I have a question. If I was able to create a website that can bring in a lot of money and one day become famous, would the webhost that host my website STEAL my site? Is there a risk to this? Can we sue a webhost if this happens?

A website is copyrighted intellectual property. Anyone can steal all or part of your site, not just your webhost, that's been going on since the beginning. There have been a number of incidents reported in this forum about stolen content.

Under the Millenium Digital Copyright Act, you have not only the right to sue anyone who steals your content, but you can have them prosecuted for a criminal act.

This isn't a trust issue, or even an ethics issue. Copyright violation is a criminal act.

Are you talking more about stealing the layout, or the whole package, ie domain, site, database, etc. Even for the the previous says it all. You cant.

Theft is theft. It's criminal:rolleyes:
But, I too was wondering what the original question is here.

I agree that it would be awful/illegal for a host to even consider taking your content. Still, some hosts consider your content to be theirs and have said so in their terms of service that anything you post to their server is considered theirs.

In my opinion, this is completely immoral. Yet some of the very largest hosts in the world (hopefully that will be clue enough for you to figure out who it is I'm talking about) have said as much in their terms of service. There was an article on that very issue in InfoWorld some time last year.

To clarify my post. The content includes (1) scripts, (2) code for the layout, etc...


Let's say I buy an expensive script, costing $150, and use it on my webpage. Now, could my webhost just STEAL that script?

I am talking mainly about PAID hosting, NOT free hosting like liquid2k or other free webhosts.

Aloha

well Yes they can ;(
would it be legal NO !
could you prove it ?? Maybe

the question is if you are with a host you feel funny about ? MOVE

I know how you feel it is in the back of my head also maybe a good reason to be on your own box that you set up and colo that way you have some control ???

I would think there are only a few hosts that would do this ??
or I hope there are only a few but I am sure they are out there just like any ting anymore ?

And, if it goes back to your original question, ". . .. If I was able to create a website that can bring in a lot of money and one day become famous. . ."
I doubt if it was your $150 script that made it famous. Sites, generally evolve from their content, not their context.

If you register a domain and have something@yourdomain.com as the administrative contact then your host could hijack your e-mail and steal your domain name from you. Now thats a bad thought.

Generally, the (smart) hosting provider would rather hold you up as a "look who I host" and make money by attracting more successful sites. You can actually leverage pricing with a hosting company if you are a successful site in exchange for an "hosted by" statement on your successful site.

What you know and how you promote and your contacts in the community you are targeting are generally something that the hosting company cannot replicate. And they know that. They're business is hosting! Not content.

That's a lot of ifs

If you paid your host to develop a script, what are you paying for?
A usage licence? Is it open source? Can you modify it?
Probably they want to preserve their intellectual property rights to what ever they feel they created (read the GNU liscense carefully).
Your best off clarifying these issues before proceeding with development.
As for sueing, it seems against your host's interest in damaging your business (monetarily) by using your own ideas to compete against you.
Put aside paranoia, and go for it. Probably the first thing you will notice is that there are dozens of people already working on the very same thing from completely different approaches.

Originally posted by valkaryn
Generally, the (smart) hosting provider would rather hold you up as a "look who I host" and make money by attracting more successful sites.

You are so right. I wish I'd have thought of that. I know the hosting company for matts scripts and he gets a lot of business just from hosting this site.

Originally posted by Arf
Still, some hosts consider your content to be theirs and have said so in their terms of service that anything you post to their server is considered theirs.

In my opinion, this is completely immoral.

Pretty dangerous too...

The problem with that sort of a TOS, is that if a customer puts illegal content on their server (i.e. warez, kiddie porn, certain hate material) then the host is liable for any criminal charges and/or civil lawsuits resulting from it.

A host is responsible for that anyway. As to the question, I've seen that in the TOS of free hosts before, but never in a paid host's TOS, and regardless your content is your content, your scripts are paid for and you've agreed to a license. No host can legally ignore the license of a script and just 'use it' because it is on their servers.

Originally posted by Phoenix


Pretty dangerous too...

The problem with that sort of a TOS, is that if a customer puts illegal content on their server (i.e. warez, kiddie porn, certain hate material) then the host is liable for any criminal charges and/or civil lawsuits resulting from it.

Wrong. Per the DMCA1998, the host is only liable if aware of the content. Only when the host becomes aware of the content thru it's own searches, or thru a notification does it become liable for that content. If you want to sue a host, you have to prove the host was aware of the content. How easy is that?

This brings up another issue. If a host is liable for illegal content, how come so many here believe it is illegal for the host to search accounts? Since entrapment like that is illegal by Federal Law, then it is safe to say it is ok for a host to search accounts, especially those it is notified of as having illegal content.

Originally posted by m0ndo

A usage licence? Is it open source? Can you modify it?
Probably they want to preserve their intellectual property rights to what ever they feel they created (read the GNU liscense carefully).
Your best off clarifying these issues before proceeding with development.


Probably the GNU GPL would be an ideal license for such a site. The GPL protects both sides quite well. Still if I were paying someone for development I would urge them to give it to me under a X11/New BSD license since those let you do pretty much anything you could want with the code (the main thing they do other than that is idemnify the creator of the program from lawsuites related to use or misuse of the code, that's reasonable enough).

If your warning is related to Microsoft's anti-GPL propaganda, don't listen to it. The GPL is neither viral, nor a intellectual property destroyer (otherwise how could you have Linux based hosting companies?).

Best,
Tim

Originally posted by X-MAN
I have a question. If I was able to create a website that can bring in a lot of money and one day become famous, would the webhost that host my website STEAL my site? Is there a risk to this? Can we sue a webhost if this happens?


Yes they can if it is in their Terms & Conditions ;)

Originally posted by FindSP.Com
Yes they can if it is in their Terms & Conditions ;) Lonny,

Are you trying to say, if someone puts something in their TOS, it makes it legal? :rolleyes:

Stealing content from another web site is an illegal activity and can be prosecuted under the law. Most countries (I know this is the case for the US, Canada, Australia & the UK) have a copyright act that protects the work of an author the moment that work is put down in a fixed format. A web page is a "fixed format" and I believe that has recently been ammended in the act so that web sites are included in that definition.

Unfortunately though, it's sometimes difficult to prove that the content was originally yours. I've had people steal information lists from my own personal web site verbatum in order to add to their own - and then tell me that since they added an entry or two of their own since "stealing" it, it's suddenly "ok". :( Would I take this guy to court? Sure. If I had millions of dollars to burn. The only ones that win in that scenerio, are the lawyers. A good idea is to confront the person that steals your content and let them know you know what they did - very politely and calmly - and ask them to cease and desist. If they still refuse to do so, then you have a decision on your hands. But if that person relies on a good reputation to conduct their business, chances are, they'll do the right thing. Eventually. ;)

As for a host saying they own the content, didn't Yahoo! try to do that a while back with GeoCities and get royally burned for it? There was such a public outcry that they ammended their TOS. But here's the thing - I think they meant that they would possibly use the content to do what valkaryn suggested and hold out certain sites to others in order to show what prestigious sites they were hosting. I think their wording was just a little more than unfortunate. Still, the public outcry should indicate that most folks won't put up with such things.

Neither should you. Read the TOS carefully! :)

All the best,

--Jodi

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
Lonny,

Are you trying to say, if someone puts something in their TOS, it makes it legal? :rolleyes: \


No I was only joking, but for example places like sitepoint have guidlines that if you submit an sarticle there you lose every ownership you had on it, or something like that, I could imagine that hosts could do something similar if they have a good lawyer..

it doesn't make it right.. but I'm just thinking out loud.