Compare http://www.vortechhosting.com with http://www.edikonhosting.com/ . I have screenshots in case the VortechHosting designer takes the website down.

:blush:

NO! your wrong kiwi :D

Vortech hosting is a very legitmate corp. Edikon must be the thieves.

Originally posted by Kiwi
Compare http://www.vortechhosting.com with http://www.edikonhosting.com/ . I have screenshots in case the VortechHosting designer takes the website down.

:blush:

Well, EdikonHosting has that design for quite a while. And it looks to me like VortechHosting edited the graphics ...i might be wrong, but i dont think so.

Although edikon does look better - if I have to see another bloody "man/woman staring up at you" picture I will go mad! Surely there are other places then http://www.photodisc.com to get pictures ?!

I didn't really mean the photos of the people ...but more the design, tables, blue servers graphics. Oh well, might be that both websites had the same ideas ;)

Aloha
funny I guess it uses the same graphics
I see that girl all over the place to me it is like seing teh cobalt raq pics
I like the edikon site better myself cleaner easier to read if they did copy the ideas they improved them so to me it is not close enough to call a copy when someone uses the same stock graphics pics etc... and uses blue a super common color.

its funny though as hosts do tend to be mroe like on another then other sites
I wonder if it is because a lot of hosts have enough skill to copy stuff and do some changes whre a designer could get ideas and make it look like there own ???

funny ya do not hear hosts say he copied my packages exactly seems like that happens more than looks ???

And so has vortech had the same design for a while :)

Originally posted by Kiwi
I didn't really mean the photos of the people ...but more the design, tables, blue servers graphics. Oh well, might be that both websites had the same ideas ;)

These guys are notorious for doing this. They already have a thread regarding their *borrowing* of pwebtech.com material. I reported them to Hostway for taking their images and material a few months ago.

Here are a few more things they stole -

Their "Register domain for $15.00" is just like Jumplines -
http://www.jumpline.com

www.webhosting.com/pages/dedicated/dedicated_index.shtml
http://www.vortechhosting.com/pcservers.asp

http://*****.com/?zone=resellers/home
http://www.vortechhosting.com/reseller.asp

http://www.affinity.com/ecommerceproducts.html
http://www.vortechhosting.com/ecomm.asp


These guys have been theives since they started.

After all he is a member of WHT, that made me in support of him... :D

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=1327

I don't think I have to backup UmBillyCord, but just to point out some extras to his links:

They use the same filenames for some of the pictures, the same code for some of their pages, and for the last set of links regarding the ecommerce, it seems as if Vortech Hosting pretty much copied Affinity's plans almost verbatim (you can see where Vortech left in the *'s but failed to put what a * means...). This would lead one to believe that they copied-and-pasted instead of actually typing in the wording. I know it may not seem like a difference to many, but it makes a difference to me. Both are wrong, but copy-and-paste is just really wrong and shows laziness to me -- as if they didn't even try.

Just some observations. I myself am as creative as a rock and I can't come up with original ideas very easily, but that's why I hire competent people to do it for me. :) Getting ideas from other places is one thing, but verbatim text and exact images (even the same filenames!) is just wrong. I don't mean to bash Vortech or anything because they are pretty friendly, but they shouldn't copy things like that.

Aloha,

I think you summe'd about everything about...


:D
Originally posted by allera
I don't think I have to backup UmBillyCord, but just to point out some extras to his links:

They use the same filenames for some of the pictures, the same code for some of their pages, and for the last set of links regarding the ecommerce, it seems as if Vortech Hosting pretty much copied Affinity's plans almost verbatim (you can see where Vortech left in the *'s but failed to put what a * means...). This would lead one to believe that they copied-and-pasted instead of actually typing in the wording. I know it may not seem like a difference to many, but it makes a difference to me. Both are wrong, but copy-and-paste is just really wrong and shows laziness to me -- as if they didn't even try.

