B5Media, a recently venture capital-rich blog network located in Toronto, Canada, has dumped former Gold Medalist Scott Goldblatt from its large roster of bloggers and staff after allegations of design theft.
According to reports, the gold medal winner who blogged at B5’s Timed Finals had access to private server files and removed them and used them in a work he claimed as his own for a client. Update: While there is no proof that he took the files off the server at that time, in fact he probably didn’t. He still took the files and claimed it as his own work. I apologize for any mistake in misleading folks as to where or how he obtained without permission said files.
Jeremy Wright, the CEO of b5Media bared a bit of soul on the issue:
Brian, I am deeply sorry that your design was ripped off in this manner. You and your blog are among the best resources on the planet for bloggers looking to improve their craft. You deserve better. I know an apology is often a bit empty in a situation where you’ve been betrayed like this, but right now it’s all I have. I hope we can rebuild the relationship and take it to bigger and better places.
Chris, as a designer in a past life I know how much this hurts and must piss you off. There is no excuse for it. I know you value helping the community so much, and helping young designers learn is undoubtedly a huge part of that. However this crossed a line. And I apologize for b5’s part in that. You, too, deserve better.
Finally, I want to thank Scott for his months of fantastic work. While this will obviously reflect poorly on him, I’m confident that he’s learned his lesson in this. I’m also confident that he’ll land on his feet and go on to bigger and better things. These things sometimes happen, and it sucks when they do, but I (and the whole b5 team) really do wish him the best. He deserves every success we know he’ll achieve.
Originally posted on December 11, 2006 @ 4:30 pm
I would like to clarify for all reading that Scott did not take files from the server. He used view source like many other designers.
I am a friend and co-worker of Scott’s and know for a fact that he is very, very sorry about this. There is no denial that he copied the design. The offending websites have been changed and the design is no longer publicly available.
We are trying to help and support Scott during this very unfortunate incident.
Tris,
Either way its stealing no matter how you look at it. Good to be supportive though. :)
I’d also like to add that he also took images as as well. The spacing was exactly the same. I dunno looks like he swiped it from the server too me. I’m not a computer forensics expert though.
David, You’re correct and I agree. Stealing is stealing. I just wanted to set the record straight because taking code from servers is worse, IMHO, then just viewing publicly available source.
No, I actually believe firmly the kid took it from the server. All my facts back it up. Until someone from b5 comes forward denying he had the ability to take it from the server I’m sticking to this story. It’s news and I’m not going to change the news because you believe your co worker did a lesser evil.
There’s no evidence scott took the files from the server. And certainly no “facts”.
Everyone involves feels this wa an unfortunate and bad decision. Nobody believes the code was stolen, as scott redid the sites before he had access.
If you want to play journalist, check your facts.
The design was stolen. But it was stolen the good old fashioned way: grab the htl. Use that to get the css. Use that to grab the images.
Scott knows he did wrong and deserves flack for stealing, but not for abusing server access. And that’s exactly what our post says.
I can’t legally comment on the case at hand, but I can say that what Tris is saying is feasible, it would take me about 2 minutes to rip this site, or any other WP site for that matter, without server access. Indeed, I regularly look at code, or book mark sites where I like the design or layout etc to come back to later to look at the code, I might like a font, or be interested in knowing how a particular layout was done, text spacing etc…the code is all there to be looked at, and it isn’t in the least bit hard either.
Can all we all agrree that he took some code? Where he got it I could care less.
Thanks for the update to the post David. Nobody’s debating that the incident took place, just that the original details haven’t borne out.
End of the day, it doesn’t really matter though. What happened, happened, and everyone’s trying to make the best of it :)
NP :)
It looks like Timed Finals is out on of its own now.
Yep, we couldn’t think of anyone better to write it, so we sold it to Scott for a great price.