Larger agencies are "ripping" people's ideas without giving credit

Hey there,

When I started developing on this platform I released a free plugin called Whiteboard Lite and a premium version of it Whiteboard Pro. I wanted to get my name out there and make a bit of side money and also contribute something cool. I’m making this post because recently I came across a large Agency and another smaller one who created a Miro like whiteboard template and was selling it for a pretty big penny. Thing is, they were using the plugin I created but not really. They looked through the code I provided & recreated the plugin I made so that they could say it doesn’t require external plugins and the result is that my name got erased from being recognized. Then, they created a template with “their” new custom plugin and sold the pro version for 150$ and the developer license for 750$.

Now, I made the plugin free and I knew people could use or sell my work. What I don’t think is cool though is taking an idea from a brand new face in the ecosystem and not crediting or asking anything from that person. I had a free version of the plugin that they could have asked to use & for me to support for them. I think that not crediting where you get your ideas from and then profiting off the idea isn’t cool or professional. Considering they have almost 1000 installs at 50$ a pop, I have potentially made someone 50 000$. I think it’s awesome that people get inspiration from others, but not crediting is pretty nasty in my opinion.

Furthermore, the plugin is made off a completely free API. It’s free because the creator lives in Iran and no payment processors support his country, which is pretty darn sad. Someone made upwards 50k off a guy who isn’t even able to accept money for political reasons. Before I made my plugin, I made sure to contact him and asked for his permission before I can see a pro version of the plugin. You’d think this would be the norm!

I want to add that my plugin was by no means difficult to create, it was a simple connection to a library and some added features. It was my idea to implement this idea in bubble, and I could have benefited from the exposure and it would have been nice to have been asked don’t ya think?

Why make this post? It’s because I know I’m not the only one. I think as a community we should discourage this kind of opportunism and encourage crediting people for their ideas and work. There are tons of $ loving agencies here gobbling up the work of smaller developers and people who are just trying to make an honest living.

The larger agency is Rapid Dev who make genuinely cool templates and does good work. However, I think taking a closer look at where their neat ideas come from and if they are crediting them is in order. Also, I am singling them out because it applies to me, but do know they are not the only ones here doing that.

Note: I did not contact the agency about this since they never reached out to me. I also have confirmation that they did in fact take my idea because they went ahead and just forked the repository. And yes, two agencies did this! Also, I am not in dire straights at all - don’t get me wrong. I am surviving and make a good living for myself and my colleagues do as well, this post is not about money

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I love this post. Thanks for sharing. Down with these copycat agencies! :rofl:

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You’re welcome!

I notice that they’re pumping out templates like no tomorrow and they don’t like using external plugins, so I guess that means they’re copy pasting stuff as fast as possible but also making it look like they invented everything.

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You’d think the marketplace would be regulated heavier. Checking for code dupes in plugins or unworking/false advertised templates.

It is in fact one of the things that brings bubble the most amount of power/flexibility as well as new users tend to start with templates.

To preface this, I’ve not had an experience with rapid dev at all but gotta say their releasing of medical templates knowing HIPAA compliance isn’t possible is interesting as well as the couple recent posts of people having issues with their consulting meetings with rapid dev, and now this.

If bubble is going to rank and promote agencies, especially gold tier agencies in this situation, I feel they should also step in in situations like this and hold their agency partners to a bare minimum standard of not ripping off code of free plugins for their own profit and letting it pass through the plug-in approval process.

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I agree. Some companies like apple take the regulation too far, but I think google does a pretty good regulating their apps. In both cases there are verification steps and documentation regarding GDPR, etc.

I didn’t know that about HIPPA, crazy stuff. I know that bubble doesn’t support certain other types of compliances though, so if you’re selling a template for a specific purpose that bubble doesn’t even support that’s pretty dishonest. Especially ones that cost 700$ !!!

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$700 templates with no privacy rules are the biggest problem I have with the template
marketplace :sweat_smile:

Ready-to-go marketed templates need privacy rules…

And don’t get me started on the plug-in marketplace monopoly… Bubble’s setting the ecosystem up for failure with condoning that…

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I do not believe that agency did it. That agency has been buying templates from other agencies like Zeroqode who once had a few hundred templates but are now down to just 2, and I believe a large portion of those went to Rapid Dev. So, as Zeroqode is selling off their templates, they are buying up free and paid plugins.

When I first released my Calendly Clone template, a certain large agency (Not RapidDev), who at the time was investing heavily themselves into templates asked if I were willing to sell it, which I didn’t but not long after they released two of their own, inferior versions, which replicated a lot of the functionality within mine. I believe it is possible that the agency purchased the normal license and then just copied and pasted most components and then posted their “reversed-engineered” version onto the marketplace.

