When Are The Hack Companies Finally Going To Close Down????

George Z

Why would your guess be that?
Thanks for the confidence.
Wouldn't my intelligence measure up to the said brilliance of College Pro Painters?
If anything, running a College Pro outfit for 4 years and complaining about hacks is not squeeky clean, considering the ethics of College Pro.

The procedures we al learned from somewhere.
The exact order and almost identical wording, is mine.
That is the point.
On the web, the proof is mine.

Unless you have something better...

In the world of the Web, what he is doing is cheating.
These are the rules, I didn't make them.

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MakDeco

I have been reading this thread from a distance, But I agree with George on this comment he made. In the Chicago area, the reputable exterior contractors including myself compete with College pro all the time and we feel that they are the "hacks" funny that he worked for them and then started a business and is having problems with "hacks" it's nice to see someone get what they deserve.

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MAK Deco

MakDeco

I agree with Ed also a lot of the time this is true. When I started on my own 16 years ago I was in my 20's and learned a lot about painting from my old boss but never how to run a great business, and it took me a lot of time to learn the ropes. ( I was probably considered a hack by the old timers around the area cause my pricing was off from theres) It would of been great to have someone who knew how to run a business teach a few of the ins and outs.
All tho there are a lot of guys out there who shun at the thought of getting help and think they know it all.

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MAK Deco

George Z

Your parents must be proud of you.
Now remove the content,
you have a lot of catching up to do with your ethics.

4 Years of College Pro.
Sending cute kids to paint three storey dormers without a harness
and paying them minimum wage ...a lot of catching up to do with your ethics.
You have been a hack for 4 years (or more)

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Any Season

George, I will change my wording around slightly, but I am not a liar, and I take offense to this since I have never seen your site until yesterday. I know for a fact that every word that you are contesting was given to me on CPP letterhead in a word file in 2000. I am aware that some College Pro franchisees are not very good at all and I don't contest that. I ran an outlet that had me in the top 10 in SALES AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION in all of north america for 4 straight years, and those people are still my customers to this day. Who the hell do you think you are coming at we with this **** you are saying? The same for MAKDECO. I take the quality of my work as well as my reputation very seriously so now that you are bordering on libel on a public forum I would suggest you word your posts carefully because you have called me a hack and unethical 3 or 4 times and you know nothing about me. I have hundreds of references and I personally go above and beyond to make sure every one of my customers is happy with their experience. I would put my work up against anyone else on here whether when I ran a College Pro outfit or now.

Mike Finley

I'll make 6 simple points and then I'm done:

1) George Z - a contractor talk member in good standing for 4 years.

2) Any Season - a member for 3 months.

3) Any Season - an alumni of College Pro Painters - need I say anymore?

4) Then you should be the first person on this forum to understand copyright law, copyright violation and plagiarism. And since you are violating it, and are an admitted thief it makes it even more ironic how you try to somehow justify your theft by telling us you're educated about it.

5) This is coming from somebody who is stealing copy from another's website, and besides the person accusing you I'm the only other person vocally stating an opinion that understands the law, which of course falls against you, What a shocker you would want to try to reduce the issue to a popularity contest.

6) You're trying to pull the wool over the rest of your peers eyes. They don't understand the issue and you've preyed upon this weakness, so you've tried to cloud it right from the start with jokes and making light and side tracking it to make it seem like the issue is about a set of IDEAS, a set of steps or a policy, when it's not. It's about identical verbiage. The former isn't a copyright violation, the latter is. The former isn't what you are being accused of by George, the latter is.

So you can keep playing the game of distraction. But in the end if George pursues this (since you are educated in this matter as you've told me 2 times now) you and I both know you're guilty and you will lose.

7) Is the attachement highlighting the identical 8 steps, in the same order with 90% identical verbiage. Which you claim A) you stole from somebody else who stole it from George or B) It's a coincidence -- it's common knowledge to painters and I just happened to sit down and write out those 8 steps in the same order and happened to use 90% of the same words as George, all in the exact same order.

Now carry on about how I'm a big bully and you're just an innocent victim in all this.

George Z

This Finley guy is good.

Why do you think I left the PR Forum,
I can't win any argument there since he came back in.

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Any Season

Mike, I all I have done was use something I paid for as part of a franchise. Then use something I purchased in my own business after a 'no-compete' clause I signed had expired. I'm sorry but I will have to say this is coincidence because I have never seen George's website or even heard of his company until yesterday morning.

George Z

Thank you,

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Mike Finley

I'm glad you are doing the right thing. I hope you continue to contribute here, I've read many of your prior posts and have been impressed. (part of the reason I was so shocked at this whole scenario)

Just so you know, I'd defend you just as much if later on you would end up on the other side of this issue with somebody else.

