If I had people working for me I would tell them to show me their inspiration, going as far as checking the browser history to see what they used as source or completely close internet access.
And if I had an agency I would not reinstate an account that acted like this even if it was a 40k account.

Easier said than done when it comes to manage teams, if you ever manged a team of more than 4-5 people you would understand better our position and think about this twice.

thank you for coming here to post.. I believe you are sorry.. there are 2 images based on mine, not 1..

http://us.fotolia.com/id/7600605
http://us.fotolia.com/id/7600604

There is a good reason to believe that the designer who did this may have done it more than twice, and you need to make sure to remove any other suspicious files..

As I said before, I hope this can be sorted the right way..

I have deleted both files from fotolia, I will try tomorrow to sort it out with the other agencies.

brainik,

If what you are saying is true, I would prefer you to get your portfolio back.. BUT it sends a bad message to the rest of the industry because you;

- didn't make sure to submit "only" the work you fully own.. how can you be trusted that you will be careful in the future?
- I believe and (want to believe) that your portfolio is fully original (except the 2 images based on mine) but as mentioned earlier in this thread, some suspicion is raised for "angry gorilla" and some "santa sled" images too.. and since 2 images are inspired by my image, there is a good reason to believe there are more..

I will be honest, I think you should get your portfolio back, but you need to make sure "all images" in your portfolio are original and there should be some kind of condition to prevent future violations by "one of your designers"..

There needs to be some kind of enforcement because it is otherwise unfair to people who had their accounts closed for 1 violation..

I am not happy to see someone lose a good income, but I am also not happy that someone is stealing my image..

as for the title: you may find it harsh but I had no idea about "highlegstudio" and I thought it was "one person" stealing from many designers (not just me) at first..

I hope it is "only" my image and nothing else..

I don't want anyone to be punished more than they deserve.. But there has to be some kind of consequences..

We did submit only work we own, or so I thought. That image is from the when we started out with creating and submitting illustrations and learn along the way that people/designers are not always fair to one another.

I really understand you point of view and hope this won't happen again.



 

I also do not like the weasel words, I believe Cidepix's  files weren't just used for inspiration, I believe his files were downloaded, changed and reupoaded as yours (just an opinion), but I will still make a serious suggestion to you.

I predict that your portfolio will probably be reinstated. Before that happens, you need to ensure that you delete all the vectors from the artist/s that produced the Cidepix rip offs and also the Santa sleigh illustration. On all the stock sites and your own, not just SS

Then you need to take down everything that has used a photo from Google as a source to create an illustration of an animal (there are a few that seem familiar to me, as well as that gorilla)

Because believe me, if they catch you on one more infringement you will be getting a permanent ban, and I for one don't want to see all those artists out of a job because of one or two people-- or poor curating by an art editor.

What do you mean by weasel words? I can assure you that the files were not downloaded and re-uploaded, but indeed our designer used his files to create the one in our portfolio. The files will be removed for sure. My guys will also remove the files that were posted here as inspired from others.

I didn't post here to be accused, I tried to answer and let you guys know that we are serious and we try to fix this. I could have easily leave it like that and move on.



 

Hi everyone,

My name is Alex Dumitru and I'm one of the partners at Brainik (brainik.com) the company that owns the account "highlegstudio" on Shutterstock along with other web properties mentioned in this thread.

We are a design studio based in Romania and in the last 5 years we had over 25 designers that worked to create the portfolio we have, as you can imagine 40k vector images are not easy to create. All the vectors on Shutterstock are created inhouse by our designers with our own design elements (we create and sell vector elements and more on couple of websites).

We take very serious copyright infringement and we would have never uploaded this image if we knew that it was a copy of someone else's work. We are very sorry and we apologize to the user"cidepix" that one of our designers was over inspired from his design to create the one in our portfolio. Once our account will be reinstated we will remove the image if Shutterstock will not do it.

As designers (or design studio) we understand how is to have your work stolen very well because others have stolen from us, released for free on websites and on torrents and even more.

That being said the title of the thread is a bit harsh and a lot of the things said here were exaggerated. We didn't want to steal anything, it was just a mistake and again we are very sorry for it.