Someone on this forum pointed out to me that he saw my design on another website. After looking at the website, http://www.neomia.com/v2.2/, i found out that it was pretty much an exact copy of my site, HTML and everything. My site is located at http://www.3zx.com/~gamex/. The only thing that is different is the header graphic (they changed the background after I contacted them about the site).

I first bought this template from my friend: http://www.3zx.com/~gamex/images/firstpsd.gif. After replacing the header with the one from my old website (gameworldx.com) and making some other adjustments, I decided to change the background. I actually got recommendations from people on this forum at this thread: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=238248

The thing is, I only posted a link to my design on this forum. It hasnt even been launched yet. So that means that someone had to have seen it on this forum and decided to sell it. I contacted the person building neomia.com and he said he paid a lot of money for this template. He insists that we both take down the site, seeing how there is no proof I own it. Is there anything I can do about this? Has anyone seen someone selling a template like the one on my website?

You don't have to prove him anything. Just contact his hosting provider with a Cease and Desist letter.

It should go something like this:


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VIOLATION

Month DATE, Year

Greetings ABC Company,

It has come to our attention that YOUR web hosting client DomainName.com is republishing original content from Your Web Site URL without permission and is in violation of copyrights owned by Your Company Name.

INSERT URL OF THE OFFENDING WEB SITE

Originating from:
YOUR ORIGINAL URL

We have sent an official legal Cease and Desist notice to violator site's administrative contact to cease and desist his/her practice and are sending the copy of this notice to principle administrator - your company for proper action from its side against the violator.


(IF THE HOST DOESN'T PROVIDE AN ABUSE@ E-MAIL) Since no one from your company provided us with the contact, we are sending this notice to all publicly accessible e-mail accounts to avoid the fact that you might fail to receive it.

From OffendersDomainName.com owner we required the copyrighted material to be removed and written notice given that such has been removed by no later than Month DATE, Year.

We ask YOU to assist in this matter. Otherwise, we will have no choice but take legal action against the violator and its principle (Host Name) who so far voluntarily puts itself together with law breaker.

Your efforts in this case are greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

YOUR FULL FORMAL SIGNATURE


Might help.

What artashes said is correct. Also you have the psd, correct? Then that is your proof. Whatever the other person has would most likely be 1 layer with everything on it then layers on top of that editing out text and things like that.

Art, thanks

mike, yes, I do have the original psd my friend made. I told the designer for neomia.com this, and all he said was "I have PSDs too, it's not like they're hard to create."

You are welcome. If you send the letter in, for the host it usually means that you are the original owner since you bothered to take action. Good luck resolving the conflict.

Header graphic has had a simple filter effect done to it then overlay effects.

Good luck, however I must say if you didn't copyright it, they may not do anything at all about it ...

You don't have to actually copyright something. Any and every piece of work published is automatically copyrighted to its author. Formal copyrighting is just better when you run into problems such as legal issues.

True, but is this not one ;)

Thanks a lot for the input, I have contacted their webhost and they are waiting to hear from the client.

Glad to see it has been handled. The site has taken down the design.

Awesome News ... Hate it when people still someones Work!

What's funny about the person complaining in this thread is that this person probably has some FLASH GAMES on his site that are "copyrighted" which he himself doesn't have permission to put on his site.

He likely thinks that simply because they are on a 100 other websites that it's OKAY to use them????

leeuniverse, that may or may not be true.

You should ask him, and/or research the games before jumping to any conclusions. :idea: