BEWARE THESE COMPANIES

[webz]

Well...I suppose that I should be flattered but the fact of the matter is that I''m not.

While surfing the Internet this week I bumped into this company:
http://www.fancydiamondinc.com/fancy_yellow_diamond_ring.htm

This company, Moshe Diamond LLC based in India/Israel ( I can''t even get a straight answer about the company from their reps.!) with an answering service here in the US has decided that it is OK to simply STEAL images from my website of merchandise that I have created and show it off as their own work.

I find this to be insufferable, despicable and quite pathetic. Even worse, I contacted them to ask them to please remove the offending images and logged back onto their other website today: http://www.galleriadiamonds.com/yellow_diamond.htm
to find that not only have they not removed MY RINGS from their site but they''ve added their initials to the images as if that will clear everything up....NOT!

I''m not one to run to the lawyer over every stupid little thing but I can guarantee that a suit will be filed for theft of intellectual property and copyright infringment.

Consumers,

BEWARE GALLERIA DIAMONDS,
BEWARE FANCY DIAMONDS INC.
BEWARE MOSHE DIAMONDS LLC

THEY ARE THEIVES!

They have blatently loose morals, no ethics whatsoever and absolutely no experience with actual Fancy Colored Diamond Rings. I doubt that they''ve ever even seen a Fancy Diamond in person!

Ariel Friedman
President, IceStore, Inc.

 

[diamondsbylauren]

Ariel- It really burns me up. Your pieces and photos are amazing. Stealing a photo is just as bad as stealing a diamond.
I hope you nail these buttheads to the wall!


Steve- The info you provided is AMAZING.
We all love laywers, but it''s fantastic to know you can handle this type of thing without representation.

 

[webz]

David, I'm sure that you've had to deal with similar situations on ebay.
Thank you for the support.
Yes, it really does burn me up and I am planning on nailing these guys to the wall to the floor, to the celieng and anywhere else I can think of.

Steve, that is very interesting information and I will give it a try. I appreciate your sharing it.
Thanks!


Kind Regards,

Ariel Friedman
IceStore, Inc.

 

[icekid]

that IS ridiculous... i cannot imagine what would possess people to do things like that. thanks for the warning!

and if it makes you feel any better, your pictures and rings are absolutely beautiful!

 

[Hest88]

Ugh, Ariel, how sleazy! Rhino had a similar incident recently. I think he was looking into watermarking all his photos. Unfortunately, it''s too easy for unscrupulous people to steal photos on the Internet.

 

[webz]

Thanks for the compliments guys.
I guess that is what really gets me.
I work hard to generate this quality image and then to have some sleazeball rip them off!

Watermarking is definitely the way to go.
I recently started watermarking our loose colored diamonds.
I guess I need to go and have everything done....ugggg.

We''ll see how things turn out.

Best to all,

Ariel Friedman
IceStore, Inc.

 

[Kaleigh]

I am so sorry this happened to you, I hope you find these sleazeballs and hang them by their ankles. I guess watermarking is the way to go, but what a pain in the as* for you!!! I wish you well.

 

[Rhino]

Hi Ariel,

It''s my late night here and just hopped on before going home. Yes ... I''ve been through this same ordeal just recently and with a manufacturer at that (located in Israel). It''s a lengthy job (at least for us it was) but we are now putting our name across each and every image.

Hope it all works out for you.

Regards,

 

[thetrial]

Off topic but looking at the site and inventory I saw where they had EGL, GIA, and DJL certified diamonds. Who are DJL?

 

[beautifuldisaster]

Wow! i am so sorry. I had dealings with them and they are very bizarre to say the least. They were shifty and dishonest and when I attempted to get more info from them on an item they never responded. I called once to ask a question and before I got any words out of my mouth, the woman on the phone said are you taping me again? whats going on here? who is this? at that point I said I had the wrong number and never called back. That just didnt seem kosher to me.

I chose not to deal with them for many reasons and am working with someone whom I trust very much now to make an amazing setting for me. I know that he will not let me down and he has already gone out of his way to assist me in every way possible, thank you Wink.

Sorry your images got ripped and you had to deal with that junk!

 

[lostdog]

If somebody takes you work and uses it without permission, they are in a little hot water. If they take your work and take your name off, and put their name on, it gets much worse from a legal perspective. Once again, this is what lawyers are for, and if things are as you described, those guys don't have much of a leg to stand on. Find somebody who can pursue the DMCA remedies, among other things.

(Meanwhile, everything that is perfectly obvious to you might not be 100% protected as speech. You don't want to give somebody you are mad at an excuse for suing you in return, citing defamation or something. Be sure not to say things in a way you might regret.)

 

[RockDoc]

Date: 4/15/2005 1

5:40 AM
Author: SparkleSparkle

Date: 4/14/2005 5:39:35 PM
Author:IceStore, Inc.
Well...I suppose that I should be flattered but the fact of the matter is that I''m not.

