V.I.I.P.E.R.--THIEVES!!
 

The group VIIPER, Virginians Interested In Protecting Every Reptile, are a bunch of THIEVES!! They have stolen intellectual property from me, directly from my website, and used it to create stickers which I have available for sale, and sell them without my permission, and without even giving me credit. Here is my original artwork for the stickers:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ckers_Best.jpg

The VERY FIRST of these stickers created, on theback of my main herping vehicle:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ier/bumper.jpg

And the sticker that they are currently producing and selling:
http://gallery.viiper.us/albums/user...al_2008068.jpg

This is the photo of me, taken by my girlfriend, which was used to create the original design of the sticker:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...8-06-03002.jpg

I have sent them an email confronting them with their thievery, but I thought everyone should know what kind of people they are dealing with when doing ANY business with this group. Any group that is willing to STEAL personal intellectual property does NOT deserve the help and support of the Herp community.

Do you have a link to where they are selling and/or using your property?

I can vouch that they are indeed selling these stickers. I purchased one through Cornsnakes.com from Chris...the original designer September. I went to the Richmond Reptile Expo on 10-26-08 and VIIPER was selling these stickers there. I recognized them to be nearly identical to the one I had purchased from Chris, but honestly I didn't think any more of it at the time.

The hardest part for me is that these people are presenting themselves as benefactors to the reptile community. They are displaying themselves publicly as pro-reptile, and interested only in helping animals and the people that love them.

But they haven't the integrity to, at the VERY least, give me credit for my work and effort. The person that presumably stole the imagery is claiming that he designed the image himself, and you can clearly see that the only deviations from this original graphic is the cut-off head of the snake, and the capitalization of the letter "f" in "For".
http://www.kingofcolubrids.com/wordp...sticker_bw.jpg

The above graphic is the design originally digitized by the guy who made the first round of stickers back in May or June of this year. It is also the advertisement for these stickers on my website HERE...a page that was posted on September 1, 2008 at 9:44 am.

Is it possible that just ONE guy is a thief and the rest of V.I.I.P.E.R. didn't realize their graphic designer had stolen the artwork? Hopefully someone will get back to you and rectify the situation. The herping community has enough trouble with the general public without stabbing each other in the back as well. My hope is that it is just one rotten apple and not the whole barrel. :(

Yes, it is. In fact it is likely to be the case. However, until I find out who specifically has done it...I can only make referance to the sellers...the group.

However, I did just recieve an email Here it is, with my reply:

I guess it should also be pointed out that she is a cornsnakes.com member....under the name "bityrock"

We did not steal his idea I was the one that came up with the idea back in March of this year, the group had 10 made and that's all, we sold them at cost as I thought it was something fun and cute to do, we have not had any more made and now plan not to either. I had no idea there was anything like it out there already. I have already told the web master to remove it from the site as we have been out of them for a while, and seeing how I am now being blasted and labled a Bad guy before I was even asked about where I got the idea, it's not worth it to me to keep going with them I will do a totally different design and copyright it next time. The fact that I have had the idea since march and had the design here at my home since then just didn't have them made until later in the year to make sure there would be an interest in them, we had them made and sold them at cost. Like I said we had only 10 made. We are a small group only in the state of VA and only in the Richmond and Hampton roads area. We have rescued a few snakes and taken in ones of the deployed miltary. we get together to talk about snakes and educate the public about why they should know about what they are buying in a reptile before they do it and give advice about how to care for them the correct why, but I guess that makes us bad people and love how we get blasted for trying to help the herps and keep them from just being turned loose or killed.

Amanda
Viiper Sec.

And Drew I can point out that you are a member of Richmond Viiper as well.

Amanda