People who rip just enough of a site for the owner to notice but not to count as a 'proper rip' (and therefore not enough to take action). Even if it's just a couple of gifs... they took time to make then someone comes along and takes a copy of them :angry:

Just recently I've found a company (who I used to have some respect for) who has copied the entire directory of our FAQ section. Three or four extra ones have been added by them but 95% of the questions AND answers are identical. So much so, I had to actually check the URL bar to make sure I hadn't ended up at clook.net by mistake. That FAQ database actually took ages to get everything in there too and it's annoyed me quite a bit :angry:

Ah well, just thought I'd get that out my system :)

Is it Jack the Ripper? :D

Welcome to the real world :)

That means it's not only Timmah that does that line of business.

I suppose it is a fact of today's real world but it still gets on my nerves :(

The funny thing is though, in the domains section they've taken (and display) all the bits about IPS TAG's. They obviously don't realise that these are specific to .uk domains and won't apply to them (being a US company who obviously do not deal in UK domains or have their own IPS TAG) :)

Threads like this really annoy me too :D

next thing that will happen - theyll email you saying stop ripping off our site!:D

LOL, better if all the annoyances are kept in one thread then to save it spilling out to the rest of the forum :D

If the original work was not copyrighted or protected in some way then there is no harm in making copies. Specialy copies of the FAQ, which is the collection of usefull information. That is how the knowledge is spread. If someone intended to keep this knowledge for themselves then they should not have published it in public domain without proper copyright.

How far should we go with preventing copies? You can not repeat anything I say , write, publish or think and you can not reuse my knowledge or learn from my experiences. Civilization would not get very far that way (which is not necessarily bad thing).

Annoying Jim, but then again you could always think of it as a compliment :D

Originally posted by sasha
If the original work was not copyrighted or protected in some way then there is no harm in making copies...
Yes I know... it's the principle and the sheer laziness that really gets to me. We could all go around leeching content of other sites such as FAQ's that took hours to make couldn't we? Why didn't I initially take the FAQ straight from another site? Because... for some unearthly reason... I actually can't bring myself to do it and would rather do the right thing and make one myself.

If you found someone who had done a whole 'copy and paste' on one of your websites that you had spent hours on would you have the same attitude?

but then again you could always think of it as a compliment
Yes, I'm learning :)

Get over it .. nothing originals ... nobody invented the internet, or the car, or the plane or anything else all of those things were a combined effort by basically all of us.
To sit and make your own material is very rewarding, it is also very time consuming and costly. Everytime I create and then publish something I realise that it will more than likely be copied, so what I got the satisfation of creating it.

doc

So it doesn't annoy you at all and you actually encourage people to make an exact mirror image of your website to use as their own?

and there it is, the second thing about site ripping that's annoying: People that say "What's wrong with someone ripping your site?" (as long as it isn't theirs - even though they say it wouldn't bother them) :D

So it doesn't annoy you at all and you actually encourage people to make an exact mirror image of your website to use as their own?

I'm sorry I'm not explaining myself very well. Perhaps it's just my lifes experience that has got me this way. long story short. I use to be a furniture removalist. I approached a transport company and put the idea to them to become furniture removals. They ended up running a company that operates all over Australia from my initial efforts. I ended up out of work. My accountant arranged a meeting between me and an estimator for a large removal company, he wanted to start his own business. I was his first sub-contractor .. he is now a millionaire .. but wouldn't even talk to me if we past in the street.

A month or so ago I spent in excess of two weeks building a site for a friends business, a motel, 14 pages .. four to six photos on each page, 28 individually designed buttons, a banner, went on location 3 or 4 times to take the photos spent probably another 12 hrs inconference with the client designing the site. At the 11th hr he pulled the plug and went else where. I never got a single cent.
Yes I know what it's like. I feel like I should never design or create again .. but that is stupid.

Doc

This is all true ..sorry if I'm being a bit heavy.

I'd like to reply to sasha, if I may.

You said that if something isn't copyrighted or protected than there's no harm in making copies. :erm: Actually, technically, something is considered copyrighted by US legal definition the instant it's put into a fixed form: written on something, saved to a hard drive, recorded onto a CD or cassette, what have you. The $30 it costs to register the work with the copyright office does mean that it will be easier to recover damages if / when someone plagarises; but people don't have to register their works with any official body to have them be copyrighted.

Civilisation - and knowledge - can progress if, when people knowingly use information acquired from someone else, they have the basic courtesy to credit the source. Invention comes from putting old ideas together in new ways, whether those ideas are tools or thoughts or facts. It is a cooperative effort.

By copying someone else's work and not giving some kind of a tip of the hat, you're saying one of three things:

* I didn't really think of acknowledging the one or two people who created this entire work, and I did very little original input to it myself, but I did put it in this new format all by myself, so I guess that makes it mine

* the person(s) who created this work are so far beneath my notice that I don't have to acknowledge their hard work in any way, let alone compensate them for it

* no one will know that I took it, so I won't get caught, so it's not wrong

Neither of those statements are a very good reflection on the type of person a plagiarist is.

