A matter of ethics

[digitex]

An ex-client of mine, a photographer, decided to do his own site. By that I mean he installed Wordpress and purchased a photographer's portfolio theme from Themeforest. It went well for him and he posted that he did the whole thing himself which made me go "hmmm" but afterward he went to another client of mine and convinced her he could do the same for her. I lost that client when he installed Wordpress for her and purchased a different theme geared to her industry.

That's not nice but not unethical really. I make sure my clients have the ability to control their own site in every way, including who they do business with. The unethical part is once again he put "site by.." with his name at the bottom. That may not be illegal according to the terms of Wordpress and the theme he purchased but I find it highly unethical.

Am I off base? I'm not going to rat him out to anyone but am I alone in thinking taking credit for the site when all he did was install it is low and slimy?

[Joss]

We used to get this at the studios where one client would tell another client that they could act as producer, effectively cutting us out - it happened a few times.

Every time it happened, however, the final result was dreadful, but still there was little or nothing we could do about it, other than refuse future business. But in a competitive world, that does not amount to much.

As for your ex client - this is rather common with Wordpress in particular, but honest people will at least put "template by...." at the bottom. 

In my old job (films and productions) it was expected that everyone involved would get a credit, programme space allowing. The longer the list of credits, the more professional it looks, to be honest, though that does not work so well in the purely corporate environment where space/time is at a premium and the client has legitimate worries about diluting messages. 

The best version of false claiming of credit I ever came across was a turkish voice over who recorded a voice for a corporate video with a colleague of mine. Because the colleague was a little new to the job, I had a quick listen and was very surprised to hear a bit of extra voice over at the end which had no matching original English. A quick check with another voice over and we confirmed that the Turkish chap had given him self an audio credit for writing and producing the video (which he hadn't) and even gave out his phone number.

Needless to say, he never worked again in the very lucrative foreign voice over field - it is a very small part of the industry and the story did get round pretty quickly. (Having a secretary with a drink problem and who could not keep her mouth shut had its advantages!)

[digitex]

A quick check with another voice over and we confirmed that the Turkish chap had given him self an audio credit for writing and producing the video (which he hadn't) and even gave out his phone number.

Needless to say, he never worked again in the very lucrative foreign voice over field - it is a very small part of the industry and the story did get round pretty quickly. (Having a secretary with a drink problem and who could not keep her mouth shut had its advantages!)

That is cheeky.

I've been operating my business in the town I currently live for 14 years now. Not all web mind you, a great deal of print in there as well as some other things and I'm certainly not new to low down conduct but it still always burns me. The problem is that now this guy may fancy himself a web designer and approach others and of course most people love getting things cheap. If I say anything against him for his unethical ways or the fact he doesn't do a thing other than install Wordpress and a custom theme which is, let's face it, ridiculously easy, I could come off as a bad guy (sour grapes and such). So I won't be doing that but I hate to see people take credit for another's work.

[pwired]

I lost that client when he installed Wordpress for her and purchased a different theme geared to her industry.

but I hate to see people take credit for another's work.

You lost a client but you won expierence in the business.

Never say a bad word about him because of 3 reasons:

it will backfire at you sooner or later

people won't take you serious

people will see you at his level

If people compare you and refer to him and his way of doing web business

say that you can tell them how you are doing your web business and how it

can fit their needs.

Make people see your profile. Say that you studied the market and customer needs

and made a choice for a specific cms/cmf. You do the templating and coding but

deliver easy editable fields for the client. Mmmm what cms/cmf might that be - - -

Mr. bloated goat won't be able to build decent client relation ships which is a key part

in expanding a web business. Good client relations will always bring more clients.

