INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

Once again, this post is specifically relevant to the designers already involved with, or contemplating being involved in, the new venture owned by Donna (of Stitch A Painting), Karen (of The Art of Stitching), and Rick (of Rick’s Chart’s), which I highlighted in my earlier posts, “Designers Wanted,” and “ATTN: All Designers Who Were Interested in ‘Designers Wanted’ Article.” (Donna, Karen, and Rick will be referred to from here on in this post as DKR.)

I have been challenged by Rick to provide you with even more factual information than I already have: “You should check the facts of your stories before you release them!” All right-y, then — here you go, Rick!

MY INVESTIGATION ~ FACT-CHECKING

When I initially tried to contact DKR on January 4, 2008 using the email address support@designsondemand.org, my message bounced back saying I needed to be part of a particular Yahoo group in order for my message to go through. This quickly led me to the discovery that DKR’s Yahoo Group was set up such that its messages are public. Thus, I can share with you their own words — their messages — as evidence.

Unfortunately for anyone who might be represented by DKR, their messages show a lack of professionalism or good judgment. It’s always best to watch what you say about others — especially in public. Burning bridges is generally ill-advised. Speaking negatively about current and — perhaps even more importantly — about potential colleagues, clients, or customers simply is not done by those with good business heads on their shoulders. Such behavior looks just plain bad, and when done in front of the whole world … well, there’s just one word for it: “Oops.”

These things are especially important when you’re just starting out and nobody’s heard of you. Otherwise, when you inevitably become yesterday’s news, you may wish the first impressions you’d left were different.

Further, DKR’s own Yahoo group messages prove the many inaccuracies and flat out falsehoods in DKR’s statement. I will focus on a few specific issues which exemplify this (even if it does require another article the length of a masters thesis).

THE BIGGEST LIE: DKR DID NOT SEEK LEGAL ADVICE

Rick, writing on behalf of DKR, makes several statements claiming to have sought legal advice regarding the domain dispute issue. He says, “Our legal advise [sic] tells us we would win this dispute if … ” Later, he continues, “In pure frustration I contacted a lawyer and showed him all our correspondence. He told me legally she can’t do anything about our site.” Further down the page, Rick states, “My legal advise in a nutshell is … ”

The problem is, Rick is lying. According to messages 819, 820, 824, 861, 866, 870, 932, 952, 959, 960, 983, 1004, 1013, 1020, 1022, and 1023, neither Rick nor any member of DKR sought legal advice. Rick, who lives in Australia, was on vacation in the Gold Coast of Queensland when the Scheperles contacted DKR about the trademark issue. (Not that he couldn’t perhaps have still sought legal advice while on vacation, but the fact is that he did not do so — as proved by his messages.) DKR emailed the Scheperles saying Rick would cancel his vacation in order to go see a lawyer, and also threatened the Scheperles would have to cover the cost of Rick’s plane tickets. DKR wrote several messages discussing what they would tell the Scheperles the attorney (the one Rick never saw and never intended to see) had said. DKR then actually DID send the Scheperles a letter advising them what their fake attorney — the one they never even telephoned! — had said. Right up until they sent that email, DKR had bad intentions, but a chance of redemption. However, as soon as they ACTUALLY sent the email, they had acted in what is called bad faith. Then DKR lied to all the world on their website, claiming not only to have received legal advice, but again making false statements about the content of that non-existent legal advice. The totality of DKR’s actions constitutes the legal definition of bad faith.

(Had DKR really sought legal advice from a flesh-and-blood attorney, they would have learned they were not the party legally in the right, and perhaps backed down much earlier — before they ended up looking so foolish as they now appear.)

WHAT IS BAD FAITH?

Bad faith is one of the elements the Scheperles would need to prove in order to get their original domain name dispute resolved through ICANN.

From InterNIC’s FAQ on the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP):

In order to have the domain name transferred or cancelled, the trademark holder must establish (1) that he has a legally recognized trademark in a name that is identical or confusingly similar to the domain name; (2) that the current registrant of the domain name has no legitimate rights in the name; and (3) that there has been some evidence of bad faith or abuse.

The Scheperles’ trademark is identical to the domain name DKR chose, so the first element is met. DKR have no legitimate rights (meaning they have no trademark issues of their own which pre-date those of the Scheperles), so element two is met. Usually, element three is the hardest to prove because evidence of bad faith or abuse is often difficult to get. In fact, it’s often impossible to get when the infringing party really didn’t intend to infringe upon someone else’s trademark. (Of course, when that’s the case, the infringing party usually says, “Oops … Sorry … My bad … I’ll get another name … Just please don’t sue me!”)

