In the past, when my real job company first decided to go online, my boss decided to outsource the site. It was awful, and there was ZERO communication with the design firm...so we fired them and I did it myself. Now, more than six years has passed, and the fellow who worked on the design (which never even went LIVE) lists it in his portfolio with a live link to the site I created.

 

I've asked him in the past to post a screenshot of his ACTUAL work in his portfolio (which I still have) but he refuses. He did remove the link, but it has reappeared. Any thoughts on this?

I believe it is actually illegal for this person to this. Because he didn't create it, he's not allowed to claim ANY credit for the design or implementation. Also because he didn't/doesn't have the permission of the site owner, he's not even allowed to have a screenshot of the website on his site without the owners permission, whether he made it or not. By selling the design, he forfeits all of his entitlement to claim copyright on it.

I would write, or get a lawyer to write, a "cease and desist" letter. Barring that, maybe put a credit to the real designer at the bottom of the page.

I had this kind of problem when I resigned from a company a while abck and didn't ask them permission to use the work I'd done whilst I worked there on my portfolio. Luckily one of my best mates is a lawyer and he helped sort it all out. Legally I'm not allowed to post up images of the work I did at that company but I am able to link to anything that is online/live and say that I designed it whilst working there. I've also added a legal statement about this on my site just to cover myself.

 

What that guy is doing is totally illegal as he's linking to a site that he didn't design. If he linked to a screenshot of his design then that'd be fine.

 

I would definitely think about adding a designers credit to the footer of your site. You could also add information within the meta tags in the code like this:

 

<meta name="author" content="Evie Milo t/a Eskymo - http://www.eskymo.co.uk" />

<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright © 2000-2006 Evie Milo, All Rights Reserved" />

 

I would then get a legal letter drafted up and sent to him as suggested by technoflutemom.

Great advice on the lawyer to write the letter, I had a somthing like that happen to me, Echos

Great advice on the lawyer to write the letter, I had a somthing like that happen to me, Echos

Get a friend who is a lawyer to write the letter on good paper. That might do the trick. If you really want to get creative you can write to the offender's host and make the claim that his link is in violation of their terms of service (read through the fine print and you should find something.)