The copyright infringer John Williams.
The Backstory
This past summer a plethora of creatives across our industry were infringed upon by John Williams. In a nutshell he ripped off hundreds of logo designs and began selling them through his site called LogoGarden.com. The full backstory and documentation can all be accessed via my original post here.
No Remorse
I thought after being publicly called out by the industries best, that John Williams would get a clue and change his ways. But instead he continued to show other peoples work on his website.
It’s been over four months now, plenty of time for John Williams to remove infringed content from LogoGarden.com. So lets take another look at his site, see what we can find, and see if our reasonable requests of all work being removed has been the case.
My Microsoft Windows Gaming logo.
Frankensteining Design
John Williams didn’t create this mark, he’s a borrower of established equity. He repurposed the mark I created and added a few dots to it..
My LeapFrog Fly logo.
His infringement was itemized and documented exhaustively by LogoLounge.com creator Bill Gardner in this Rockport blog post. He proves beyond a shadow of doubt that John Williams knew what he was doing and had a plan of attack to accomplish it through other peoples work.
Checking his site four months after notifying him of the work he ripped off from me and corresponding with him via email John Williams still has the above two logos of mine on his site. He told me all would be removed yet these are still being sold through his site.
My tribal bat design derivatized.
Derivative Work
Another way to describe the design found on LogoGarden.com is to refer to it as derivative work.
After notifying John Williams of the numerous copyright infringements, he merely migrated the aesthetic of some of the designs and has kept them on his site. Or possibly a more accurate term would be to say he derivatized them instead of just pulling the images he didn’t create off his site. The above tribal bat and following images document his on going modus operandi of derivative theft and proves he’s unethical and nothing short of a liar.
Going from left to right you’ll see my original design, the rip off John Williams originally posted, and the most recent derivatized iteration of it.
My family dental design derivatized.
Being notified of a copyright infringement isn’t a call of action for the infringer to merely tweak the original designs and than somehow magically make them their own legit art. Sorry, doesn’t work that way.
My recycle aid logo design derivatized.
Even a non-designer can see the obvious evolution of this mark from mine to the one that appears on their site.
My ShipItApo logo design derivatized.
Big or Small They’ll Rip it All
My work isn’t the only work being stolen or derivatized however. While perusing LogoGarden.com I spotted many marks that looked familiar.
Clearly Canadian brand logo derivatized.
When I notified John Williams last summer I also informed the agency that designed the Clearly Canadian branding and let them know that LogoGarden.com was selling their brand logo on their site. As you can see it’s clearly a rip off (No need to pardon the pun) yet instead of removing the mark Johnny once again merely derivatized the design. Time to notify the agency again I guess.
Non-profit company has their logo ripped off.
Other infringements have been gleaned graphically from non-profits as well. The above mark was lifted wholesale from a non-profit in Washington state and is being sold for profit on LogoGarden.com.
The Trouble with DMCA
Many people have asked since the original post “Why don’t you sue him.” etc. The short answer is you can but is it worth it? By default creators own the copyright on their work, but unless you officially register it with the .gov it can’t be leveraged in a court of law with any certainty.
This is just one of the flaws in the current DMCA protocol that unscrupulous design freeloaders like John Williams (and his ilk) like to hide behind.
But I realize an operation like LogoGarden.com doesn’t happen via one man. I’m sure John Williams has some equally shady designers working with him on this. So the problem effects our industry and resides squarely in our industry in terms of who is doing the exploitation.
I doubt this is the last we’ll see of John Williams. I say that because during the original Logo Gate stir up, he was busy doing his own counter intelligence propaganda via writing articles for small business oriented sites in order to legitimize and drive traffic to LogoGarden.com.
I’ll be keeping my eye on John Williams and I encourage everyone to take a few minutes and visit LogoGarden.com and see what you can find. Our industry needs to watch out for each other and if necessary act when we see infringement taking place.
Keywords: Commentary, Copyright, Rant, LogoGarden.com
Sad to see this is still happening. You can’t legally rip music and share it but you can get away with profiting from a design created by, and intended for, someone else? Something’s not right here.