However, in this case, thanks to DKR’s Yahoo Group’s public messages, the element of bad faith is EASILY proven — time and time again! Next to making their messages public, DKR’s biggest problem is that they never bothered to educate themselves on the legal definition of bad faith.

ANOTHER LIE

DKR also claim publicly on their website and in emails to the Scheperles, “We paid to have all our banners and graphics altered to try and please her.” This is another lie, and, by definition then, another example of bad faith. Per messages 824, 1037, 1038, and 1039, DKR actually did all the work on their website themselves (and they did very nice work very quickly, too). However, they purposely didn’t put pages online as soon as they could have because they didn’t want to give themselves away. They only claimed to have paid someone else to do it to try stalling the Scheperles from pursuing their legal rights to their trademarked name. DKR also conspired on several occasions about selling the designsondemand.org domain to the Scheperles for as much as $300 (after DKR had only paid $10 for it). To support this outrageous cybersquatting price, they contemplated claiming they had hired people first to design their logo and then to redesign it in order to meet the Scheperles requests. DKR also purposely delayed opening their new site at needleworkdesignsondemand.com — because they didn’t want people thinking it was too easy for them to make the transition (message 1202)!

LUDICROUS DEMANDS

Also in their diatribe, DKR wrote, “After adding the above link the blog entry that [sic] had not be [sic] approved for over 90 minutes … ” They then followed, “We will give her 8 hours to approve the comment.” They conclude with:

I am happy to report Heather has approved Karen’s response to another persons [sic] comment on Heather’s blog. All we are asking for is a fair chance to put our side to the public and now Heather is giving us that chance.

I must have missed the part about when DKR hired me to work solely for them, much less the part about what my assigned work hours are. I wasn’t even home on January 22nd for a period of about ten hours, and Rick’s comment arrived rather early during my day out, so there was no way I could have approved his comment and then removed it, as he claims occurred. I haven’t seen a job offer, a contract, or a paycheck, so I don’t know what gave DKR the idea I should be sitting by my computer waiting for comments from them to arrive.

Incredulously, DKR believed me to be so much under their control that they considered sending me an email threatening me with libel if I did not put back Rick’s comment (which I had not yet approved at that point, in reality).

The truth about my approving Rick’s comment is entirely different and, more importantly, completely innocuous.

ABOUT APPROVING RICK’S COMMENT ON INN

All comments submitted to INN are moderated to prevent SPAM. I am the sole moderator. Contrary to Rick’s apparent expectation and belief, I do not sit by my computer waiting for emails or comments from him (or anyone else) to arrive (and he thinks I’m the one with a big ego, LOL! It’s really too bad they didn’t put up the draft in which they said I am a legend in my own mind, don’t you agree?). I actually do have a life with other obligations to fulfill, so when Rick submitted his comment for approval at 2:20 p.m. central time (3:20 p.m. eastern time, as the date stamp on his comment shows) on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, I was not even home. I had left the house around noon, and I returned just after 9:30 p.m. So, it was not until after 9:30 p.m. my time that I even learned Rick had submitted a comment.

To test why Rick thought his comment had been approved and then unapproved, I logged out, then submitted a comment for approval myself. That comment appeared on the site just as it would if it had been approved, except it had a message next to it saying, “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” I believe Rick simply didn’t notice the message saying his comment was awaiting moderation (it’s easy enough to miss, in my opinion), and therefore thought his comment had already officially posted. When he checked the site later and the comment wasn’t there (because it still hadn’t been approved because I still wasn’t home), he then erroneously concluded I had removed it.

What really happened is that I approved Rick’s comment for the first and only time at around 10:00 p.m. central time. At the same time, I also approved murphtall’s message.

YOU DECIDE

These lies, along with the ridiculous demands and accusations, come from a group of three people who write as their concluding statement, “We, being Donna, Karen and myself [Rick] are the only ones who are being totally honest about everything … ” Unless their definition of honesty is relative, they are lying with that statement, too.

I’ve given you the actual evidence; now you can judge for yourselves.

WHY I PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE

I tossed and turned over publishing this second article. I had already said quite a lot, and I wondered if that was enough. Unfortunately, not all news in the needlework world is positive. (The real shame here is that I could really use the assistance of someone with DKR’s — or specifically, I think, DK’s … don’t forget, Rick’s been on vacation — kind of talent designing websites here on INN, but I require a certain level of integrity they have not shown.) Had DKR not put themselves forward as pillars of honesty, I most likely would have simply let things drop after the first article, but to do so after they made such a public statement would have been to shirk my responsibilities to provide the designers I am here to support with the information they require in order to make informed decisions about their own businesses.

