottt)commm-
there are good and bad people around the world. There is nothing you can do about it except just do what you do best and continue making great themes for the community. I think you should no longer making free theme but instead charge a lesser amount for any theme on Premium, like $1-$3 USD. That way it will not discourage anyone from buying theme and will help you doing the work!
Isn't this a moment to be aggressive?
Hi mate. Just to say good luck in your investigation. Your themes are great and I think I tried few of them (the free ones). In regards to your concerns, well … as stated, i really wish you good luck in catching the offender. I am not sure why are you surprised though — that's the Internet today, that's the piracy today … This defenitely doesn't promote the EXCELENT free software (unfortunately). The only thing some people get left wth is PRIDE! Pride that they are helping others, pride on the quality of the software they provide.
I'd say you'd need to take a judgement call:
1. kepp persuing scammers – you might catch one or two, but not all of them!
2. Stop doing what you do for free
3. Keep doing it, for free, and move on!
All the best
2.
So glad, that eventually this bad situation has found the RIGHT solution!!
And now..Keep coming your wonderful themes my dear friend
Best regards
Hi Pizero,
Wow .. I read all of your post here. I really surprised that there are people like that living.
I really understand how mad you are knowing the fact that sick people take advantage
financially from your work.
You are a wonderful theme-maker. In my N95, there are only original theme from Nokia and from Pizero.net. First time I had my N95 I check other sites, but in the last 6 month, I never check other sites,
just check your site.
If it's easier for me to deliver money, I will buy you a beer ..
You really deserve that.
Hopefully I will have a Paypal account in the near future.
Best regards.
No, I don't. But hi.
“With a little help from your friends”!!!
MrJackHammer
I just think that in order to reduce to some extent the recurring tendencies of theft you can start building your .sis files with UID within the protected range so that they require signing. And as I found out in my own experience there is no way to repack a .sis file with a new UID to be installable on all devices. This should put off copycats from messing wiht your themes.
Cooooool!! Wait everybody, you're about to see the best Pizero theme ever to celebrate this!! jejeje. It's a joke! Congratulations, very glad.
I'm glad it has been solved, and I hope we have contributed to the pressure, here is what Handango's PR said:
“It is a high priority for Handango to address potential copyright and trademark issues for our developers' products and to do so as soon as we are made aware of potential claims. Unfortunately, this was brought to our attention while several of our content team members were attending the Handango Future Forum at CTIA in San Francisco last week. We have addressed this process issue and you can count on Handango to respond more timely in the event this type of issue should arise again in the future. In the meanwhile, we have now deactivated the “symbianShow” products from our site. We apologize for the delay and any inconvenience for PiZero.”
I will post on that later
支持你PiZero！
Hi Pizero!
There will be always, some people who make money by cheating or by exploiting dumb users… If someone posts, on the ebay, those who pay to get those themes, should have some common sense. They should know that, there ALWAYS ARE free alternatives! If they (those who pay and buy) think that they can get good things, only by paying money, they are the fools….
And as for you worrying, please don't worry about it! It's the way world works and you can do very little about it. As long as there are dumb people, there will be exploiters…
A few measures, which might help you. When installing a theme, you can show that your themes are free and display your site name. You can also embed your site name within your theme (like you've done in some themes).
que maricon saliste PIZERO por unos cuantos temas suvidos a foros ya te pones a llorar Joto
Dear PZ,
congratulations! You are now officially part of the successfull set in the world.
People copying, selling, cloning, counterfeiting and generally making money out of your free themes, should make you proud and not sad. Nobody copies a crust… But everyone would love to show off a Gauguin or a Monet or a Botticelli in their living room.
You have to accept the fact that people are more than willing to pay for your free themes (like me for example… remember or long emails about the Silver Theme?) so, exactly for that reason there will be plenty of people that want a piece of the action and will try to steal from you and resell to innocent ignoring folks who just need to have one of your themes.
Rejoice! You are now part of that small group of successful people that can sell their work and not just give it away…
I know it's tough to see your babies being sold on ebay.
But it is a very clear sign of your success so… Ok get mad about it for 5 minutes… smash a few phones on the wall… but then think of all the loyal customers who are reporting to you all illegal actions.
This is what you should focus on…. the good people around you… not the bad ones…
Take care and enjoy your success.
Ciao,
Pier Francesco