[Macrura]

Just because that person didn't say design the site, doesn't mean they can't put their credit on the site, and that doing so is not ethical – there are a lot of other of web people out there like 'web producers' not designers; Using a template is sort of like them outsourcing the design part of the job. Sometimes being able to find the right CMS and template for a client, and then making it work (modifying) a certain way for that person's needs and budget is a perfectly respectable skill. Not all clients can afford the additional cost that a totally custom designed site demands. What would make it unethical is if the terms of purchasing the template specified that credit needed to be given to the template designer but none was. Usually those themeforest templates don't require that you maintain the credit to the design company, but it's nice to do it anyway.

I've worked on sites that needed to be custom designed from the ground up, because the reputation of the company, their unique business logic, and visual branding required it, and no pre-made template would have worked; These clients come in with an expectation of the true cost of having a totally unique site;

Other clients are perfectly happy to use a generic template, or themeforest template, and don't care at all that the site will always have that more generic look.

I think the big issue with digitex's ex-client regards if said client fancy's themselves a web designer and yet does not possess a deep interest/understanding of HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, as well as have experience with linux, web hosts, security, apache and other emerging topics of relevance to the industry;

Without those skills said individual will be useless when it comes to customizing the template, configuring backups, security, caching, asset minification and other things we all take for granted on this forum.

I had a very similar experience with a large company that i was trying to pitch their corporate site to be done in Processwire; they eventually went the cheap route, used WP and a template. I recently looked at the site and it's not good, and very slow; no gzip, no asset min, no caching; plus a totally generic and not-slick look, which is sad because this is a really big company who's site should look much more pro.

[digitex]

Usually those themeforest templates don't require that you maintain the credit to the design company, but it's nice to do it anyway.

I believe that to be unethical. There's a difference between illegal and unethical and even though you're right that the license on themeforest themes doesn't legally require credit how much impact would there be to just say in the footer "site by __________. Theme by ___________."

The individual that created the theme did the design, artwork, coding, html, CSS, integrated javascript and created a ready to use out of the box website. To then claim it's your work is, in my opinion, dishonest and dishonesty is unethical. It has nothing to do with the budget constraints of the client.

I respect your opinion too though.

[diogo]

It's a grey area ethically. We also don't credit all the jQuery plugins we use, so I'm not sure we can criticize.

That said, a template will always look like a template, no matter what you do with it it will always feel like one and not adapt completely to the product and the content of the website. Sometimes it will even impose a structure that doesn't adapt at all to what the client has to say to his audience. That's where you will have to mark the difference, making your websites feel completely adapted to the message of your clients. Potencially good clients —people that really care— will be able to evaluate your work when compared to something like that, and will choose you instead.

[Joss]

I suppose one day in one version or another, people will start making templates for ProcessWire.

But I rather like that there are none currently.

Not that I ever used templates with Drumlapress; I have always had a problem with being hogtied.

[thetuningspoon]

I once had a marketing company tell me that they did a logo for a client of mine they had done some collateral for, when it was actually I who designed the logo.

It went something like this...

Me: "Oh yeah, I like the collateral you did for them. We've done work for them as well. We designed their logo, actually."

Marketing: "Yes, that's right. We did their logo and all their collateral."

[Joss]

Ha! A couple of years ago I got a call from a station saying a client had a jingle which needed an edit on it - some old thing they had used for years. So I said to send it over. When it arrived, not only was it some thing I had composed years before for a different client and so was not licenced for them to use, but it had never been licenced for any of the stations they had been on and the singer's licence had run out ten years before. I did quite well out of the ensuing letter from my lawyer...

[Pete]

I once had a whole site design ripped off about a decade ago. It bothered me greatly at the time, but I was changing the whole design about twice a year at that point learning new stuff - it was just a very early version of my gaming site.

If someone did it nowadays though... well I'd go the same route as Joss and lawyer up as it would likely be another business stealing my templates.

One I built last year is a bit of a grey area though as it's a slightly modified Foundation profile with not much added to it: http://kidderminster-husum-twinning.co.uk/ - I'm not sure I'd have much of a case if I wanted to sue someone because I'd put a box around some Foundation styling and changed some colours (though obviously there's more to it than that)