Well, isn't this interesting:

http://25centshosting.com/acceptable.htm
http://25centshosting.com/privacy.htm
http://25centshosting.com/refund.htm
http://25centshosting.com/terms.htm

http://www.scribehost.com/common/legal/use.shtml
http://www.scribehost.com/common/legal/privacy.shtml
http://www.scribehost.com/common/legal/refunds.shtml
http://www.scribehost.com/common/legal/terms.shtml

Comparison screenshots to follow.

If you're going to copy, you should probably make sure that all of your site's syntax and spelling matches up.

"Authorize" versus "authorise"...really. The distinctive syntax and punctuation are something of a marker, especially when they're exact matches. This just eliminated all challenge from the game.

Clearly a rip.

1. Just curious - How do you actually come across this site? I've often wondered how these rips are so quickly detected...

2. What are you going to do to get the ripper to change his site?

3. Can I rip your site too? I like the wording... ( j/k :D )

Vito

Hi vito,

<PatsyAndEdinaVoice> Dahling, sweetie, if I let you copy it, I'd have to let EVERYBODY copy it, and then even the fashion victims would be wearing LaCroix</PatsyAndEdinaVoice>

The individual in question kind of made a minor booboo. S/he forgot to remove all the links to my site. I love referrer logs.

Since there's no link to their support page, and since the domain's registered with DomainsByProxy (in other words, GoDaddy's anonymous service), I'm going to have to turn the matter over to the lawyers. I can't really make any attempts to get the individual to change their content unless they give me a valid way to contact them.

EDIT: I followed their "BUY" link on the front page and am using the PayPal email address to contact them, notifying them that their design team has copied content and that if the content is not completely removed, legal action will be taken. I'm also going to contact the NAC and McLean data centers, where (according to their site) they house their servers.

Always referer logs, it's always that one little image they forget to change. Someone ripped one of my designs once, and left links in to the whole left side menu, so I replaced the images with a hastily made "This website was stolen from us" image, the website was changed the next day. In hindsight, I should've put gay porn or something instead.

HAHA, that would be funny...

Well, not looking for it :)

TOS and AUP is mostly just legal jargon and wouldn't be considered plagurism.

Check them out, KIAhost - this isn't copying a few phrases. This is copying every single word and sentence verbatim. There's a sentence I used in my Acceptable Use Policy - a bit of whimsy, admittedly; but the phrase "If that ever happens you'll never be able to get another account with us — not to mention the boatload of bad karma you'll find on your cosmic tallysheet." kind of stands out.

Plus, there are a few little touches in there that they probably should have changed. For example, I have no idea if they're located in Santa Clara County; but according to "their" TOS, that's where any legal action against them must be brought.

Makes it easier for me to bring legal action against them, though, since they're apparently local. I have that page screenshotted and timestamped.

Legal jargon cannot be copyrighted, in the sense that individual words cannot be copyrighted (Microsoft had a hellacious legal battle when they wanted to copyright the term "Windows(tm)"). Whole sentences - right down to the same punctuation and syntactical constructs - can be copyrighted; and in this case most decidedly are. This isn't even a 10% fair-use. This is a 100% exact use.