While surfing the Internet this week I bumped into this company:
http://www.fancydiamondinc.com/fancy_yellow_diamond_ring.htm

This company, Moshe Diamond LLC based in India/Israel ( I can''t even get a straight answer about the company from their reps.!) with an answering service here in the US has decided that it is OK to simply STEAL images from my website of merchandise that I have created and show it off as their own work.

I find this to be insufferable, despicable and quite pathetic. Even worse, I contacted them to ask them to please remove the offending images and logged back onto their other website today: http://www.galleriadiamonds.com/yellow_diamond.htm
to find that not only have they not removed MY RINGS from their site but they''ve added their initials to the images as if that will clear everything up....NOT!

I''m not one to run to the lawyer over every stupid little thing but I can guarantee that a suit will be filed for theft of intellectual property and copyright infringment.

Consumers,

BEWARE GALLERIA DIAMONDS,
BEWARE FANCY DIAMONDS INC.
BEWARE MOSHE DIAMONDS LLC

THEY ARE THEIVES!

They have blatently loose morals, no ethics whatsoever and absolutely no experience with actual Fancy Colored Diamond Rings. I doubt that they''ve ever even seen a Fancy Diamond in person!

Ariel Friedman
President, IceStore, Inc.

Ariel,

Check out http://www.html-protector.com/encrypt/?afl=13207. This inexpensive program prevents downloads by unauthorized individuals of copywritten work.

It adds a level of security to the right-click-and-capture image thieves, but stops short of fort knox for the more gifted pirates. At $14.95 (the price has been the same for quite a while) its an inexpensive way to raise the barrier.

Thanks

I ordered it and will let you know how it works.

There site said something about $ 50.00 off - but only good till tomorrow midnite

Rockdoc

 

[RockDoc]

Ariel

What goes around - comes around....

There are a pile of these type merchants in Israel.....

Of course, if they would pull stealing from someone in the trade, what stops them from further similar "thefts" of consumers.

Truly sorry to hear you were vicitmized as Jon was... and I''ve been a victim too.

Rockdoc

 

[lostdog]

"It adds a level of security to the right-click-and-capture image thieves, but stops short of fort knox for the more gifted pirates. At $14.95 (the price has been the same for quite a while) its an inexpensive way to raise the barrier."

Protect your legal rights with actual copyright notices on the images. You get treble damages and all sorts of perks if they tamper with your copyright notice. Especially since it's a commercial use.

This program mentioned is very clever. Making it difficult to copy from your page if you are having problems is a smart move, but it's not going to stop determined people from copying your images if they want to. It does a great job with hiding the html. It makes a lot of sense for an e-commerce site or anything where the code is a bit too interesting. Most people will probably move on to something else.

Just for demonstration purposes, even the clever program isn't a guarantee. A digital watermark might be another line of defense to consider. Image below is a portion of the page, copyright WCCL. I can also print it to a pdf or hardcopy.

 

[KittenKat]

This issue bothers me SO much as a consumer...

I contacted Ebay 3 times in the last few weeks over stolen diamond images.

You know what they have done? Nothing!

I saw a pink diamond and Asscher ring on Ebay that was the same photo as one from a wonderful non-Ebay vendor.

Why isn''t Ebay doing anything about this? And is there anything else a consumer can do?

I contacted the company who the image was stolen from already... I assume they contacted Ebay as well - but the stolen photo is still there!

Grr. Frustrating!

 

[diamondsbylauren]

Kitten- there are specific steps that MUST be followed for eBay to take action.
You must write to trust and Safety, and the offending photos MUST have been posted on eBay, or a company''s website ( the website name must match the eBay user''s name).
You need to give them the offending auction number, as well as the number of the auciton the photo was stolen from.

This is a PIA ( pain in the A#$) but if you thnk about it- eBay needs to protect themselves too- to take action they need written proof.

That being said, we''ve gotten many many auctions pulled and sellers punished for stealing our photos- if you have the evidence, eBay WILL take action.
if you''d like to put the links here, I will be happy to report it to my contact on eBay- without the proof , they won''t act, but I can still alert them- they want very much to keep eBay clean.


I also agree with lostdog- Ariel- be careful not to let your anger ( which is totally justified) lead you to say something these slimeballs can sue you for.

 

[MissAva]

I just dotn understand what good stealing does....wont people notice when they receive the items they have bought? Still I am sorry that you are being used that way. No Good. I hope everything gets sorted out soon.

 

[webz]

Thanks for the links to the usefull software guys.
I''ve already installed a script that disallows right-clicking and I think that watermarking is the way to go.
It is going to be a long, tedious and horrible task but apparently it''s got to be done.

Best to all,

Ariel Friedman
President
IceStore, Inc.
http://www.icestore.com

 

[lostdog]

Um, today's discovery: FireFox does things IE can't or won't.

