Guru3d.com Steals Images from Benchmark Reviews

[Olin Coles]

Guru3d Steals Content from Benchmark Reviews

Hilbert Hagedoorn Allegedly Violates DMCA for Personal Financial Gain

Full details here: Guru3d.com Steals Content from Benchmark Reviews

Attention: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Claim

Hilbert Hagedoorn
Owner, Designated Agent
Guru3d.com

This message is to inform you that the website http://www.guru3d.com/ has infringed upon the copyright of Performance Computers, Inc, a registered corporation located in Nevada, USA.
At 11:45AM on 08 July 2010 the work entitled ProlimaTech Super-Mega Heatsink CPU Cooler Debuts was published at: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10896&It emid=22.
This article contains images property of Performance Computers, Inc. Two particular images have been used without permission:

• http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/reviews/cooling/Super-Mega/ProlimaTech-Super-Mega-Heatsink-Corner-BenchmarkReviews.jpg
• http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/reviews/cooling/Super-Mega/ProlimaTech-Super-Mega-Heatsink-Bottom-BenchmarkReviews.jpg

All details of this article, text, and images were created by Olin Coles for Performance Computers, Inc., owner of Benchmark Reviews. Hilbert Hagedoorn and Guru3d.com do not have permission to use this or any other material generated by our company.

Hilbert Hagedoorn for the website guru3d.com has willfully and intentionally violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by taking images and material from my company and using it to produce income without permission. They have altered the original copyrighted images and manually removed our watermark (although some portion is still intact). Guru3d.com has published their own story without credit given or sources listed.

The infringing work is located here: http://www.guru3d.com/news/prolimatech-to-launch-super-mega-cpu-cooler/, with specific regard to this image: http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=24961.
Original Benchmark Reviews images:


Guru3d/Hilbert Hagedoorn's "edited" version:



We respectfully request that you take immediate action to remove all copyrighted material from the website guru3d.com. Your prompt response will mitigate potential legal costs and prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1996.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Olin Coles
President, Designated Agent
Perfomance Computers, Inc.
BenchmarkReviews.com

[Olin Coles]

This is exactly the reason why we watermark our images, and exactly the reason why I saved the high-quality images for the full review article. Apparently Hilbert Hagedoorn of Guru3d has taken a page from the playbook of Rodney Reynolds at 3dGameMan.

[Servando Silva]

What a mistake. To make things worse, some other sites have taken Guru3d as the official source, and some others even took Guru3d images and published them without source now that it doesn't have watermark.

[Nate Swetland]

Wow.. what a d*ck move. I am interested to see what their excuse is for this.

[Steven Iglesias-Hearst]

The stupidest thing is that it isn't all that hard to remove a watermark if you know what you are doing with photoshop, Hilbert Hagedoorn should hang his head in shame after this blatant, noobish rip-off I could prove my point but I'm not here to promote copyright fraud.

[Olin Coles]

I don't place a watermark on our images to make it impossible to steal, because I know it's easy to remove with enough experience. I make it so that if someone steals one of my images, such as Guru3d's owner Hilbert Hagedoorn, they actually have to intend to steal it. In this case, there's no reason a top-tier website with major sponsor backing should be taking images from a smaller website to create their own story. Greed, plain and simple.

[slugbug]

That's pretty low.

[Vito Cassisi]

Oh dear...

[Jonathan B]

It's a shame!!!.. I can't belive that GURU3D.COM do this kind of SH*T. the credibility of that site is cuestionable. there's no doubt of it.

[alex.ns]

I'm dissapointed with this

how unprofessional.