We are living in very interesting times. We are being molded by the environment and we are trying to pass the upbringing we received onto our children. I have a saying I like to repeat: "We create the history". I imagine that everyone, who works in this branch of business (special effects, video editing and motion graphics) agrees with that statement. What is more, we also create the future.
This article was written for everybody, who buys plugins and lives in a motion graphics; Apple Motion, Adobe Premiere, AE & Final Cut X world. My name is Szymon Masiak, I am the founder and owner of MotionVFX.
We believe in hard, honest work. Everything our company has achieved is the outcome of hard work of the whole team and we mutually struggle for collective success. Everyone of the 15 people in our staff knows that creating a good product depends on making it great and making it original, so we don't tolerate imitating or copying someone else's work. However it may be that not everyone works this way and by stealing from others (yes, I write with full awareness of the gravity of that word) they release products that appear to be an exact copy of our work.
On February 5th 2013 about 3:49 PM (GMT+1) we released a brand new product called mDusts. It's a collection of 100 2K (2048x1152) Apple ProRes 422 files. Despite the fact that the pace we work with is sometimes crazy I try to think of every possible aspect of our products to make every client happy. I think of myself as of a professional and we, MotionVFX, deliver only professional products.
We have worked on mDusts for the last several weeks using RED One camera (which we bought for these kinds of productions), our new video studio and an old vacuum cleaner (we used flour in some shots, but it didn't look as natural as an actual dust from the old vacuum cleaner). We have all the source R3D files, which in some cases were shot at even 4K.
Every company that is a part of the Final Cut Pro X environment keeps an eye on the competition and, from my experience, everyone tries to stay out of each other's way. Besides MotionVFX there are several brands that produce plugins for FCPX (e.g Noise Industries, CrumplePop, Ripple Training, Industrial Revolution or Red Giant), but, from time to time, a less known (often completely new) company arises and releases a product similar to one that already exists in your collection. Sometimes this product IS from your collection and is half the price of your plugin. You put so much money and time into this project and you start to wonder: how is this possible?
Pixel Film Studios was recently taking us aback by the pace, in which they created and released their products. There seemed to be no week without a release of a brand new plugin. I was often wondering: "How is that possible? They have to have at least 50 people in their team to keep it all together!" I was thinking this way until 48 hours after the release of our mDusts, they added a brand new product to their offer. It was called Produst.
One of my Twitter friends, Nate B. sent me a question: "Did Pixel Film Studios straight up resell your dust stock as their own "ProDust?" Ironic that they came out with it days after you guys did." I read the message twice, because I couldn't believe in what I was reading and then I got petrified. I nervously went to their website, watched the promo movie and my blood pressure measurements went through the ceiling.
The process of creating such elements is characterised by remembering certain unique elements or moments (e.g. one speck of dust blown by the vacuum cleaner moving in a specific way).
It is physically impossible for two people to shot two thousand or more organically flowing particles in the same way. There is no way for a camera-shot material to show two different places across the globe with 1) identical dust particles 2) corresponding air flow and conditions.
The first thing our team shouted after watching the competition's promo was: "These are our mDusts!". We started our investigation by purchasing the "competitive" product. In the meantime, one of our team members was browsing the site of our competition (a mirror link can be found here: Original Produsts Site - PLEASE NOTE that they have replaced their promo video last night however we've downloaded their original video which is available here: Original Produsts Promo) and noticed one of our mDust elements used in their promo movie. "I remember shooting this bit!" - he said.
He created a screen shot and overlaid our mDust_042.mov over it. He adjusted the scale, rotation and flipped it, and it turned out that the competition is using our files. Exactly, dust particle for dust particle. You can watch and judge for yourself here (please play it in HD and full screen):
After downloading the product we had purchased, we noticed that it contains 100 files and takes about 15 GB of disk space - just like mDusts. How did they release such a similar product just two days after mDusts' premiere? Read further below...
