Let's assume that one day you receive a email by the irate owner of a web hosting company claiming that one of your resellers has stolen his web site design, logo, slogans and content and that the stolen site is hosted on your servers. So you check it out and it is obvious that this is indeed the case. How would you handle it?

Its a tough one. Suppose if the matterial is copyrighted you may be able to ban them, if your terms and conditions state that copyrighted matterial is not allowed.
It may not be up to the host to do anything, how do you know who took who's work?

Originally posted by jgriff64
... how do you know who took who's work?
Well, http://www.archive.org shows that the original site predates your reseller's by about 3 months, there is a thread on Website Reviews here on WHT from back in September asking opinions on the original site's design while your reseller signed up in December, and several other hosts here and in a couple other forums can attest as to which one is the original design.

If I was hosting the reseller's site, I would take it down.

If I wasn't, there's not much that I could do, I guess.

It would definitely mess up any reseller relationship you had.

I'd remove he copyrighted material and inform them that it is (as it should be) a violation of your TOS to upload copyrighted material without the consent of the owner. You'd first contact the original site's owner to be sure he didn't sell the site design to your reseller (unless of course that is who contacted you heh).

Giving the reseller an opportunity to offer a satisfactory explanation. If the ownership was in legitimate dispute, I would stay out of it. However, there is no legitimate dispute, and, in those cases, I would give the reseller 24 hours to remedy the situation and a warning that any reoccurence of theft of copyrighted materials would cause termination of his account.

Unlike runaway scripts which are impairing all customers, this is not affecting other customers directly so I do feel it is appropriate to give the reseller an opportunity to respond appropriately.

Note: I do require agreement and adherence by my resellers to a code of ethics which includes no theft of copyrighted properties in addition to many other things (such as no selling of unlimited bandwidth). This practice is somewhat controversial, but perfectly legal and eliminates a lot of potential problems. I want to deal with honest and ethical resellers and will do everything I can to assist them. The others, I don't have the time, energy, or desire to deal with.

I would email him and ask for him to give me a sufficient explanation or remove the copyrighted material. If he did neither of these within 48 hours I would suspend his account. I would then email him again and tell him to remove the copyrighted material. If he said that he would, I would reactivate his account, if he would not, I would terminate it.

ianal,

but...

if you're hosting copyrighted content, you can't "stay out of it" if you continue to make it available after being notified that there is copyright dispute, you can be held as liable as the copyright infringer... to be covered by the copyright infringement liability limitation act you have to immediately suspend access to the materials.

Thank you for the opinions. I hope the offendining site's host will see it the same way you do and will do something about it. Afterall, he has complained several times on this forum about other sites being "inspired" by his design.

Originally posted by brav0
Let's assume that one day you receive a email by the irate owner of a web hosting company claiming that one of your resellers has stolen his web site design, logo, slogans and content and that the stolen site is hosted on your servers. So you check it out and it is obvious that this is indeed the case. How would you handle it?
I think that the owner of the web site is responsable. I mean, yes it is on your servers however it's not your responsability to make sure that everyone's site isn't stolen.

No, but once you know you have to do something about it.

You are responsible for what is on your servers.

Pilgrim is right!

Once notified, you as the host, or machine owner are resposible. it is a newer law that deals with MP3 and other internet copywrite problems. The fines are WAY up there.

I wouldn't ask for his lies at the point your at right now. you have clearly seen that the other site owner did indeed own it first. I would tell him he has 24 hours to get that stolen copywrited material completely off your server.

Then check tomorrow, and suspend or terminate if needed. If he has low enough standards to steel a site from another host, then perhaps he is not a reseller worth keeping anyway. Wiegh your options vs troubles.

Have a nice day,

Tim L :cool:

Yes, but you have to have something in you TOS or there's not much you can do. I think if it went to court and you didn't have anything to prevent this you would loose.

You keep saying "notified" notified by WHO? It's their word against your resellers really.

Call or email your reseller, ask him what's up and what's going on and ask his side of the story.

If he ain't got a good story, lay it out "look man you borrowed too much of their design, you've got to get that taken care of or legally I simply have to remove the copyright violations from my server".

If he's GOT a good story, then it's not your legal obligation to remove it just because someone tells you to, if it goes to court the second an authority (court order) tells you to remove it you remove it pronto.

