- Joined
- Mar 30, 2008
- Messages
- 6,058
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To all LPF-members:
It has come to my attention about some confusion about my affiliation with "darklaser.com".
I have recently had several newer-members assume that I was somehow part of this other web-store. I cleared the issue with them, but just the last few days I have had some of my closest-friends on LPF assume that I have something to do with him, perhaps even the same person. I have never even had any contact with "DarkArmyOfOne".
One long-time member even complemented me on my "new web-site", not really that "new" anymore now I replied. He explained that he used Google to find my store because he could not remember the address at the moment. He typed-in the basic keywords that many would use to find my store, "dark" and "laser", guess who popped-up, now with the very similar-look, even my associates believed they were on my site!
Another close friend and senior forum-member finally sent me link to his site last night, also confused. I had not visited this site until now, what I seen is that his format is very similar to my web-template, but the kicker is that his background-image is one of the rotating-background images directly from my site. I want to be clear, I do not own exclusive-rights to this image, but I did get it from a rather obscure-location and it would be naive of me to assume that he happened across it independently and chose it for his similar-named, and formatted web-site, selling similar products, with the exact-same background-image, located at a very similar URL.
I am not at all concerned about losing business to this other vendor, as we at Dark Hosre Custom only provide our own products to the forum-members. Our whole web-store was started, (1 1/2 years ago), as a conveience to by beloved fellow forum-member and not as a "profit-center". He can't sell our products, unless we were to sell them to him, because I make them. But it concerns me greatly that my reputation could be associated with someone else, anyone else.
Self-identity is an important thing, but especially when used in a forum-setting or in business. I do not see any other vendors on the forum that have any similarities at all, except possibly in the items that they sell, except for the aforementioned member and myself. In a little quick review of posts, I see that this other member is even referred to as "Dark" for short, which is understandable, given his user-name but another source for continued confusion.
Those who know me, know that I avoid controversy, petty arguments and spamming, even sometimes at my cost. I guess it is assumed that because one does not exercise force, it is assumed that I am weak. I tend only to post to add useful information to this forum. Note my post-count after 2-years, but many of those posts were detailing very unique and "first-of-its-kind" information. But I cannot allow this to continue without me speaking-up and clearing the air. This post is not me "pounding my fist" and saying that Darklasers must develop his own clear-identity. I cannot see any firm-ground upon which to do so, nor is it my style, (hence the name "Dark Horse"). I do however want to inform everyone on the forum that we are not the same person and have no affiliation whatsoever.
I am not "calling" for anything here, there is no "veiled-threat" or "call-to-arms" here, I am however making it distinctly clear, since it seams there are other forces at work to the contrary.
I have attached an image of each of our homepages, judge for yourselves.
Happy building,
Barry
Barry - welcome to the club of the screwed by the kiddies ! I had similiar discussions with "Mr. Stealz a lot" from high Tech Stealz....He copied my entire format, stole ALL my product pictures, as well as lying to everyone on the forum about me. Is it any wonder I backed away from the forum, and all the drama, and stupid little children ? NOPE.
I will apologize in advance to YOU, Barry - for any stress my comments on your post may cause - but anyone who would copy another's hard work is simply a theif, no two ways about it, PERIOD.
To all the rest of the forum members reading this thread, specifically my post in it, stay on the freaking subject, and if you are not a panty-waisted loser child, then my comments do not apply to you, although I am CERTAIN some will post lotsa slander as a reply.
Barry, sorry you are having issues like this - I also highly encourage you to take active "hacking" countermeasures immediately if you have not done so, as any theif that would steal from you would not stop there.