(screenshot from original Produst Delivery - click to see it full screen. Original files were replaced last night by Pixel Film Studio so don't bother downloading them)
This is how original files were packed:

(screenshot from Speed Download software showing when we have downloaded Produsts)
I decided to purchase and compare Produst with mDusts after I discovered an order in our mStore that was placed by Chrisitna Austin less than 10 hours after mDusts' release.
I don't know whether you know that Pixel Film Studios is run by David Austin and his wife Christina Austin. After looking into the log file I noticed that mDusts were purchased by Christina on February 6th 2013 around 02:17 (GMT+1). Coincidence? We think not, but we are not lawyers or the police. We are just software and application tools developers trying to make great, unique and highly useful products for our customers around the world.
Five people (including me) started comparing the files. Produst's files were created on February 6th 2013, so Mr. and Mrs. Austin had to work hard that day to only scale down the files to HD (our files are sold in 2K resolution). We knew our files well, but would we be able to proof that Pixel Film Studio sells our files without permission and for half of the original price? The answer came after a few minutes of comparison. Watch the video below and draw your own conclusions.
Hard to imagine, isn't it? On the example above you can see how our mDust_05.mov was flipped in X axis, scaled down and slowed down to about 97% of its original speed. The additional "blue dust" was added to draw our attention away from the fact that this is our file.
Here is the video with both files next to each other:
Now I was certain: the footage sold by Pixel Film Studio was created from our files!
I kept talking to myself that coincidences like that may happen, but still, I kept comparing the files.
Here is our mDust_019 and Produst 038 comparison:
It turned out that we were absolutely right! These were our files. Sure, they were modified, moved around, scaled and sometimes slowed down... BUT THEY WERE OUR FILES!!!
You can download both files here to compare them by yourself: mDust_019 and Produst 38 (right click to download the files).
As an addition, here is our original R3D file to compare: mDust_019_R3D_File.zip
Make sure to compare the dates! Our R3D files were created in November 2012 !
Here's another example where our mDust_023 was rotated, scalled and mixed with another file to create Produst 68 file:
What should I make of it? Maybe you can tell me? Maybe you are a victim of fraud as well? Maybe I should quote the guy from the television and say: "Check it and start fighting for your rights"? If that's what making plugins in Pixel Film Studio looks like then maybe it is time to ask yourself a question: is your plugin bought, modified, repackaged and sold for half a price?
Additionally, I must say that a couple of companies similar to ours reacted to one of our Tweets during the weekend, suspecting similar behavior from the PFS's side. They asked me to remain anonymous, as they are conducting their own investigation.
Moreover, Pixel Film Studio has a couple of other products in their offer that on further examination appear very similar to ours.
For instance, On October 10th 2012 they purchased our mLooks product. A couple of weeks later they released 2 similar plugins - Provintage and Provogue. They've also purchased our mFlare and released something called Proflares. Conclusions? Draw them yourselves...
You will probably ask: what did I do to clarify the situation between me and Pixel Film Studio. I sent them an e-mail, which you can read below. Additionally, I wrote a post on their Facebook profile, stating that their product violates MotionVFX's copyrights. I got banned and my post was removed. The same thing happened to other people, who wanted an explanation: what are the differences between your product and mDusts?. All those questions began to dissapear. Moreover, all my comments from the Produsts promo on Vimeo were deleted.
Here's my correspondance with Pixel Film Studio:
(Click the image above to read it in full screen)
Am I really mistaken? Am I really incapable of recognizing my own work? Or maybe I'm just a silly Pole, who is not a native English speaker? I leave that for you to decide. Just remember that we have all the original R3D files, from which mDusts were created.
In the end you might wonder: how did I realize that it was them, who bought our product? Checking the mDusts orders we came across the Austin's address. All we had to do was compare the surnames and locations with Pixel Film Studio's data. Later on we bought their "product", compared the files and everything became clear. We were defrauded. Not only MotionVFX, but everybody, who bought anything from Pixel Film Studio. Maybe some of their other products were based on your files?
At the end of the day we all lose if we steal from each other.
We hope this is an honest mistake but all the evidence to date certainly seems to point in the other direction. If you feel you have been wronged in any way we would love to hear from you. We are pursuing all the legal avenues open to us, but frankly we would rather make more great products for you than spend our time building legal cases.