Just some observations. I myself am as creative as a rock and I can't come up with original ideas very easily, but that's why I hire competent people to do it for me. :) Getting ideas from other places is one thing, but verbatim text and exact images (even the same filenames!) is just wrong. I don't mean to bash Vortech or anything because they are pretty friendly, but they shouldn't copy things like that.

Originally posted by Kiwi
Compare http://www.vortechhosting.com with http://www.edikonhosting.com/ . I have screenshots in case the VortechHosting designer takes the website down.

:blush:
Is either of these sites yours and you blame the other of having stolen your site?

If no: What do you care about other people's sites?

If you want to inform either of these hosts about possible infringement of rights, why don't you send them an email rather than posting to a public forum?

Originally posted by astra4
What do you care about other people's sites?

I can understand your anger and I wouldn't have done it either.
But: it is becoming very common to steal content so I can understand his intentions very good (my content was stolen two times in the last three months). This has to stop.

Originally posted by astra4

Is either of these sites yours and you blame the other of having stolen your site?

If no: What do you care about other people's sites?

If you want to inform either of these hosts about possible infringement of rights, why don't you send them an email rather than posting to a public forum?
Aloha
well I find it as interesting info might tell ya something about a hosting co ??? ethics and all

Is either of these sites yours and you blame the other of having stolen your site?

Someone who will never understand.

Bottom line: If you are so stupid to steal others ideas and hard work, then you had dang well be prepared for what happens when people find out.

Originally posted by Hostexp
After all he is a member of WHT, that made me in support of him... A regrettable but all too common point of view. Hosts that have a presence here are by default "good," those that don't are shady and worthy of suspicion! Well, don't forget that the vast majority of internet users, including web hosts, has no idea that this forum exists.

As for copying of sites in general, I think it happens more often than not as a way for talentless, uncreative hacks to pass themselves off as "web designers." Note that I haven't looked at the sites in question and so am not commenting on the current players' guilt of innocence. Just that the proliferation of stolen site designs coincides with the low-cost availability of easy-to-use html software. Now anyone can be a "web designer," no knowledge of html is even necessary, let alone any clue about the concepts of design. Find a client, find someone in the same business with a website, and presto!

It'd be a better world if any "web designer" found guilty of it were procecuted for fraud.

Aloha
JayC
totally agree with ya ;)

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Here are a few more things they stole
Great stuff UmBillyCord I am real glad there are people like you out there making a note of things like this.

They should be ashamed, it is one thing taking inspiration, quite another going too far.

That reminds me to insert some unique elements into my own code in future to help track the w**nk**s out there out! :stickout

Some of the sites you mention do have quite inspirational layouts and I can see people liking them and wanting to emulate some aspects but copy and paste is no way to compliment someone else's hard graft!

Keep up the good work.

This really sucks for Vortech. Shame on them.

I know it doesn't make it right but maybe Edikon are resellers for Vortech, they have the same packages.

Aloha
well if someone is stealling images
ya just flip it over and write on the backside of the image (like your mom used to have in the old family album) that way if someone has your pic on there site ya just flip it over and see what is on back ;)

isnt technology great ;)

What I wanted to say is this:

If you really feel a need to take care about the business of other peoples, then before you go and accuse someone in a public forum, you better first check the facts i.e. contact those hosts and ask if maybe they have some sort of agreement or partnership or whatever.

From reading this thread I understand you didn't verify anything, it's all based on assumptions...

this whack!

From reading this thread I understand you didn't verify anything, it's all based on assumptions...

Just look at the samples from his site and from three others I posted on the 5th post here. I really doubt Affinity, Webhosting.com and ***** are going to say

"Sure Vortech - take what you need and good luck with your business. If you need anything else; just take it.

From your friendly competitors who worked hard to create their own material"

The down side would have to be ..

Couldn't whomever steal a better design ? Those look like those nasty Business Templates you find on Allare tutorials

I say if your going to actually steal a design .. atleast steal something that looks good :-)

Originally posted by Kiwi
I didn't really mean the photos of the people ...but more the design, tables, blue servers graphics. Oh well, might be that both websites had the same ideas ;)

Sinema,

I agree. This is something like if I want to do something illegal... must well do it BIG... :D

However it won't last long for others to discover/know about it :rolleyes:

Choon

Originally posted by Sinema
The down side would have to be ..