Has it been confirmed that the guy in the pictures is actually John Williams? Or is it still possible ‘John’ is running this scam from another part of the world?
Not only all the logos are stolen, their so-called client testimonials can’t be more fake.
A quick Google search should reveal these folks and their companies in an instance. Instead most names don’t exist.
I’m guessing the name LogoGarden is a rip-off of LogoPond.com as well. While I think his behavior is utterly reprehensible, maybe there is a silver lining for some. I know I wouldn’t want to work with a client who thinks he/she can do my job with an online “logo maker”. That’s nothing but an endless headache of justifying my rates, time, and existence to someone who doesn’t want to spend the money or time in the first place. I hope he swallows up all the low hanging fruit and leaves clients who respect my contribution to their company’s bottom line.
But I’m not saying I’m glad he’s in business. He diminishes the role of the creative process in crafting something that is the core of how consumers relate to their products and services. He emboldens people with no understanding or appreciation for the nuances of visual communication to just wing it. But then again, these are the same people who think they are their own target market. They don’t have to look outside themselves to understand consumer behavior because they know themselves. So why do they need to pay someone to create a brand that their consumers will respond to. They know what they like so who better to design it. And I say let them. I just makes my work look better anyway.
Glad you are further exposing him, but you are certainly right when you say he is not going away. Did you see they just got $2 million worth of financing?
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/19/4133433/logogarden-closes-2-million-financing.html
These logo mills infuriate me. A good designer takes days researching, developing, and editing a logo to match the heart of a company and then some jackass rips off their hard work. It’s a disrespect to both the designer, the company, and the industry.
I don’t understand how they’re getting away with it to be honest.
Just reviewed his site and he is actually selling the Obama logo with some leaves on it and also the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital logo. Unreal.
Wow, thank you Von for your solid detective work on this. If we get enough noise started about this maybe we can sink his ship, both figuratively and realistically.
Well, the solution here is obvious: Find a Bigger Fish that he’s ripped off, and get THEM to sue him.
For example, I’m pretty sure the Digiplay Marketing logo here: http://www.logogarden.com/sample-logos/marketing-communication-logos#sample_logos is just a modified version of the old Wachovia logo…
I quickly googled 5 or 6 of the endorsements from Rachel’s comment link — and none of the people / companies exist. Even his happy customers are a sham.
[...] an eery similarity, right? But this is no mistake. It’s just one of the hundreds of ripped-off logos on LogoGarden. The makers of LogoGarden shamelessly steal the designs of others and sell them for $79 to any sap [...]
Hey
This arricle made me want to rip my hair off!
You say you cannot sue him because you don’t have your work registered. But how about your clients? Maybe once they bought the logo from you, they might have registered it with the brand. I am sure if you notify your clients that their logo is being sold over some idiot’s website, at least one of them will sue him!!! I mean there’s gotta be something we can do!
LogoGarden.com has strict policies and procedures to avoid using other people’s work. We invite graphic designers to alert us to any specific symbols they believe were copied from their own work by emailing us at service@logogarden.com. Despite this consistent open door policy, a few designers are still on the warpath.
What makes some designers behave so badly? I believe it’s fear. These people feel their livelihoods are threatened — not by a few symbols, but by LogoGarden’s successful, technology-enabled business model. Fear drives the overheated rhetoric and bad behavior — which does not excuse either.
You can read more of my thoughts and perspective on my blog: http://www.logogarden.com/blog
John Williams
Founder and President, LogoGarden.com
service@logogarden.com
Did you hear that Logo Garden just obtained a 2 MILLION DOLLAR investment through FCA Venture Partners? It would appear that crime does indeed pay. To read my email response to FCA and find out what you can do to help, follow this link: http://blogfromthebeard.blogspot.com/2011/12/return-of-despicable-john-williams-and.html Vonster, I have linked back to this article as well.