I personally don’t have any evidence to substantiate that claim, but I don’t make the claim while wearing tinfoil on my head.

At the very least, Bubble should adhere to their own policies on the marketplace, and update the policies to have a stated return policy, because as it stands, everybody is able to buy a template, copy it into another app, and then contact support for a refund, and get a refund granted, without ever needing to communicate with the developer or have a real valid reason for the refund…after all, why do they force us to give a demo access? It is so a potential purchaser can test it out before purchasing and getting access to our IP, but Bubble doesn’t care to protect our IP.

Bubble doesn’t bother to spend their own resources to investigate claims of agencies purchasing standard licenses and then using those templates for their own client projects. Or investigate what somebody had done with the template over the course of their ownership that spanned a 4 month duration but requested and was granted a refund.

I’m currently having to inquire why a refund of $51.67 was issued for a plugin of mine that costs $10 a month or $25 one time.

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Hello @boston85719 , I’ll go a little off topic but that refund looks like someone dropped a subscription after paying the full year. If your plugin costs 10$/month, you should look for a >=120$ sale on 207 days before the refund → (120$-51.67$) / 120$ * 365

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I have seen this as well right around the same time that @boston85719 would have with my own scheduling plugin. Others have copied the logic and even some of the code but I think many have fallen off since I think they wanted a quick buck and have not stuck around to support the plugin long term. But it’s still unfortunate that some users find those options first and then don’t get the customer support they need.

I believe that even as a Plugin Builder you can build a good brand and reputation that overcomes these copycats - but I think Bubble could do a better job here helping promote consistent quality devs and plugin builders instead of primarily supporting large agencies

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Wasn’t Bubble supposed to be employing some ecosystem intern/PM a good few months ago? Anyone know what happened with that?

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I think you are referring to the amazing (:rofl:) added feature of code obfuscation.
It broke plugin publishing for a bit and demonstrated some funny opinion about copyright

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I 100% sympathize with your post - I’d be pretty upset if someone made $50k by copying my work too. That said, unfortunately - and I think you know this - that’s the risk one runs by giving away their code for free. Without a license or contract to compel agencies to give you credit, no one has an obligation to promote your work as anything other than theirs.

I think this is a strong reason for why Bubble needs to include other licensing options when publishing plugins. Today, we have only haveprivate, mit, or commercial.

Now, if they introduced a 4th option (or a write your own license option) another hurdle is enforcement. If an agency were to use your work without providing credit, what viable options are there to compel recognition? In your case, at $50k potentially lost revenues, it may be worth pursuing legal recourse… but that’s still a trial one can loose.

So it’s tricky.

Personally, I expect anything I release on the marketplace to be ripped off and design what safeguards I can accordingly. For example, I released a plugin recently that has been developed/improved over the course of almost two years - anyone can fork it right now. However, there’s a crucial component that makes it all work that can’t be duplicated because it relies on an API I control. This API isn’t just an auth layer either, it actually performs a critical function of the plugin as a whole.

Then again, making something like that isn’t exactly viable or desired for most plugins… so I’m not sure what else could have been done here :frowning:

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But plugins are paid either monthly, at $10 or one time at $25, so there is no annual subscription payment that is possible, as far as I know since I’ve never received a payment of $120 for the plugin. In the past Bubble had a policy that plugins bought for a one time fee are non-refundable and that plugins paid via a monthly subscription are refundable on a pro-rated basis.

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Absolutely. Legal, yeah - ethical, definitely not. Businesses will do business :man_shrugging: I completely agree with your custom license / more license options approach. Even just a ‘with attribution’ license might be useful.

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as far as I understand MIT license requires attribution if you use the code

I said in the post, it’s not about $ - it’s more about the ecosystem as a whole showing it has severe problems. When you fork a plugin, there’s no mention of that in the plugin description. Moreover, there’s no consensus on courtesy within the community and this is also not a topic that’s talked about. Plagiarism is a big deal in other fields, I think it should be here as well. This is a closed ecosystem, which is rare on the internet. One benefit of a closed ecosystem is that the company has control on what’s going on, but I don’t think any effort is going into avoiding these kinds of situations

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Actually Bubble add plugins subscriptions to the app invoice. So if the app plan is an annual plan you get aggregated subscriptions payments. At least this is what I noticed with my plugins. Bubble policy on plugin payments is not super clear, it took me a while to understand it.

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Yeah! This is what I’m getting at

I’m not interested in suing anyone as it would be very complicated and I am not interested in money

Heard anything about Brilworks? They have good reviews.