Quote Originally Posted by zJordan View Post
No one will take action for their work being used and profited from it. Not many free lance designers can afford it.

Maybe Nordeus should pick the winners and then request all creation-data be given to them in the future. (lets say psd files, everything used)
Usually no one will take action if it is an isolated case, however if it is proven that copyrighted material is being used regularly and sold for profit there are many small steps that can be taken before full legal action would have to be called in (with associated costs, of course)

First of all, a series of complaints from you - the users - should alert the company to awareness that they are not doing enough to prevent illegal activity taking place. Let me be clear that the illegal activity is not just people using those images in a forum competition, but actually then selling those images on for profit

Secondly, if people on here have the will to, the copyright holders or the companies who sell the images for (one time) use would be contacted to let them know what is happening

Then, those individuals/companies have a series of actions to take. Their first step would be to let Nordeus know they are using their images illegally. Their second step would be to issues a cease and desist letter (this is not an expensive step). Thirdly, they would appeal to Google, Facebook, Apple and others citing a breach of DMCA in an attempt to get the forum, T11 site and the app banned from those engines and market places

It's only the final step of pursuing legal action in court that actually has a significant cost (other than time)

Any freelance individual can follow the same steps if their copyright is breached