I was looking through my stat logs and was checking to see where my vistors are coming from. . . heheh, funny enough I found a web site that had totally copied my site from layout to text. It really steams me. I want to write up a letter to the web site owner. Does anyone here have a nice template that i can use to send out a scary letter to a webmaster. .

thanks,

The guy is so dumb he still has my meta tags in the html.

:angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

What's the URL?

how do we know YOU didn't copy the other site?!?!?!:stickout

hehe, j/k

what is the url so i can email the webmaster and bust a :bomb: in his a$$

:laugh:

Maybe that person did not copy your website,
maybe he copy other website who copied your website. :D

Originally posted by jeffrylee
Maybe that person did not copy your website,
maybe he copy other website who copied your website. :D Good Point!! :D

it's not always bad - we had a company copy our site they even left in our email address that was hyperlinked from <contact us>

we kept getting emails asking questions and when we replied they would write and ask why its form our company and not the site they visited - so not just unable to design a site but obviously mad too

shorty

:) That is 2 dam sad! What is the url?

While the DMCA is still alive, sue him for all he has. Even if he copied text or a partial image, DMCA can help you there ;)

what is DMCA, do they have a web site or what??

DMCA:

'Digital Millennium Copyright Act'

URL:
http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/dmca.html

Read about it @:
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm

:)



Best Regards,
SLN

Did I just miss it, where is the URL for your site and the site that copied yours. :smokin:

Had the same problem earlier this month.

While browsing my site's stats I found a number of hits from a site I didn't recognize so I went there. It was another host that had stolen the full content of one of my pages!!

I only found it because the dopes left a link back to one of my scripts in it.

I had to contact thier provier (Alabanza) to get them to change it. Even then, the change was minor.

Makes you wonder how many times it happens that you don't know about!

Maybe it's just a coincidence!

Maybe it never happened, the original poster never left links to his site and the site that he claims copied his, or did I miss something here?

hi,

I don't know what the law is in the good ol' US of A, but here in the UK that would be a breach of the designer's intellectual property rights, and hence a breach of the laws relating to copyright. Under this there can be a fine or even prison given, if the law was taken strictly to the letter!

Tariq

We had ALL of our site stolen at least 6-10 times in 1996-97 by wanna-be web hosts. And a couple put EVERYTHING online exactly as it was. The others simply copied our services and services names...

I don't know how many of them asked for printed material also and stole this as well.

What is the most :angry: of all is those who stole our printed service agreement for which we paid our lawyer a lot back in 1995.

Now I am used to it cause there are millions of webhosts to steal content from :)

nick

6 months ago I had a site that I worked a whole week on ripped from me. All the pretty graphics and stuff were stolen and placed on a competitor's site.

But then I remembered I had placed a very small <iframe> in all of my pages. So what I did was I modified my site's iframe source. Then I joined a beastiality affiliate program (x-rated stuff). I copied their html and saved it as the iframe's source.

Next thing I know his entire site had pop-ups with some lady getting raped by a horse hahaha!!! Never had such a good laugh in my life.

Anyways a few days later his site was down... for 3 weeks hahaha!!! When it was finally back up he had changed the layout. And boy this guy's new layout was HORSE ugly!!!

But the best thing was, this moron actually helped me make $50 bucks with my beastiality affiliate program!

Originally posted by Skeptical
But then I remembered I had placed a very small <iframe> in all of my pages. So what I did was I modified my site's iframe source. Then I joined a beastiality affiliate program (x-rated stuff). I copied their html and saved it as the iframe's source.

That's hilarious!

Definitely a good trick for people that don't even take the time to copy your pictures and just point to your source instead.

Just one question. Most web developers have their name embedded somewhere in the HTML (usually at the very top). If this is present can you get a good lawyer to press charges and recieve compensation in some form? Or, are the laws so weak that the best you can expect is to force the person to just change the site slightly?

I love the story with the Iframe.

I would have loved to have seen his face when his (your) site started acting all porno.

Much better than getting the lawyers in I reckon

Shan

May be both of you have same mind and same thinking.
heeeee heeeee:D

that's called "white peppering"


although, i don't know how funny a picture of a woman being raped by a horse is, white peppering someone who steals my content & bandwidth, and documenting it, is a definate stress reliever. i wish i had kept all of my records of it, with screen captures and everything. i'd setup a nice archive...

Just adding to the apparently long list of webhosts who have had their content stolen.

Just this past month we got a new reseller. Content stolen word-for-word, though the design is (usually) slightly different; different color scheme etc.

Of course there is a page or two that he forgot to change the name of the website, so it shows our name.

He's still our customer so I don't have a clue whether to complain to him or boot him off or just feel flattered and let it be.

But it is frustrating, since a lot of time and effort went into the wording the layout of my site. Argh!! :angry: What do you all think, just let it go or say something??

This is a continual battle. Most of our content theft is in the documentation arena - in fact, I just had to send out yet another note to a company that has now lifted our content twice. It's irritating when the work we do shows up here, there, and yonder.

Lurleene:

It would be interesting (and funny) to see, what would happen if you sent your reseller a bill for using your site!! You don't really want to bill them, but just see what kind of response you get out of them :D

Then of course, when they do complain, tell them it is a bluff, and explain to them why it is not okay for them to just lift your material.

As a reseller, they are supposed to be different in identity from you. Afterall, you could replicate your own site under different URLs just as well as they can. As a host, you have to protect your property and identity, or it gets dimminished. Also, by not protecting your property, you set a precedence for future violators, and making it difficult to enforce your rights.

With them being a reseller, it can be touchy, but you do need to be firm. I'm sure if your polite about it, and they are sincere in wanting to be your reseller, that it will work out in the end.

sPoT!


PS. never know, you could offer to build them a site for $$.

If a site's upstream provider (colocation provider) refuses to do anything even though you have proof (from users in your forum who had their posts stolen and placed on the copycat site), what legal recourse does one have? Would suing the site owner and the colo provider yield any good results?

Originally posted by Lurleene
Just adding to the apparently long list of webhosts who have had their content stolen.

Just this past month we got a new reseller. Content stolen word-for-word, though the design is (usually) slightly different; different color scheme etc.


Lurleene,
I think I wouldn't add your site to the list, because the copy/paste of the host site by a reseller is just as old as reselling. I mean it's already happened litterally thousands of times, so, well, I'm used to it, I consider it to be almost part of the deal if a customer re-uses my pages.
Of course I could be very mean if he was to move to a different host and continue using my L&F...

-Chris.

<quote>If a site's upstream provider (colocation provider) refuses to do anything even though you have proof (from users in your forum who had their posts stolen and placed on the copycat site), what legal recourse does one have? Would suing the site owner and the colo provider yield any good results?</quote>

The DMCA provides immunity from contributory copyright liability under certain circumstances to, among others, "service providers" that control or operate "system[s] or network[s]." Thus, I think the plain languge of the Act reachs colocation providers. Of course, if the colo provider does not follow the notice-and-take-down provisions of the Act, the provider doesn't get immunity.

In fact, I'm involved in a case now involving a colo provider. I notified the provider that a server he maintains contains material stolen from a site owned by my client. He has so far refused to take the site down; I told him that if I cannot satisfactorily resolve the matter directly with the infringer, I will hold him responsible with the infringer (especially now that he has actual knowledge of the infringement). Put differently, if I sue the infringer, I would expect to name the colo provider as a defendant as well.

-- Jon