Construction as a career in our young people's eyes has turned into a place for suckers or those who can't do anything else. We as a group need to continually do what we can to raise the bar and turn that perception around. There is no tolerance for an educated group that comes here to lower ourselves to the lowest common denominators in our industry. Contractor talk can be so much more than a place to talk about what's the best truck a Ford or a Chevy? We have the power as a community, we can stick together and educate those in our industry and those coming into it, and collectively help ourselves as a result. The path to a better industry is right here on this forum.

Any Season

Mike,

I agree with everything you just said. I do feel it is important to note one thing. It is a slippery slope to make generalizations about a man's business. Especially not knowing anything about him or his company. I am very careful in how I hire my guys, and because of that my company is like a family, and I have had to go without early on so that my guys get the money they earned and my business can grow. So for someone like George to be marginalizing everything I have done into a few sentences and summing me up to a hack and a scumbag is a path I know I would never take with someone I don't know. That said I appreciate the way this seems to have turned around.

mahlere

that and $4 will get you a cup of coffee from Starbucks....

Having spent a few years operating an internet based company...George doesn't have a lot to stand on..I will admit that Any Seasons host company will probably pull the plug without any questions for 2 reasons:

1) they don't really give a rat's ass about Any Season...he pays them $10/month...

2) they don't want to get dragged into anything...

But, having been in situations where entire sites were ripped and put under different domains (these were sites that generated revenue directly, not just advertising)...once the lawyers get involved, nothing is guaranteed.

Celtic

I don't understand

How would one site affect the other when they are hundreds (thousands?) of miles apart?
A person searching for a painter in NH won't consider a site from Toronto...and vice-versa.

How is the wording on the sites affecting each contractor?

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Celtic

I don't understand this either.

George has a date of Dec 2004 and a post count of 1,560
All Season has a date of Nov 2007 and a post count of 91

How is either member in "good standings" - what are the qualifications to be in "good standing"...a high post count? Having found this site earlier than someone else?

I have a date of May 2007 and a post count of 2,824.....have I achieved the lofty nomenclature of "good standing"?

Ya...it's a popularity contest

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mahlere

the only way it would is through Google Spiders...they search through sites for keywords and assign weight to them...then they rank sites during a search according to their weight...but for the most part you are correct and it won't have any effect on George's ranking...but he likes to do this, so let him at it...

Celtic

I'm just trying to understand the whole "site ratings" thing....yea it's a tangent from the main focus of this thread, but applicable - no?
While a tangent, I am NOT trying to redirect focus - just trying to understand.

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BuiltByMAC

Keep in mind, this point was made by a guy who has more posts more than anyone else on this board. Not so much a popularity contest as a "who spends more time posting on CT" contest...

I don't get this whole argument - how many painters are there operating in the US and Canada? 20,000? More? The steps in question seem to be pretty basic to the trade, is there a chance that 2 of those many thousands worded them the same by chance, not malice?

If I was George, I'd worry less about generic copy floating around and more about making my site look cool. That is one basic template-looking site he has, looks like every other website in a box out there - if you want to stand out, look different! If those steps are your very own and you thought of them before any other painter in the world, trademark them.

Mac

Mike Finley

George is a member in good standing in my mind, I've known him on this forum for 4 years, mixed it up with him, gotten to know him through his posts here on the open forum and more so on the other parts. I've seen the measure of his character even though we differ politically and on many topics in my opinion he's an ethical an honorable person and somebody I respect. In my opinion he's a member in good standing, maybe not in yours, maybe I'm not in your opinion either. I can't speak for you or anybody else, but only from myself.

The whole google issue while it might be George's main concern because it could effect his income the most directly is not the legal issue. This issue was an issue of legal copyright.


Once again the steps in question are not the issue. Content is the issue. The similarities in the duplicate use of 90% of the same words, 90% of the same phrasing, the exact same order would leave no doubt in anyones mind that the content has been directly lifted and small changes were made to disguise the content to some degree.

George does not have to trademark the steps or the ideas to protect his content. He would have an impossible battle to trade mark the steps or the ideas because as you have said and others have said the ideas and steps are generic and common to the entire painting industry.

George's content, identicalness of the two examples, the wording, the order, the phrases is the issue, and George's content is automatically copyright protected due to the way that copyright laws are written.

This issue is absolutely no different then the same screaming that goes on here about people stealing pictures of peoples work off of a websites to use it as their own - it's absolutely the exact same thing.

Maybe the issue become clearer if you look at it this way:

Here is my new logo for my deck building company I am starting>>

It does look just a bit like yours Mac, but a saw blade is pretty generic to deck building, my foreman's name is JAC, and we will be building custom decks so ...

Chris G

You can't copyright ad copy. You can copywrite a slogan, a tagline, a signature line or whatever you want to call it, but you cannot copyright copy. You can also copyright a logo.

In your example Mike, you would be doing something illegal. And if you took pictures off of a website, that would be illegal too.

And Any Season, that is a great website you have. Very tasty. You should move to Toronto. Just your home page would be enough to get a ton of 30 year old condo owners.

Any Season

Backhanded compliment? anyone? bueller?