Remember that most designers do not allow people to redistribute their kits in any way, even as a freebie. If you look in my TOU you will see…

No commercial use is allowed. You may NOT sell, share, or distribute my products in it’s original or altered form. You may not make copies except for backup purposes. If you share your work online you must give credit. Any other use will be considered infringement on the copyright laws.

People try to use the excuse that it’s free advertising, giving out my products for free is not helping me, but it is helping the person giving it away. Freebies always attract more readers, which is my people give them out. So in reality it’s just stealing to get more traffic but they justify as exposure or free advertising. I do have a VERY VERY strict policy against pirates and that is that I WILL NOT tolerate them no matter what!

Plus I do use some commercial use products that I purchased and some do not allow to be used in web design or in freebies, so if you give out my kit for free, even altered, you are also breaking their TOU.

I post this now because someone who purchased one of my kits decided to make a blog template with it and then give it out for free. I have asked her to remove it and she has to agree to do so although she does not understand why I am so upset about it.

NOTE: I do offer blog and website designing, so her using my products to make a blog template is also infringing on my business. Why would someone want to hire me if they can get a template free using my designs? However this is not the main reason I am against her using my designs. I just do not like it when people steal.

To find out more about piracy check out the blog linked below…

What is Piracy? and Why It’s Not OK To Share Freebies

created by Kim Hill of CGEssentials

I hate pirates! Not the pirates you see in movies, but digital pirates who steal digital scrapbook designers’ hard work without having to pay or visit the designer’s site. Someone found a link to two of my freebies that I have not even posted yet. Luckily one of my freebies I hadn’t uploaded the zip but the other was stolen! If I find this happening again I will no longer post any freebies on this site and all will lose. These freebies are a lot of work! And all I ask is that you visit my site to download them. That is not a lot to ask for is it?

Maybe everyone should be reading this?

I got this graphic from Stop Digital Piracy Blog. It was made by Kim Hill of CGEssentials. If you cannot read the graphic it says (I have added my comments on the subject in italics:

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ARE YOU A PIRATE?

Top 10 Signs to Look For:

1. A pirate shares digital images without the permission of the designer.

You need to get permission from the designer to legally share any digital images! Or you can send your friend to thier website so they can get it themselves.

2. A pirate thinks it is okay to share digital images with their online sharing group(s).

This is illegal! You can share the link to the site, even the the link to the exact page but not directly to the digital images!

3. A pirate thinks it is okay to hotlink digital images and share them through internet sharing groups.

You can link to the website your got the digital images but not directly to the digital images!

4. A pirate thinks it it okay to share free digital images, even though it is against a designer’s term of use.

This is illegal! The terms of use tells you what you can and cannot do with the designer’s digital images. It doesn’t matter if you paid for them or got them for free, the TOU tell’s what is legal and illegal, so read them!

5. A pirate thinks it is okay to share paid kits with friends who had computer malfunctions and “lost” their kits.

Your friend should learn to backup her files. Sharing for any reasons is illegal!

6. A pirate thinks it is okay to alter another designer’s work and pass it off as their own.

You might be able to get permission from the designer to alter them items and share them with others if you give credit for the original work. Ask the designer!

7. A pirate thinks it is okay to rename files, rezip them and then share these with others.

This is very illegal. It’s plagiarism! You are taking credit for someone else’s hard work! Sharing (without permission from the designer) is illegal no matter how you do it.

8. A pirate thinks it is okay to use digital goods to create items for profit to them without getting permission from the designer for professional use.

Using other designer’s work for profit is illegal without permission, even for designing tools (like brushes). Some place give permission on their website that you can use them for personal use only or for commercial use. Most require that credit be given. I use Atomic Cupcake Photoshop Actions often, but I have permission to use them commercially as long as I give credit in my TOU and in my item description.

9. A pirate justifies these illegal actions by stating it is free advertising for the designer.

Free advertising? How? The people you share it with don’t even have to go to the designer’s website. The designer makes these kits and gives them out for free to get people to go to their website! Skipping that part of the freebie hurts the designer, not helps!

10. A pirate justifies these illegal actions by stating the digital goods were free.

It doesn’t matter if it is free, it is still protected under the Terms of Use.

Follow the right path.

Don’t be a pirate and don’t associate with any.

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I would like to add that searching for download links on a designer’s website is illegal! If I have not posted the link it is not available! So be warn I keep track of how many downloads their are so I will no when piracy happens!

NOTE: If I notice that their is a lot more downloads of the flowers from the Welcome to Japan kit, than their are comments I will remove it and future commenters will not receive it! It is clearly stated on this site, in the email I send and in the TOU that you are not allowed to share the flowers download with others. So don’t hurt other scrapbookers, don’t share the links or kits with others!

Credits: Black Paper by me, red paper from Debonair by Iona Hamp, stitches from Windswept by Kim Liddiard, key and string from Create Page Kit by Lauren Bavin, nail from The Barn Door by Olive Herman, brads from RAKScraps Dec 06 MegaKit by Kim Jensen, bookplate from Dreamscape by Angela Sharrow, frames from Jenspiration by Victoria Stegall, staples from Princess of Cool by Leah Riordan, paper clip from Mod Monday by J Cantrill, fonts used were Courier New, FG Adam, the King and Queen font.

This layout contains a lot of journaling. The journaling is originally from my blog. I wrote it at the time I was struggling to make my son’s costume.

I decided that I would make my son’s costume for Halloween. The last piece of clothing I had made was over 10 years ago. Since then I have sewed pouches and pillow cases oh and scrapbook pages. So I went to Wal-mart (there are no other places in town that sells fabric!) and picked out a pattern. The pattern I chose is a pirate costume. I then picked out fabric. I had to call my husband to measure my son (forgot to do that) so I would know what size he wore and how much fabric I would need. Then when I had to buy single-fold bias tape I had to call my mom to ask what it was used for. The bias tape comes in a multitude of colors and I didn’t know what color I would need. She told me it would be used in the casing for the elastic band in the shirt. So I needed white bias tape. Well that was the only color they were out of. So I bought a light beige (bamboo). I also picked out buttons. Then I went to the costume department to look for Pirate add ons like a hat, sword and eye patch. Nothing. So I went to target. Nothing. I went to the BX. Nothing. Kmart. I got a pirate sword for $2.99. I went to the mall hoping for a costume shop. Nope. I came home and decided to cut out the peices for the pattern. First I had to unfold 3 sheets of extremely thin paper and cut around the peices I needed. I cut out all the peices (roughly around just to seperate them). I then pinned them to the fabric and cut them out. It was only after I cut them out I remembered I was suppose to cut notches out so that I could line things up more easily. That was all I could take today so I will do more later. – October 14 Last night I started the sewing part of the costume making procedure. I started with the shirt.

This post is getting a bit long for the front page. Continue reading here…