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Comment by code937 | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy to explain!

Upon finding my code on his site i emailed him. He didnt reply, i commented on a post, he didnt reply so i sent him a notice.

4 hours later he sends me the same notice back + to the marketplace and my host. The blogs about it!

I click the tweet button on the blog to monitor why and what he does, i come across this blog, i send him an email warning him to remove my code, delete the blog and move on.

He hasn't done so and continue's his story so i'm happy to provide all my evidence to show this person is lying.

still, I've absolutely no idea why he would take a lie this far, but i have all the proof which i will be providing on this thread very shortly!

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On the balance, both of your accounts are new on HN - I can see both possibilities for this post of "I will rally the technically savvy in a false flag operation and nuke the person I stole from off the internet" and "I am informing my fellow community of something that is not right, looking for support / warning others".

However - your account does have one advantage in this: Codecanyon's project pages list the date the project was created on Codecanyon, not a date of the author's choosing. Additionally they do not make it simple to completely re-write some older project on there you might have already had to re-use the timestamp to mask devious deeds.

So far your timestamps win over his. Unfortunately, I still have no access to the code of your project to vet whether one is a copy of the other. Given that your code is sold for profit, it would be hard to verify this without your code getting out without going to trial (or I guess I could give you some bucks on codecanyon to find out what's hosted there).

Edit:

On review of the code in your live demo at https://pure.codeworks.org.uk/ I definitely agree he ripped you off. That's an unfortunate danger when it comes to selling client-side scripting. Good luck taking him down.

This is a very common tactic in the grey-market internet realm. A dishonest proprietor raises "concerns" about the other's business on an open community forum, creates FUD. Then the other comes on with a new account, and accuses the accuser of xyz. Whoever has a better standing in the community usually wins out.

It's brilliant because it works. It also only works in a market that is shielded from making informed decisions about the service/product/behind-the-scenes shit because the information isn't easily accessible or understood.

Given that this is a business that isn't hiding in the shadows, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

edit: I should add, it works because eventually it becomes a contest of personalities and the argument drifts away from what started it into some other territory. The FUD is never resolved so it winds up being True to the market.

It's also scary because of the amount of forged information, like official documents, lab reports, inventories, invoices, messages etc are forged by the hands of the dishonest proprietor.

Honestly, if it isn't resolved file a civil suit for libel. The internet will not resolve this and will make it worse.

Thank you pudquick.

Wish i knew why he felt the need to take it this far

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this site has stopped letting me reply to posts because im so new!

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I very much expect he's removed it due to this whole ordeal, you can find it on the waybackmachine cache though.

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=== my reply to consonants ...

It has worked, im deflated and upset, and it absolutely ruined my day. The only reason i was really bothered by it, was because he was taking donations for something that i had coded.

I will probably never understand why he just didnt think "oh i got caught, ill take it down" - end of story.

Why then go on to fabricate this story, make a blog post and add a post onto this form perplexes me.

I'm contemplating uploading all my original correspondence to him, but from the looks of things I've managed to prove my point and he's gone quiet so theres not much point.

It's a shame the outcome of this has been a terrifying ordeal for me sat on a forum trying to set the facts straight, I will have to explain the whole thing again with the marketplace tomorrow - and what tops the biscuit is that its still sat on his website.

Indeed, I'm as confused as you are.

If anything, this makes me think someone should take a look at his other projects and see if they match anything out there - maybe you're not his first victim.

It looks like he unfortunately thought that changing some variable names (but leaving the .png / resource file names the same, the code structure the same, etc.) was enough for him to claim the code to be his original work - and thus slap a license of his choice on it. Very wrong.

You mentioned earlier that he has a donation link / button somewhere - that this might be for profit to a certain extent via donations? I can't seem to find that on this site.

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