Couldn't whomever steal a better design ? Those look like those nasty Business Templates you find on Allare tutorials

I say if your going to actually steal a design .. atleast steal something that looks good :-)

Yeah that quote would be

"Go Big or Go Home"

There isn't a real big reason to borrow site designs now a days. You have Dreamweaver and other site design products that make it so easy to design sites. Ideas maybe hard to come up with but that's where creativity comes into play :-)

Given the current topic of "borrowing" from other peoples designs I'd be curious to find out your thoughts on the following designs...

http://www.yellowpants.org.uk and... get this...

http://www.comicrelief.com/

As if that wasn't enough consider the date for the event at yellowpants.org.uk site and the amazing co-incidence with regard to Comic Reliefs 2001 theme.

Just something that caused a few ruffled feathers on our team this year.

I am an Edikon customer/reseller and after reading this thread I thought it was important to let them know of its existence. Needless to say they did not sound pleased when I told them. I asked if there was any relationship to Vortech Hosting. They said no. I asked "What are you going to do about it?" In their typical professional way they simply said "We have copyright laws in this country to handle things like this. Thank you for letting us know." So my guess is that they are going to sick the dogs on Vortech.

I think stealing design ideas is absolutely the worst thing you can do. Especially if your web site competes against the site you are stealing from. You gotta figure that the site you stold from will eventually find out. I mean, it's your competition! Anyway, why host with a crook? Shame on Vortech...

Greeting Web Hosting Talk members!

I am posting this after hearing from koZZmo about our site's design and the apparent copyright infringment perpetrated by another host. Just to clarify things:

1. We have absolutely no relationship to this host.
2. Our site was designed by a professional design firm that used stock images to for portions of our site. However, in order to use those stock images it is necessary to purchase a license allowing you to display those images on your web site and/or marketing material. We have paid for this right.
3. Any host that has resellers may or may not allow their resellers to duplicate content for their own purposes. We allow content to be duplicated by our resellers; but not design (i.e. graphics, layout, etc.). A corporate image is something to be protected since so much work and expense goes into developing it in the first place.

I encourage any web host (large or small) to fiercly protect their copyright and/or trademarks. The only way to minimize copyright infringments is by seeking to enforce your rights. As a business community we need to stand together on this issue.

One document we ask all our designers to read (and design parters) I will share with you for reference. http://www.fno.org/jun96/legal.html. This article brings to light a few issues that we deal with daily. It is directed at schools, but the general concept applies anywhere. The main point of the article follows:

"What this article can do is alert you to legal issues which might arise out of Web publishing - issues which perfectly well intended staff members might not anticipate. The warnings and suggestions offered may save your school from stumbling into trouble."

For further reading and to protect your web site http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2168565,00.html gives a good intro and some links to helpful resources.

It's nice learn of this community forum. I will make sure to visit often. Thank you for looking out for all hosts' interests.

Pablo Martinez

Welcome to WHT Pablo, hope everything gets straightened out.

Aloha
Pablo and welcome as Chicken said ;)

as I said ealrier I like your site better ;)
I alwyas think when ya see a copy it is usually the weaker one.
to bad though it is very agravating when someone is trying to steal stuff.

The vortechhosting.com site is no longer there. Wonder what triggered such a quick response? Anyone know the scoop? I want the gory details... :)
I am a sucker for tragic comedies.

This is a good example of what flash can do...

You can protect flash files from being stolen... a "small" advantage...

Sorry for the owner of the original content... I "know" it is very frustrating...

...but don't be surprised, I even saw a website stealing Yahoo mail graphics!!!! Imagine that! Yahoo graphics!

Originally posted by webzone.ro
This is a good example of what flash can do...

You can protect flash files from being stolen... a "small" advantage...