The way I tell it when asked "when I'm sent a C&D by a bona fide lawyer, I'm gonna do what it says and ask questions later".

Keep in mind, you go shutting down your reseller and he turns out to be the victim, he's liable to turn his lawyers loose on YOU for costing him revenue.

The sites in question are:
Original: www.ePerfect.net
Stolen: www.etwebhosting.com (same owner as www.electrictoad.com). It is hosted by mchost.

The ePerfect site has been operational in its current form since September 2001. etwebhosting since December 2001.

The owner of etwebhosting.com has even put this site in his portfolio: http://www.electrictoad.com/about/portfolio.html (there is a screen capture in case this dissapears).

MCHost has been notified through various channels but has not responded yet. Maybe they are busy.

There are also several emails exchanged where etwbhosting claimed it was his designer that did it and agrees to take the site down. He did take the site down briefly but now it has been put online again.

Hi brav0, I was following this thread and waiting for you to reveal the 2 sites in question..(Already know about it)

I do know www.ePerfect.net since last Sept and I do believe it's the original site and "not" the copied one.

It's so bad when someone copies someone else site and claims to be his own.

I hope this will come to a resolution that satisfies all parties involved here.

Man, if I was gonna copy something I'd copy something with less garish colors :D

Yeah that's a pretty blatant knockoff If it were my reseller I'd be like "dude at least change those colors good lord"

I would not want to continue working with a reseller who's using a stolen design. This will definitely ruin your reputation. And once that's tarnished you're branded for life.

This issue seems to be resolved: http://www.etwebhosting.com/

Originally posted by Kiwi
This issue seems to be resolved: http://www.etwebhosting.com/ Thank you Marc.

Index was changed, the rest of the site is still up :(
http://www.etwebhosting.com/resellers/index.html

Originally posted by allmark
Index was changed, the rest of the site is still up :(
http://www.etwebhosting.com/resellers/index.html

Yes thats because they haven't moved the files yet, unless you know the exact URL of the page ppl wont see it.

Originally posted by allmark
Index was changed, the rest of the site is still up :(
http://www.etwebhosting.com/resellers/index.html This is his mo. In January he did the same thing, he changed the index.html to index1.html and a week or two later he put the site back online. He's done the same thing again: http://www.etwebhosting.com/index1.html :rolleyes:

If you're so worried about this, why did you just post new links to their website for everyone to see?

Far as I'm concerned, if the pages aren't publicly accessable then who cares? You aren't the law. It isn't your job to enforce it.

Why don't you just get your lawyer to send a registered cease and desist order, sue the company, and be done with it? If you don't, then it's just your word against theirs, and no respectable host is going to simply shut down a website they host just because you tell them to.

Besides, the US Copyright page has a listing of online provider companies. Once the hosting company adds their name to this list, they are untouchable. Only the actual website that has the supposedly copyright info can be sued. (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/onlinesp/)
MCHost should add their name to this list, and this would allow them to not be sued.

To sue the company that has "your" design, you will need to have a copyright number, proof that you are losing business because of the infringement, and pay a lot of legal fees. (Since in this case, lawyers can't get a portion of the damages, they are forced to charge hourly.)

Good luck to you. IMHO, you're better off to leave this alone. If this company is really ripping you off, then it will come back to bite them on its own. Most hosting companies will go out of business before long, anyway. This company is no different, and unless they have a marketing budget of something special they'll probably close down soon. After all, look at the front page of the site. With a mesage like that, I highly doubt they are serious about hosting.

calm down larryniven..

I guess it's OK in your eyes.
It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a few lines of text or say a dingbat, or maybe a arrow.
But they took the whole site, and thats down right wrong.

Larryniven has a point.

I work for a large (#3 in the world) webhosting company. When someone calls about issues like this, they are usually told to contact -- or have their attorney contact -- the actual website owner themselves. We try not get involved. Unless what they are doing is obviously illegal -- or they insist -- then it is passed along to our corporate attorneys. The site is rarely ever shut down immediately unless it is impacting the network. One that comes to mind is when Rolex tried to shut down a guy who was selling fake Rolex watches on the web. They tried -- and failed -- to have us immediately shut down the site.

Why? Because once you start getting personally involved in these matters, then you "open the door" to being responsible for this in future cases as well. Especially, if it's not caught right away and someone sues for damages. You can be sued as well, since it is now your policy to take action on these issues. Then there is the issue of shutting someone down who is then vindicated in court. As you see, you can now be sued by either party if you get involved.

