Nova Inside Admit's Theft!!!!

As previously mentioned in our last story <a href="http://www.typhoon-rising.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 180&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0"target="_blank">he re</a> our mapping contest has been duplicated by Nova-Inside.com. I had a long conversion on MSN with Atomic (the owner of that website) about his website completely copying our map contest (graphics, design, and all).

He finally admitted that they took the photos for the contest from Typhoon-Rising.com. He personally gave the link and told his web guy to take it from our site. It is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain that not only did they steal the graphics but also the design of the contest and even how the rules are layed out. They obviously used our contest as the template and ripped it off.

Now some of you may say all contests are the same. However the design of this contest is identical. Not only did they steal the graphics from us but they stole the layout of the contest. There are thousands of different combinations they could have done but they decided to directly copy our mapping contest. They made a few changes but the contest is identical in most respects.

I spent several long days working on the design of this contest. The contest took a lot of work to put together and took many emails with Novalogic. It is understandable how EXTREMELY pissed off we are too see how Nova-Inside has completely duplicated our contest. To further add insult to injury they tried to deny that they duplicated our contest at first.

<a href="http://www.sore-thumbs.org/Stolen_Contest.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.sore-thumbs.org/Stolen_Contest_sm.jpg"></a>

After much complaining to Atomic they have since realized that legally and morally they were wrong so they have mildly changed the contest photos on Nova-Inside. However the contest is still almost identical and was obviously taken directly from ours. Modifying the picture slightly does not change the fact that they stole from us and that their contest is identical to ours.

If you examine the two contests closely you will see that the prize packages are almost identical, that the contest photos were taken from us, that the layout and design of the contest is almost identical with minor changes. Our contest was obviously duplicated by them.

Novalogic has played a part in helping Atomic and Nova-Inside copy our contest and we are completely pissed off with them. I worked extremely hard designing the contest and somehow Novalogic UK seems to think that they have the right to give out the design of this contest to other fansites. I knew that Novalogic loved what I did with the contest but this was extremely wrong for them to encourage other fansites to steal our contest just for the sake of profits.

Novalogic has a PR department that gets paid well to come up with their own ideas and graphics. Why do they need to take from us? Nova-Inside also has a large staff so why do they also have to duplicate our contest with minor changes. Can they not put some effort into it and come up with their own ideas? Why must they prey off a smaller fansite?

I am no longer interested in supporting a company like Novalogic that would act this way. I am officially resigning as co-manager of Typhoon-Rising.com and once Haystakk and I have time to discuss this issue I am sure he will be shutting down this website.

We can not continue to support a game when Novalogic and our fellow fansites act this way. This was not simply another mapping contest but it was exactly the same contest and they boldly even stole the graphics, layout and design. This was so wrong.

Written By: Slippery Jim @ www.Typhoon-Rising.com