On behalf of everyone in our company and for the thousands of great customers, partners and friends we have around the world, I apologize for any confusion.
If you have purchased any products and you are as confused or professionally and personally hurt as we are, contact me and I will make it right for you,
Sincerely,
Szymon Masiak
motionVFX.com
PS.
I wrote the above article and made all the comparisons between Feb 8 - 11 after downloading Produsts from Pixel Film Studio. In the meantime, Pixel Film Studio replaced their Produst trying to make it looke more like their own production. It was probably a very intensive weekend for them to replace elements they have stolen from us, as they even released a 9 min long video showing that they didn't steal anything. I'm glad we had downloaded the files they have originally started to sell before they replaced them.
Also a few minutes ago I've got an email from a friend who received the following message from Mr. Austin: "We are trying to do damage control MotionVFX has been posting slander all over the internet about our company and we are trying to defend ourselves peacefully. Very easy to prove him wrong But he has been making fake composites of our stuff and his to ruin our brand. Not cool. We made a sample of each of our dust effects so people could compare. Im trying to handle this peaceful but he never responds to emails.".
My comment: this is pathetic.
Today's morning I have also received an email from a different company, which would like to stay anonymous, saying: "There are some pretty suspicious things - for instance, their film grain pattern appears to be taken from someone else and then tiled to make it "different". This seems so be their approach - take other people's assets and then mash them up to hide the origin.".
Judge it for yourself.
* UPDATE, Feb 14, 2014
Yesterday, I received the following explanation from Pixel Film Studio: "Syzmon, we sincerely apologize. After reviewing the work of one of our former employees, we realize that they used some of the footage of your product. Something I was unaware of at the time of sending the emails to you. A totally unnecessary move since we have hours of dust footage of our own and was not the intent at all. In an attempt to cover up his lazyness, his work the files were switched after 8 hours within launch of the product.".
Also, on FCPX's Facebook page Mr. Austin wrote: "Pixel FIlm Studios has come under fire lately from MotionVFX. The shame is it is justified to an extent. We had a employee resign yesterday after feeling an enormous amount of pressure on the things that were done to complete Produst.
Unfortunately young employees sometimes don't realize the things they do and how they can effect the people around them. This employee is great person who just made a bad decision.
We created all footage in our office and have hours of film shot with our cameras to create the desired effect. After reviewing the first 20 pro dust composites with this employee, everything was fine. We left him alone to do his job and tell us when he was done. We packaged it, made a demo and sold it.
The next morning I got an email from motionvfx staying we were pirating footage. To my knowledge… "That was CRAZY!" We had spend the whole day recording the necessary footage to complete the day earlier. Meanwhile the employee was already fixing the mess after guilt. I still have not seen the footage containing the Motion Dust. Lesson learned… When your name is on something… Make sure you know every dent and scratch!
We looked at our records after and it showed new versions of the video were uploaded from his house and the office. 8-10 hours after the original release. Therefore we will be refunding all the customers who purchased in the first day and require they delete any footage off of their computers immediately. We will also send them a new download of our footage Produst as an apology.
This can happen to anyone and unfortunately MotionVFX capitalized on this moment to ruin competition. Mission accomplished? Maybe… However, we have awesome effects and will continue to do so moving forward. We would like to take responsibility as a company for this and apologize to MotionVFX. This is the only time this will ever happen.
This does not reflect our company culture one bit. Our company culture is to have freedom, treat our workers like gold with an enormous amount of trust. Moments like this… it didn't work out for the best.
Thanks everyone for the support!
David"
Even though we don't buy this story, we accept the apology. We will not start any legal action against Pixel Film Studio. Let's all move on. I hope this article will be a great lesson for everyone.




February 12, 2013
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February 12, 2013
Won't be buying from Pixel Films Studios again.
February 12, 2013
Do not let them get away with it.
I've had previous experience with my content re appropriation, and blagging,
I sorted it out personally, glasgow style, and they will never do it again.
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Wishing you all the best in tiding through these trying times.
