Quacent Homes: What about Copyrights infringements guys ?...

Some things can easily be discussed on a blog on a positive way;  but sometimes, we have to warn our customers about experiences we have had with some companies…

In the last months, we have had a lot of discussion with Mr. Ray Sun and his team at Quacent about the fact that they were using some of our designs and renderings without  licence or permission from us.  Quacent, actually is in copyright violaton for 7 of our designs which they promote on their website.  They are not allowed to use those and they act illegally against us.

Last year, more than 30 of our designs were published and promoted on Quacent and other affiliated companies’ websites and they were licenced for only 11 of those…  We kindly asked them to pay for a licence for all the designs in use and they refused…  They threatened to not buy plans from Drummond House Plans if we do not let them use our designs…  My answer was “No way” and I asked them to remove all the designs on their Quacent web sites.  I’d rather forego sales rather than dealing with someone who does not respect us.

Today, I went on their websites and noticed that they still have 7 designs from us  (Plan 2653, 2688, 3109, 3507, 3937, 3938 and 4916) that are used to promote their company!  This is copyright infringement.  Instead of paying about $700 and dealing with us honestly, they would rather use our work illegally and sell houses to the innocent public…

As I explained to them, if you open a golf equipment store and you use Tiger Woods’ image to promote your store, someone will surely come to you and say “you have 2 choices, you remove Mr. Woods’ picture from your advertising or you pay him for using his image…”  It is the same situation here; Quacent uses our image to promote their company without paying us for that.  They cannot use our image if we do not authorize  it.  Our legal advisors will probably take care of them soon but I wanted to inform you about them.

So, the only thing I want to tell you is this:  BE CAREFUL WITH THEM!  If Quacent violates the Copyright law for $700…

Sad but true…