Un-Ethical/Dishonest Shower

This is mostly a PSA to alert participants on this showing forum to something I have discovered. An Un-Ethical/Dishonest participant has chosen to copy a unique name of one of my models on the same model. Should anyone be interested on the details please private message me and I will give you my direct email to contact me.

Thank You!

equinecltr

Hi equinecltr,

How do you know they deliberately copied your name? There are thousands of models on here and it's really hard to search other people's horses. I see that it' s the same model, but maybe there's something about it that inspires people to think along similar lines. Have you reached out to them to ask if they would change it?

PM'd you.

While I understand how upsetting this must be, I don't see how this is dishonest? It isn't as though they're passing off your horse as their own (or vice versa), is it?

If it's just the same name on same model, and no ill intention, I think calling the person dishonest is a bit excessive, especially on public forum without providing *any* detail or proof. Like said above, there are thousands of models on this site alone and even more worldwide. Unintentional copies are bound to happen. Do you have any proof of ill intent or that they took that name from you? What is the proof that *you* were the first one and not them? I really feel like matters like this should be resolved privately, like adults. This is just one name for a model horse. And I'm speaking from perspective of show host that saw this happen to my own models and whole stable prefix. It sucks when it's intentional and done without asking, but in the end it's not something that affects showing or model's worth.

Well said, Endless.

I've run across many models that carry the same name as one of mine, some on the same mold. I've also named a model and later found out there was an entire run with the same name, so there are probably many models that share that name too, since many keep the run name as the model's name. I think there were over 70,000 models on this site (last I heard, might be much higher by now), so many are bound to have duplicate names. I'm a little perplexed why this would be a problem?

Officially, OMHPS does not have any rules about naming models other than nothing vulgar or offensive to keep the site friendly and open to younger hobbyists.

I'm going to go ahead and close this topic before any further speculation or rumors begin to circulate, given the vagueness of this post. As has been pointed out, there are now over 80,000 models uploaded here and likely many share the same names (for example, search the name "Desert Rose" on the Scoreboards). If the name is not explicitly trademarked by the owner and the words in the name can be found in the dictionary, we could not possibly require it to never be used by anyone else.

While it can certainly be frustrating to see someone else using the same name on the same model and feel like they are stealing, it does not take away from the other model. Most judges do not look at the name when judging as it has no influence on the merit of the model or photo.