Looking through hot4s magazine with MK211 the other day we noticed a rip-off from one of Jonsibal's chops appearing in one of the ads (PS: I've PMed Jonsibal just now to check if they actually paid him or asked for permission, so it might be legit).

Stolen Chop
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/9342/stolenchop.jpg

Original:
http://www.autemo.com/dc/users/1/QDHTZ/701/chops/SL65_AMG_Black_Series_by_jonsibal.jpg

This got us thinking... What if offered a service whereby Choppers from anywhere in the world could report a "stolen chop" to Autemo, and we'll try to get a fair deal out of the people who used the chop?

Basically we'd become kind of an international debt collector I guess, and would get experience with the legalities and what can be threatened and what can be done about these things. We might not be able to get cash in all instances, but we should be able to make people think twice before ripping off chops.

What do people think? Have you ever chops in car mags which you think are stolen? Would you report it to us if you knew we'd follow up on it?

Also, if you've seen your own chop be stolen like this, how would you feel about Autemo going after the people who did it on your behalf?


Cheers

IronChop

I would go after them and try and get some money out of it! Also what No. Hot 4s mag was it in???

Ive seen tons of chops in ads :O

But are they Autemo Chops

i got an easy solution, make fake looking chops lol only way to do it, avoid realism, =D
but it is sad to see indeed.

this is everywhere though i got loads in mobile background and adds, we cant do much cus we our self took images that are not legally ours, and re work them wich is infact illiagal =)
glac

Problem is these things been going on for ages, it's hard to catch everyone of them, and by complaining/ reporting, you wouldn't know who to complain to or there could be negative consequences like stiring up something or causing a massive fuss.

Like I've mentioned before start a stole chop thread / section, then some people can post links, then some one can Email the site / artist and give them a warning.

But then again most choppers use stuff from Flcikr/ Google, so we actually broke the first step of copyrights. unless you create every single pixel from scratch

or use own photos or photos that you have rights to do anything with (so selling etc. will be legal )

Sounds like a pretty cool idea to me...

One thing a few of you have said is that we have broke the law in the first place technically, but there's a loophole which does indeed exist that if you change over a certain percentage of pixels then you from then on own the image. I think it's a good diea to target bigger places who use chops in ads, but for places like wallpaper sites etc there's not a lot you can do about it. I do think it's something we should crack down on

Nordic / Jack I agree, Glacius mentioned this many times, if you change over like 70-80% of the image it becomes yours, but I'm Speaking about a majority percentage of choppers which c/p stuff everywhere.
So of course there are people which create something totally different to their base image and can sell it for cash worry free. But there's alot of people that don't full brush or use images off flickr, Google, seriouswheels etc.

Never mind me babbling, we should get cracking on this. I suggest a New thread/ section for stolen chops ??

agree, but my point was the fact that i have used own photos for some time now already
(and ofcourse before that fullbrushing the pics anyways ), but to the fact that most of the pics are just putted up to public from the carbrands to spread out and show the car around to get publicity/attention to their product, so i dont think they really worry about some who mod them pics for an hobby and for own fun/non commercial

but, for use which involves money it becames bit more difficult, so that is why i would recomned to use your own pics or just brush all from scracth

btw, wasn't there topic like this already created?
i remember someone created one like this, but i couldnt find it anywhere, so maybe i remember incorrectly