Another thing you might consider, there are some HTML editor plug-ins that will slice and dice an image into a tiled set of smaller files. In theory it would also load faster, but making into a 5x5 set of files means there are now 25 to deal with, increasing the hassle factor. Somebody with a screen capture utility can still grab them as a set, but it's another hoop to jump through for a would-be copier.

 

[mdx]

Date: 4/15/2005 6:10:15 AM
Author: lostdog
''It adds a level of security to the right-click-and-capture image thieves, but stops short of fort knox for the more gifted pirates. At $14.95 (the price has been the same for quite a while) its an inexpensive way to raise the barrier.''

Protect your legal rights with actual copyright notices on the images. You get treble damages and all sorts of perks if they tamper with your copyright notice. Especially since it''s a commercial use.

This program mentioned is very clever. Making it difficult to copy from your page if you are having problems is a smart move, but it''s not going to stop determined people from copying your images if they want to. It does a great job with hiding the html. It makes a lot of sense for an e-commerce site or anything where the code is a bit too interesting. Most people will probably move on to something else.

Just for demonstration purposes, even the clever program isn''t a guarantee. A digital watermark might be another line of defense to consider. Image below is a portion of the page, copyright WCCL. I can also print it to a pdf or hardcopy.

Lostdog
Have you any idea how these programs effect search engine activity
Johan

 

[webz]

Well.....
Slight problem on the implementation side of that software.
It only inserts code into .html pages whereas I run .asp files.
Oh well.......at least it didn''t cost an arm and a leg.

 

[mdx]

Ariel

You really are having a bad day,
Why not put your beautiful new baby in a pram and go for walk around the block.
Could have a calming effect.
(You guys want to see this beautiful child, push him for a pic)
Johan

 

[webz]

Heh, it''s all good my friend it''s all good.

 

[lostdog]

"Lostdog
Have you any idea how these programs effect search engine activity
Johan"

I don't know, haven't tested it, but you might try plugging phrases from that site (or ones known to use the software) in quotes into Google and seeing whether they pop up. I think since the page they use as a demo also has a password on it that it won't be crawled or indexed, but maybe without a pw it might be okay. Even though the View Source option returns somethng scrambled, the actual content has to be rendered by the browser at some point, and it is hidden in there in a complicated nested set of tables. So a search engine could find it if it could load the page, but would Google (which has a way of factoring in page layout and formatting to its ranking) score it as well as a plain vanilla system? The web crawlers have special browser engines and the perception is that some script or java based pages are seen not properly. So it's hard to say with certainty.

There is a program with a similar name (well, the same name apparently) here: http://www.antssoft.com/htmlprotector/faq.htm

They mention that the protected code won't be indexed by search engines, but that you can choose to protect only portions of the page. And that program, from what they say, can work with asp and other server side pages, but it's not 100% clear what gets protected, but it sounds close to being the right thing.

There's also further discussion here http://www.jimcoaddins.com/protect.aspx about what these programs can and can't do. They all run up against the essential fact that if the browser can access it, the computer has got it in there somewhere, so the user can copy it one way or another.

I looked around Ariel's site, and I hadn't realized it was so extensive. Certainly worth investing in some basic protections that don't interfere too much with the legimate consumer's needs. (I have seen some sites so paranoid that you couldn't really use them. Visitors would likely want to be able to print, or even save the page locally. Add to favorites is also in the IE right-click menu. I think there are some rountines that leave this functionality enabled and just limit the image save as.)

Somebody who's veteran of web pages said to me when I was talking to her about building my own site and I was concerned about people taking things, that people were going to take them. It's just the way it works. Post it on the web and they'll be able to grab it and some will. That's the whole purpose of the web in a way.

So even though I am repeating myself, the digimarc thing is looking more and more convincing. The other is to run the images as Flash, making them much harder to copy, but possibly a big pain to implement with the large number of images that you must be working with Ariel.

I am not really an expert on any of this, either, just fiddling around.

 

[aphisiglovessae]

Oh no! My fiance bought my setting from galleria diamonds! The whole experience was pleasant, but now I'm worried about the quality of my ring. I've had it appraised twice, but can you tell if something is really platinum or not and whether a diamond is real or not, just by looking at it (ignoring any stamps or anything that may say it is)?

 

[LadyluvsLuxury]

I am truly sorry about this situation. As a consumer I find it deceiving when a company would do something of that nature. Leaves too many questions unanswered about the type of product I would be receiving. I hope you nail them! and thanks for the heads up!

 

[aphisiglovessae]

Can someone please answer my question? It''s driving me nuts!

 

[mrssalvo]

maybe start a new thread, many of the experts my not see it here, plus it is friday night

 

[aphisiglovessae]

Oh man! I''m going to be stressing over this all weekend.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

The easiest way for you to rest about plat or not - find a similar ''sized'' or bulk / volume looking ring in silver, and gold to your platinum ring.

Heft them all, 1 at a time in your hand - the platinum is nearly 2x the silver weight, and 1.5 times the 14 / 18ct gold weight.