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February 12, 2013
I fully support MotiovVFX in this case, especially because they're still trying to hide the evidence after all of this.
Keep doing the good work Szymon, we know that you and your team have always been legit with us !
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One of the popular fcp resource sites seemed to be fans of theirs and was showing their stuff constantly. Hope that's over.
February 12, 2013
We are behind you!
You will be getting all my money...they are going to get squat!
David Hallett
Owner
Photo Reaction
February 12, 2013
Thank you Syymon.
February 12, 2013
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February 13, 2013
Great work by you and your team to expose this pathetic attempt to knock off your product.
February 13, 2013
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February 13, 2013
I love your approach to all of this! Well done! I hope that company goes out of business!
February 13, 2013
It might have been wiser to keep this private.
Your public posting could turn around and bite you. Just because you think you are right, truthful and the wronged party doesn't make you immune to legal problems.
All it would take is a judge deciding that something you wrote was not 100% accurate. Not a lie, but just not absolutely accurate in every regard.
He accuses you of slander, but he's confusing that with libel. AFAIK, slander is defamation out loud, and libel is defamation in print. Libel is worse, because it lasts. Libel is what you should talk about with your attorney.
From my understanding, there are two components necessary for defamation to occur. The statement must be false, and it must cause tangible harm to the libeled party. Obviously, you have harmed him and his company. You can see in the comments from other customers vowing to take away his business and otherwise blackball him. It's also obvious that you intended to destroy his reputation, and you threatened to do so if he didn't comply with your demands.
Which means that you better hope he doesn't file suit against you, and if he does, you'd better hope that you can prove every word of every single post, tweet and blog are 100% accurate. Because if they find that you exaggerated or were otherwise inaccurate or mistaken, then they can find you guilty of libel, and you can be held responsible for all their lost business and emotional anguish.
But you have nothing to worry about, right? You told the truth, right? What could go wrong?
Welcome to the wonderful world of the legal system.
Here's something that could go wrong: you accused him of copyright infringement. That's not as simple as it seems. Your products are royalty-free clips licensed specifically to create what lawyers call Derivative Works. That's where you use someone else's protected material and incorporate it into a new work. By definition, a "royalty free" product is licensed for the creation of Derivative Works without penalty or payment.
You also said that he violated your EULA by using your product to create a new product that competes with your company. That was prohibited.
Here's the rub: violating your EULA isn't copyright infringement. It's breach of contract.
And it gets worse. By rotating, flipping, and scaling your footage and then adding blue dust to it, he can make a case that he created a Derivative Work. A new work that incorporates your footage. If the Judge agrees, then there's no copyright infringement, because you license Derivative Works when you offer royalty-free footage.
In the same way, even if he used your product to create the advertising for his own product, the Judge might think he is creating a Derivative Work, so there's no infringement. Now, you might get him on a trade violation for false advertising or misrepresentation, but that's not copyright infringement.
If he can prove to a Judge that he did not infringe on your copyrights, then your statements would be both false and harmful. Therefore, libelous and --cha-ching! Money in the bank for him.
If I were you, I'd be on the phone with my lawyer tomorrow, making darn sure that there was legal proof of copyright infringement. I'd also be asking a lot of questions about how not to lose a libel suit.
It really sucks to get sued when you feel you're the injured party. That's why when something goes wrong, you should always call your lawyer first, instead of taking to the internet.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not giving you legal advice of any kind. This is me typing like a drunken monkey and trying to sound smart. Often wrong, never in doubt.
Good luck with all this. I hope it all resolves without legal action.
February 13, 2013
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The reason I apologise is because I actually bought ProDust from PixelFS the day it came out - again following a post on Facebook from FCP.co - as it seemed at the time like it was 'spot on' for a farm barn scene I had just edited. I didn't realise their product was a straight steal from yours. I am disgusted by the news you have revealed here. As a designer first and foremost I totally empathise with your anger and frustration. It is like daylight robbery (without the lens flare enhancements) when someone directly shoplifts to make some quick cash on all your hard earned efforts. They should be ashamed of themselves, and I hope there's no dist left when you take them to cleaners in court!