If someone tells me that they like something I've done and want to use it themself, if they're going to somehow credit me (type of credit depends on what the thing is), I'm more often than not inclined to say yes, and think of that person favourably: they demonstrated basic courtesy.

Without some form of basic courtesy and respect for each other, the members of a society can have all the knowledge it wants. their society isn't going to stay cohesive for very long.

Only thing I see here is lots of words. Here is a down to earth example and how this thread started.

I need a FAQ section for a web hosting site. Fiirst I will do research. If by a chance I find a page that perfectly fits my needs on your site, I will take it and customize it.

Am I going to ask for premission ?
No, why would I risk NO from you.

Am I going to give you credit?
No. I would have to ask for premission first.

Is this going to harm you or your business or anyone else in any way ?
No, chnaces are, you will never know.

Did I do something ilegal?
No, by the time court says differently.

Is this going to benefit me or anyone else in any way?
Yes. I saved time and clients get FAQ.

The moral here is realy simple, if it brings some good then it is worth it.

That's horribly flawed, ethically bankrupt logic sasha.

If you save time, which is money btw, by using someone else's material, that is theft. Pure and simple.

Originally posted by fonzerelli79
next thing that will happen - theyll email you saying stop ripping off our site!:D

Haha yes, the famous "Chicken-Egg-Problem" :D

Sasha look at it this way, given the above senerio, you saved your time. but you used someone elses work that they spent their time on.
The moral is if you worked for it, or created it, then it is yours, if you didn't work for it or have it given to you, then is is not yours.


- but I'm not trying to argue, just give a different perspective.

Tell me if I was to go to a museum and copy a painting, rename it and put my signature on it, is that illegal? My understanding is that if I was to attempt to pass it off as the original, then I would be in trouble. I mean there's any number of prints of famous paintings.

If I own a retail outlet and I have items on display and someone enters my shop and while looking at the item drops and breaks the item that is my bad luck, there is nothing I could do about it. Sure you can see signs in shop stating "you break it, you buy it" however this isn't legally the case. If I put items on display then I'm accepting the responability. If I put items outside my shop and they get ruined by rain, again that is my responability.

Similiary if I put material on the net, knowning full well that it is now in the public domain, I have to accept that responsability. If you were to display your work/material on a table in the middle of a very busy shopping centre and leave it unattended for a few weeks would you expect to find it still there when you returned.

If I went into a furniture store and took the measurements of .. lets say a sideboard .. made some sketches of it, then went home and made one. Is that thieft.? If I was to put a sign on the sideboard saying that it was a copy of ..such and such's work would that make it ok ? If the original artist saw my work he probably would be offened to have his/her name mentioned.

What the Authorities should do to clarify this problem peopkle are having is ..
Declare everything available on the net is in the public domain and therefore FREE for anybody to use.

After all nobody owns the internet.

Doc

:eek:
So if you put in online you deserve to be robbed???

I'm not even going to comment on that sasha... there's obviously nothing I can say that will show you what you do is wrong. I was going to say you'll know how it feels when it happens to you but I guess that will never happen when you swipe everything you have on your site.

Originally posted by TheDoctor

If I went into a furniture store and took the measurements of .. lets say a sideboard .. made some sketches of it, then went home and made one. Is that thieft.?
How about if you decide to sell these homemade sideboards and took the sideboard makers brochure and promo material. You take a word for word copy + a few images for good measure and stuck your own name on the front... I suppose that would be okay by you?

Originally posted by sasha
Only thing I see here is lots of words. Here is a down to earth example and how this thread started.

I need a FAQ section for a web hosting site. Fiirst I will do research. If by a chance I find a page that perfectly fits my needs on your site, I will take it and customize it.


By your logic, the following scenario should be okay:

I start a hosting company, I need clients. I search for a hosting company that has clients already and is billing at about the same level that I want to, I hack into their server and copy all of the client data over to my server, switch DNS infromation and then send the clients an e-mail saying that I just purchased their old hosting company, and I am going to start billing them.

This benefits me, and it benefits the clients, because they are no longer hosting with a company that allowed their server to get hacked.

Stealing is stealing, it does not matter whether what you are stealing is tangible, or intangible.

TheDoctor, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard regarding copyright law. Your analogies are terrible and do nothing to support your feeble arguement.


Declare everything available on the net is in the public domain and therefore FREE for anybody to use.

Now that is one of the most asinine statements I have ever heard, and tells me several things;

Firstly, that you have never created anything which even yourself would consider worthwhile enough to be protected from theft.

Secondly, you have a theif's mentality and it shows quiet obviously.

I don't know why people think that since things are on-line it is OK just to take it, but they seem to. You can't just take a how-to manual (the closest thing I can think of in relation to a FAQ), copy the information and then sell the book as your own.

It is as if copyright laws don't apply to the internet because it is on a monitor? I'm not sure what the mentality is here?

Originally posted by allan


By your logic, the following scenario should be okay:

I start a hosting company, I need clients. I search for a hosting company that has clients already and is billing at about the same level that I want to, I hack into their server and copy all of the client data over to my server, switch DNS infromation and then send the clients an e-mail saying that I just purchased their old hosting company, and I am going to start billing them.