Sorry for the owner of the original content... I "know" it is very frustrating...

...but don't be surprised, I even saw a website stealing Yahoo mail graphics!!!! Imagine that! Yahoo graphics!

Actually, there is a way to convert .swf files back to .fla files ;):D

By the way ...where did VortechHosting.com go?!

Originally posted by Kiwi


Actually, there is a way to convert .swf files back to .fla files ;):D

By the way ...where did VortechHosting.com go?!

of course... but you'll never have the same design... and of course, if don't protect them (not the MM style).

...about vortechhosting.com still not working...

The vortechhosting.com site is no longer there. Wonder what triggered such a quick response?

Copyright violation is a huge deal with large corporations who understand the law. Many smaller web host do not understand how easy you can get brought into a law suit for hosting copyrighted material and not doing anything about it. The DMCA protects ISP/Web Host from most legal ramifications as long as the ISP/Web Host follows it. Although it is very vague like most new legal docs, it still has some plain english things.

-Once an official notice has been sent to the host, the web host must review it and respond. If it is blatant copyright theft, they need to remove or suspend the site in question. If it is vague, you need to pass the complaint to the accused person giving them *reasonable time to respond* Reasonable being what? Most judges have excepted 1 or 2 weeks from what I have read. In any case, the web host has the final say as to when to suspend if the person does not reply. If a web host does not take these things serious, and does not follow the DMCA, the shield is broken, and you can be sewed too. Most copyright infraction letters are sure to point this out to you when you get them. :)

We get about 2 per month. In every case, after we sent notice to the person in question, that person has always complied and removed it. Only in a few cases did we immediately suspend a site. That was due to the fact it was so blatant.

Vortechs was so blatant, how could a host not take it down? Also, since almost the whole site was stolen for various locations, Vortech couldn't really delete the material. I guess it is better to have a downed web site then a web site with no material.

DMCA -> http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/band.html
We're forced to use that URL 2-3 times per month :D :(

We're forced to use that URL 2-3 times per month

You guys just started hosting last month too. I would look at why your DMCA complaints are so high. That is really odd.

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


You guys just started hosting last month too. I would look at why your DMCA complaints are so high. That is really odd.

Its not that WE are forced to visit it ...but we have to send that URL to certain people ...2-3 times per month. Sorry for the misunderstanding :D. Yes, we started last month with MCHost ...but we've been running several large websites in the past few years and had a large number of copyright infringement cases and also quite a few people registering similar domains to ours which we had protected with trademarks ...but it always got solved through WIPO :)

Back to the topic ...it looks to me like the entire VortechHosting server is DOWN - not only the website. I know that http://www.codinggurus.com/ is hosted by VortechHosting and it is down too :(

Originally posted by Kiwi
Back to the topic ...it looks to me like the entire VortechHosting server is DOWN - not only the website. I know that http://www.codinggurus.com/ is hosted by VortechHosting and it is down too :(
You can't ping the server either... always a decent sign of a server that isn't up. Unless they are dropping pings of course, which would be kinda silly of a webhost to do, but still. :)

Anyone else having the same thoughts that VortechHosting's Provider took the server offline? :eek2:

Looks like http://www.vortechhosting.com/ is back :D Lets hope we get an explanation ...and not the same as with HOSTurbo :cool:

There was about a two hour down time today. Not sure why yet.

Originally posted by Kiwi
Lets hope we get an explanation ...and not the same as with HOSTurbo :cool:

I have a feeling this is going to be exact same thing as with HOSTurbo. When something wrong happens with their schemes, hosts seem to dissapear or at least pretend to. Hiding will not make this thread forgotten, vortech. :D

Well... not much you can do, once you are proven guily. :dgrin:

Funny thing is, he only changed the homepage after EdikonHosting sent notice. He still has numerous other stolen content. Guess he will leave it up until that host complains.

Give him a break guys. I just talked to him on icq and he is just as mad about this as you guys are. He said he is changing the lauout around and has already completed the main page. Give it some time and I'm sure all of it will be changed.