From now on you will continue to be my first stop for Motion templates and plugins for my FCPX editing, and if I ever see see anything that looks like it came from your stable I will probably check back with you guys first before buying it.
Keep the faith!
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949-273-877
Just sayin....
February 13, 2013
How he's even got the balls to defend his thievery. Amazing. Just unbelievable.
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February 13, 2013
Frankly, I never heard of motionvfx, but now you have a new customer. :)
February 13, 2013
I'm assuming, having had a little interaction with you, that you're not making these accusations for no reason.
"Yammerin's" comments here lay out why a lawsuit will probably not be worth the money and trouble, and would certainly not guarantee an outcome that you would hope for. Not to mention the jurisdiction issues.
May I suggest that you publicly invite the owner of Pixel Film Studios to agree to have the two plugins compared by two independent experts (One you choose, and one they choose. There are many that would volunteer their time to do this comparison, I could suggest a few.) and agree publicly to live with the results of the comparison. One side will not be happy with the results, but it might be a way for both parties to move on and for customers of both companies to make up their own minds, given that a court of law never will.
If they refuse this, then that can speak for itself.
Either way, I'm sure this incident will not stop you from continuing your creative work that helps so many producers make their products better.
Best regards.
February 14, 2013
They removed my post and now i appear to be banned from posting on their page ( is Vermont now in Poland?). Not that i care to post on their site anyways. Also noticed as of tonight there is not one mention of ProDust on their Facebook page OR their Pixel Films website. Hmmm... Does this mean that if they took down everything they didn't actually create themselves there would be nothing left on their site?
February 14, 2013
A- It's quite clear the files were bought by management
B- would anyone really believe Austin would have such a loose hold on his product, staff, company, that the out-right duplication and inclusion of another companies product in their own, an exact file-copy, would go un noticed prior signing the product off for sale?
Very interested in seeing where this story goes, with all sincerity for the sake of what is right i hope they are sued to the hilt and pay by the way of ethics for their out-right thievery and disrespect of others work.
February 14, 2013
I am in disbelief that you've ever so graciously decided not to pursue legal action. Baffled in fact.
I've also downloaded your comparison clip as linked above. I actually have been looking for just that exact clip by chance and wish to pay/donate some money for it. Please do provide paypal details of where i can make payment.
Thanks.
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February 14, 2013
http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/47998
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February 15, 2013
I just thank god you included a link to the original thread to creative cow for all to see the original joke, and that you won't be suing me! but even then it wasn't me was it, another employee must have been at my computer while i was on lunch see :)))))
ahhhh!
February 14, 2013
This situation has a foul smell to it. Aside from mDust, how about the other plugin's you cited?
He really shouldn't be allowed to get away with it that easily.
Rogue employee? Really...
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February 14, 2013
it's not even a small ting. it's blatantly clear they did that which you claim. why let them get away with it? why?
are you afraid of a counter-sue? that somehow your claim/set of facts isn't water tight? i don't see how that could be the case. i also don't see the community thinking any less of you for standing up for yourself.
doing whats right in every regard is hardly going to reflect badly on you or your company.
i've read on other sites it's been said that this Steve.A is full of s***. i've read all emails published and would have to say i agree. not only that but his retorts and excuses amount to pretty much just taking the p*ss out of you and humiliating himself.
hell have a whip-round i'm sure you'll find people willing to contribute towards legal costs. do the right thing.
February 14, 2013
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=566501
February 14, 2013
February 14, 2013
But still no dust in my FCPX and yours is, well maybe not expensive, but it's a lot of money. Good luck though, I hope this was a once-but-never-again story.
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http://remydeveze.com/2013/02/17/piratage-entre-editeurs-de-plugins-fcpx/
February 17, 2013
Has anyone been able to get a refund from them for ProDust? I'd be happy to delete the files from my drive and purchase from you.
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Keep up the good work Szymon, wish I could purchase all your products.
August 30, 2015
Good Job Motionvfx! To expensive for me, but your work is beautiful!
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