This benefits me, and it benefits the clients, because they are no longer hosting with a company that allowed their server to get hacked.

Stealing is stealing, it does not matter whether what you are stealing is tangible, or intangible.

Yes, but what you are doing here is not legal. I never said that I would commit a crime.

Again this thread started with FAQ for hosting site. There are that many questions and answers there. It would be stupid not to use information freely availabe as well as other people's experience when putting togather FAQ yourself. If, by chance, all this information that you are looking for is located in a few pages of some other site, then why not use it? Whould you rather do all by yourself? Why? This would be like reinventing the wheel with the catch. You are not allowed to use round shapes, because someone else thought of it first.

Originally posted by Chicken
I don't know why people think that since things are on-line it is OK just to take it, but they seem to. You can't just take a how-to manual (the closest thing I can think of in relation to a FAQ), copy the information and then sell the book as your own.

It is as if copyright laws don't apply to the internet because it is on a monitor? I'm not sure what the mentality is here?

Well, it is simple, you cannot copyright everything you would like to. Otherwise, someone would copyright fart and then all of us would be breaking the law. This might be dumb analogy, but where do you pull the line and say this is to trivial and common to e copyrighted.

Originally posted by sasha

This would be like reinventing the wheel with the catch. You are not allowed to use round shapes, because someone else thought of it first.

No, it is not like that all. You are misrepresenting someone else's work as your own -- you are knowningly stealing someone's material. By definition if you re-invent something you are either improving it, or you do not know of the existence of the original. Neither of these scenarios are true in this case.

You can rationalize it however you want, but stealing is stealing -- and if you take someone else's work and put it on your site as your own, you are stealing.

Originally posted by TheDoctor
Tell me if I was to go to a museum and copy a painting, rename it and put my signature on it, is that illegal? .....


YES, it is illegal if it is an exact copy. Copying files from someone's site is like taking a painting, scanning it, editing the signature so it is your own, and then trying to make money with it.

Sorry to bring this thread back up, but I just saw this and had to comment on it.

Originally posted by sasha
Well, it is simple, you cannot copyright everything you would like to.
I think a better example might be an FAQ on how to set up email in Outlook Express. Solution: Look at it, get the general idea, take your own screen shots and write the FAQ in your own words.

Originally posted by Ack


YES, it is illegal if it is an exact copy. Copying files from someone's site is like taking a painting, scanning it, editing the signature so it is your own, and then trying to make money with it.

Sorry to bring this thread back up, but I just saw this and had to comment on it.

However your not selling it as the original your copying the original and putting your own name on it. If it was illegal how is it that you can legally buy copies of famous paintings.

Doc

Is see this has been brought up again so here's my take on it...

It wasn't my intention to draw out the intricacies of the legal system and whether something is legal, passable, totally illegal or whatever.

What annoys me is the sheer laziness involved in just coming along and swiping someone else's work (whether it be words, graphics, etc) that they have spent x hours on and you have taken to use as it is in x seconds. I hear your argument about "time is money", "no law is broken", "blah blah..." but that's no excuse in my opinion. Neither is it an excuse that in the eyes of the law you're doing nothing wrong!

Originally posted by TheDoctor

However your not selling it as the original your copying the original and putting your own name on it. If it was illegal how is it that you can legally buy copies of famous paintings.


The museum that owns the paintings authorizes reproductions of the painting to be distributed. In addition, most famous paintings are old, so any copyright on them has expired, allowing anyone to make reproductions of them.

Originally posted by allan


The museum that owns the paintings authorizes reproductions of the painting to be distributed. In addition, most famous paintings are old, so any copyright on them has expired, allowing anyone to make reproductions of them.

Thats for that Allan, I assumed it might be along those lines, the other point of course is .. they don't claim it's the original, they tell you it's a copy.

Doc

Originally posted by TheDoctor


Thats for that Allan, I assumed it might be along those lines, the other point of course is .. they don't claim it's the original, they tell you it's a copy.


Right, unless they think you are dumb enough to believe you just happened to have a few extra Monet's on the back of your truck :D.

i think this thread proves how scary it is out there that so many people are ignorant to copyright law. open source has never meant free for all, and it's sad to see that hasn't quite sunk in as of yet... :(

Originally posted by i am a
i think this thread proves how scary it is out there that so many people are ignorant to copyright law. open source has never meant free for all, and it's sad to see that hasn't quite sunk in as of yet... :(
Ok then perhaps you could explain in detail how "open source" is meant to work. Then at least the readers of this thread will understand.

Doc

I think what was meant is that 'open source' doesn't mean, take it and use it as you wish, slap your name on it and call it your own, etc. That's isn't what open source is, nor what it was ever meant to be. Ever.

As with many things, if you see something you like, ask the clerk if you can have it or if not, if you can buy it for a small fee. Save yourself the time, but don't just rip it off because (as someone else said), it is there and you're a lazy fothermucker who likes to Save Page As things.