People who steal have no soul.
Nothing.
Nothing makes me more livid than people who steal our work (or work we publish), publish it as their own, and then claim it was only being used for "inspiration," as a "proof of concept," or for "testing purposes."
"It was never meant to be seen by anyone."
Yep, I guess that's why there was no .htaccess/.htpasswd to prevent public access. Too difficult. Or perhaps we'd just never stumble across the site, so no harm no foul.
This happens to us all the time, and we have an incredibly low tolerance for it. People then post big rants in response as if we're the bad guys.
The work we publish takes hundreds and hundreds of hours. Personally, it requires me to be on trains and planes away from my family, beating the pavement in multiple time zones in in order to sell the work necessary to feed the folks and their families who put the incredible thought and attention into the things we make. They pour their souls into it. I watch them do it.
When you simply take what we've done and slap your own name on it, it's not only illegal - it's morally bankrupt. Those who succeed build their reputations themselves. There are no shortcuts.
The lawyers won't adequately level the playing field. Your peers and customers will do that for you.
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