Of course, before you choose a company to market your designs, you should know with whom you’re dealing, and you should know as much about them as possible. You should not rely entirely on me for this information because I’m just one person who is already spread extremely thin. I cannot always devote the time needed to write a post this long — and how many of you care to read something this lengthy, anyway, even when the information is valuable? In any event, this post IS all needlework news, and that’s why I published it.

For my own stitching needs, I will go elsewhere as often as possible — which for me means that if a certain designer’s patterns are only carried through DKR’s venture, then I’ll probably go ahead and purchase them in order to support the designer (why punish the individual designer or myself ?). However, in general, although I wish them no ill will, DKR have shown me they do not deserve my hard-earned money (or my husband’s hard-earned money, ).

I trust you, dear readers, to take the information I have provided you with and either make up your own minds now or continue searching for more information before doing so. Whatever you choose, the decision is entirely your prerogative.

Ultimately what it comes down to for me is that the product I supply here on INN is my word, and my readers have come to trust that product. When I write something, it is reliable because it is what I research and thus believe to be the truth — or because if further research (mine or yours) indicates I have made an error and reported something inaccurately (or even when something I have written has not been said as well as it could be, and thus has come across the wrong way), I have worked very hard — and as quickly as possible — to correct the situation (just as any other reporter would). So my product — my word — is extremely important to me.

Thus, it was essential that I publish this article because once I had said designers should be wary of DKR’s venture, it became my responsibility to tell them exactly why they should be wary. It is because I am honest (even — or especially — when it means admitting my own mistakes), because I am willing to correct myself publicly, and because I am willing to publish something negative, that my readers do trust me and will continue to do so.

On a more positive note, I do want to add I am really glad DKR finally forked out another $10 to start Needlework Designs on Demand. Although I do personally believe they could have been more original when choosing their new name, and also that intentionally pushing the envelope with that new name (per messages 1125, 1128, 1130, 1136, and 1264) was at least a tad juvenile and ill-advised, I am also extremely pleased to report the Scheperles are happy with this outcome.

Still the fact remains it would have been far preferable for all parties involved if DKR would have simply taken these steps in the first place — as John Williams summarizes very intelligently and very succinctly (his succinctness is proof he is not me, despite what Rick thinks! ). Had DKR not been so obstinate about it, I might very well have offered to purchase the new domain for them because (1) I really DO believe their ideas for their new venture are good ideas, and (2) I really DO believe a lot of new and independent designers will benefit from marketing their designs in this manner.

However, all’s well that ends well — and even DKR can hardly complain when they’ve received so much free publicity (the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity actually is true), including for their new site, from the posts I have written.

I personally wish DKR the best of luck with Needlework Designs on Demand because I support the designers themselves, and I certainly hope that from now on, DKR will conduct themselves with the absolute utmost of integrity.

A few suggestions:

I hope they’ve not just considered but determined the full tax implications involved with this venture. With three countries involved just among the owners of Needlework Designs on Demand, things could become complicated very quickly, especially once profits go over that certain dollar amount which differentiates a hobby from a business (which is likely different in each of those three countries). Consulting with a tax accountant in whichever country this domain is actually registered, as well as the other two, is probably a really smart thing to do right away if DKR haven’t already done this. Individual designers will definitely want to make sure this tax issue is quickly addressed before it affects them — the last thing you’ll need is auditors from other countries coming after you because DKR missed a step in their excitement to get this venture off the ground.

DKR also still need to correct the email address on their About Us page (you’d think they would have made that correction the first time I posted about it, but I guess they aren’t reading that far down into my posts).

Finally, DKR need to make sure they change all their passwords, which have been exposed to the public through their Yahoo Group — eek! I also recommend they choose more complicated, and thus more secure, passwords in the future.

Since Rick has already stated DKR will not continue discussing this issue further, I also will no longer entertain further discussion about the matter. Therefore, comments to this article will only be approved if they add something new and of significant value to the already published conversation. I personally am curious to see if Rick, who appears to be the ringleader for DKR, will be true to his word, as he wrote in message 1074: “… if I make a mistake, or I am in the wrong I will admit it and try to make amends.”

Technorati Tags: Stitch A Painting, Rick’s Charts, Art of Stitching, Deanna’s Designs, trademark, copyright, infringement, needlework, cross stitch, intellectual property, DesignsOnDemand.org, Designs On Demand.org, common law trademark, TM, Needlework Designs On Demand, cybersquatting

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 6:42 am and is filed under Copyright and Needlework, Designer Information, Heather's Favorite Posts, Needlework Shop Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.