John,
Bill Gardner nailed you with his database login records for LogoLounge.com which shows that your harvesting of other peoples ideas was not only premeditated, it was purposely systematic in terms of your keyword searches and those aligned with all the marks you had on your site that was originally exposed in August and some re-visited this month.
You can try to deflect the bad publicity it has brought you and say you were victimized yourself by others who sold them to you but that wouldn’t explain why it was your CC used to purchase access to the LogoLounge.com account. You assume too much John, you think everything we post is all we have?
Everyone who has read the numerous posts about your modus operandi isn’t fooled by your spin doctor approach now. You may fool small business owners to do their identity on the cheap, and yeah I have a problem with that too but everyone has the freedom to make bad choices.
And if you want to fool yourself by saying “It’s because we fear your business model.” or “You’re just scared of us.” and this validates your own rationale than that’s your problem. Your site doesn’t intimidate me in the least. But if I spot work you’ve clearly ripped off or are deriving from another persons work than yeah I’m going to call you on it. And if you have a problem with that tough.
No one questions whether you have a right to run a business, that has never been an argument from me or from others I’ve read. The fact you allude to that is just you trying to bend the argument away from your copyright infringement.
I venture to bet (Pardon the pun) that if LogoWorks.com couldn’t make it work being funded by a multi-national like HP than you’re going to have a hard time keeping your business afloat. Besides, LogoGarden.com isn’t an original idea despite your numerous proclamations of it being so. http://www.logomaker.com/ has been around for at least six years or more and it’s cheaper than you and HP owns that and they have a hell of a lot more than 2 million invested in it.
I suppose you could try to make the claim that my arguments are just overheated rhetoric if it was merely in the realm of my written text. But we know that is a straw man argument of your making in this visual matter. Numerous people have clearly pointed out via visual fact that you’ve derivatized others design. That isn’t mere rhetoric that is rhetorical fact. Kind of like this one:
What I’d call over glossed rhetoric is your fake testimonies you have on your site.
We’ll be keeping an eye on your archive John and if we continue to find you ripping off others than we’ll continue to call it as we see it. It’s pretty easy John, if you don’t like being called a #DoucheBag than stop infringing upon others work. It’s that simple.
Von Glitschka
Glitschka Studios
“Designers are scared of our success”….what a slime-bag.
“We invite graphic designers to alert us to any specific symbols they believe were copied from their own work…” – and then what steps are taken?
John Williams you’re a douchebag. Enough noise will be made and with any luck someone has already alerted your investors. Your day will come.
[...] grievances and providing actual, visual proof that LogoGarden outright stole their designs (i.e. Drawsigner , RockPaperInk and Logo Lounge just to name a few). In the comments section of many of these [...]
Another way to bring attention to LogoGarden’s evil ways is to draw attention to the copyright violations by contacting the companies that have paid LogoGarden for their “new” logo. Years ago, I had a client who paid another designer big bucks for a new logo. She was not amused when I found her exact logo in a collection of clip art.
Does anyone know of a web site where designers can post their original logos right beside the violator’s version? That would bring some negative search engine attention to companies they wouldn’t want to have. It might also stop some potential sales for logo companies who aren’t producing original work.
Sorry this reply is a little late.
I commented on the original Logo Gate problem when it first happened as I found 21 of my original logo designs on his site. It’s now months later and Jeff Fisher posted on facebook about Swoosh, a company that Logogarden just bought that still had Jeff’s logo. It was on logogarden’s website sample which I guess Whoosh had designed.
I started looking at Logogarden once again and found another 3 logos that were definitely “inspired” by my artwork. If anyone wants to see, contact me directly…
Your recycle aid logo is breaking international laws. The Red Cross is a protected logo according to the Geneva Convention 1864 and adapted by the US Congress 1900. So even you failed to recognize a protected logo and by making modifications to it you claim it as your art. How is this different from LogoGarden? It’s not, but the real question is; how different does a simple logo have to be, to claim it yours? Is simple logos art and be govern by the same laws as a painting? With all the clip art in the world I have to say “when it becomes a protected/registered trademark.