I saw in Web Hosting Mag this month that both Superman (aka PepsiCoke) and MattF got their letters printed as a response to WHM's artice on Champion Host. There's also a letter from eqhost.com, which points out what's probably the ultimate in blatant ripoffs:
http://www.eqhost.com
http://www.champion host.com

Note: It looks like the URL for Champion Host is censored by this board ( :D ) so you'll have to remove the space from the above URL

Originally posted by Woody
Give him a break guys. I just talked to him on icq and he is just as mad about this as you guys are. He said he is changing the lauout around and has already completed the main page. Give it some time and I'm sure all of it will be changed.

:D

Why should he be given a break? If I murder someone, and I'm mad about it, should I not be punished?

He will probably steal others' work again if we don't make it clear that no one tolerates plagiarism.

Originally posted by Woody
Give him a break guys. I just talked to him on icq and he is just as mad about this as you guys are. What's he mad about? If he stole content, he's not the one who should be mad; if he didn't he should give an explanation.

If he's mad that people are slamming him for stealing content, that's pretty hard to feel sympathy over if it's true. And it's pretty silly to expect anyone who's had content or design stolen -- as just about any good web designer or customer of one in any business with a heavy web presence probably has -- to "give him a break." But if the circumstances are something else, he'd be well served to speak up and clear the air. Silence -- in recognition that he's certainly aware that this discussion is going on -- will understandably drive people to assume the worst.

Aloha
a good question would be to see if he stole teh design
or if he hired a designer in good faith to design something unique and his designer stole it.
if the later the case is then he should at least tell us that I can see that happening adn him being mad about that.
now if he stole the design and was responsible for that then he has no right to be mad.

Originally posted by Honu
Aloha
a good question would be to see if he stole teh design
or if he hired a designer in good faith to design something unique and his designer stole it.
if the later the case is then he should at least tell us that I can see that happening adn him being mad about that.
now if he stole the design and was responsible for that then he has no right to be mad.

Darn, that was it... Yeah knew there was something that was bugging me here... Thanks for grabbing that thought from my deep dark sub-concious and throwing it online...

Perhaps some benefit of the doubt would be a good idea and if there's more stolen content on the site then it may well be that some designer (so called) is about to find themselves looking for other work..

Of course I could be completely wrong :D

Originally posted by WebSnail.net


Darn, that was it... Yeah knew there was something that was bugging me here... Thanks for grabbing that thought from my deep dark sub-concious and throwing it online...

Perhaps some benefit of the doubt would be a good idea and if there's more stolen content on the site then it may well be that some designer (so called) is about to find themselves looking for other work..

Of course I could be completely wrong :D

Aloha
yeah I am hoping well actually mixed I hope a designer does not do this and call himself a designer gulp ruin our names.
but in the same breath if I was being accused on a board and I did not design a site I would have came on and said
I did not design it I paid some one to but I will get to the bottom of this.

brings up another good point about some of thee people posting for $20 designs to be submitted to a service blah blah
and how many times are they stolen and redesigned
so many tmeplates on the web.
now that could give way to the design issues but the content issue is another as that should alwyas be original as much as can be.
if you advertise a dell server a dell server is a dell server
but common sense will tell us that.

ahhhh the never ending story of stolen desings continues

Hello
The best way to protect yourself from having your web site design stolen is to have one thats so poorly done nobody would want it.

It works for us..........

Gordon

Originally posted by GordonH
Hello
The best way to protect yourself from having your web site design stolen is to have one thats so poorly done nobody would want it.

It works for us..........

Gordon

LOL:D :D
I happen to like your design. Maybe a bit bright, but it's simple and efficent.

The best way to protect yourself from having your web site design stolen is to have one thats so poorly done nobody would want it.

It works for us..........

Oh my gosh GordonH, you are not kidding. You need to warn people not to look after they just ate lunch.....


:D :D

I am totally colour blind.
Can you believe that my first job was hand printing colour photographic negatives?

I really need to find a web designer...

Gordon