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So as I posted just before this, today was my last day at my former job.  I was and still am a Web Designer, and as such, we rely heavily on ONLINE PORTFOLIO's.  It makes sense right?

I design a web site for a company, they pay me, I can tell people in the future that this is some of the design work that I've done.  It doesn't seem to complicated, at least I wouldn't think so.

So I started at this company and initially they have something you sign saying you can't use their stuff.  As a designer, this is a big NO!  If I work somewhere and spend a long time with them, I need to put my work on a portfolio.  So I responded to them and said they would have to change this.  I need to be able to show my work.  They say fine but most of the time it's all talk so I have to manually write it in the contract, then sign it.  Which I did. 

Today, being that I left, I get a legal letter stating that I have to remove the design work that I did from the portfolio because of Intellectual Property.  So of course I have a problem now, I did a lot of work for this company and now I can't use any of my work to show what I have done, I technically wasted a sh*t load of time there.

Here's a brief excerpt of the letter:

"Your deliberate misuse of our intellectual property is infringement intended to cause customer confusion.  This is also a clear example of an attempt to misuse the goodwill of another company for your own gain and profit.  A fundamental purpose of federal trademark law is to prevent customer confusion, and prevent the use of another's Intellectual Property and losses in the market that accompany such misuse."

What an asshole!

So I call the legal lawyer person and I tell them what I wrote above about when I started etc.  This person tells me that because my site is a commercial site, I am infringing on the trademark.  They also tell me that my online portfolio is not a portfolio.  Because apparently "Portfolio's are only on paper and they're what you bring to an office, what you have online is not a portfolio".

I am not even joking.

Now I'm sorry but I though lawyers were supposed to be smart.  I mean you'd think 8 years of schooling would do it.  But here we are.  I mean, who would've known that in the year 2008, portfolios are only on paper. No where else.  Wow!

Needless to say, I had to remove some of my work on my portfolio.  I really don't care, they weren't that great to begin with, but it's the principal.  I could've faxed over papers, fought it, etc., but I don't want to waste my time fighting a company for 2 stupid designs.

So F that company, and F the management in the department I was at because they have no clue how to run a thing and know nothing about the internet and I hope they read this.  You will not be going on my resume!

I'll probably get sued for this too!