It's the same thing with email. Most companies say they do not monitor their employee's email. The ones that offically do monitor can be held responsible in court if an employee does something crazy with their email account.

Most importantly of all, make sure you have a "terms of use policy" for all your customers to protect yourself whether you decide to act or not. Here is an example:


"Customer warrants that any material submitted for publication on XXXXXX does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, statutory common law or proprietary interest of others or contain anything obscene or libelous. XXXXXX reserves the right to remove any and all materials which infringe on copyright work. Such materials will be removed at any time upon receiving a complaint and or notice of copyright infringement."

"If XXXXXX becomes aware of material that could be infringing on a third party's copyright, it will initiate an investigation. To conduct an investigation of copyright infringement, the Complainant must submit at least two items. First, Complainant must submit a claim in writing with the applicable copyright or trademark registration number and a copy of the underlying copyrighted work along with the Customer's materials. Second, Complainant must offer a good faith certification signed under penalty of perjury. This certification must state that the work is the property of the Complainant, that the work has been copied and that use of the work is not defensible. With this information in-hand, XXXXXX, at its discretion, may, at any time deny access to the challenged material of Customer."

Originally posted by vikvaliant
Larryniven has a point.

I work for a large (#3 in the world) webhosting company. When someone calls about issues like this, they are usually told to contact -- or have their attorney contact -- the actual website owner themselves. We try not get involved. Unless what they are doing is obviously illegal -- or they insist -- then it is passed along to our corporate attorneys. The site is rarely ever shut down immediately unless it is impacting the network. One that comes to mind is when Rolex tried to shut down a guy who was selling fake Rolex watches on the web. They tried -- and failed -- to have us immediately shut down the site.

Why? Because once you start getting personally involved in these matters, then you "open the door" to being responsible for this in future cases as well. Especially, if it's not caught right away and someone sues for damages. You can be sued as well, since it is now your policy to take action on these issues. Then there is the issue of shutting someone down who is then vindicated in court. As you see, you can now be sued by either party if you get involved...

Correct me if I'm wrong, which I could very well be, since I haven't read it yet. But doesn't the DMCA require a web host to take down an infringing site if they are provided in writing certain documents as outlined in the DMCA?

Originally posted by bitserve


Correct me if I'm wrong, which I could very well be, since I haven't read it yet. But doesn't the DMCA require a web host to take down an infringing site if they are provided in writing certain documents as outlined in the DMCA?

I believe that's so, however, "certain documents" aren't email, and they aren't a phone call by a pissed off web site owner, I think it takes more than that.

Ok, I have been following this and since he (ET) isn't saying anything I will. According to ET he did the original design of the site and sold it to Eperfect, while retaining rights to the design. The reason archive.org is showing eperfect as original...well it should be obvious..it wasn't up as a live site with him (ET). Since he retained rights to the design he felt he could use it, and he can, if this is indeed true. The fact that Eperfect is disputing this is something the lawyers should deal with. So suggesting that MCHost should remove this site as a copyright violation when all the facts aren't stated is ridiculous. He has changed the site until it's resolved as Kiwi (Marc) has stated. Whether he renamed the index files is moot. If he does indeed own the design he can do whatever he wants.
I don't want to start a flame war, but brav0, are you in anyway connected to Eperfect? If not, why does it concern you so much? Let the courts deal with it, thats where it's headed. This has been discussed with MCHost and ET in the MCHost forums, have you checked there yet? Take a look, I think you will find it interesting.

Originally posted by DrChaos
This has been discussed with MCHost and ET in the MCHost forums, have you checked there yet? Take a look, I think you will find it interesting.

I think you're forgetting the location of that particular thread and what's needed to view threads in that location. :D

Originally posted by DrChaos
According to ET he did the original design of the site and sold it to Eperfect, while retaining rights to the design. LOL :D My wife did the design. She runs ePerfect and started out as a VO reseller back in September 2001. The Terms of service and hosting plans mirror those of VO (ePerfect has since grown quite nicely and operate owned servers). She contacted ET after noticing a lot of hits from the MCHost forum where this was discussed in the beginning of January. ET replied it was his designer that did it and that he paid $1000 and that he was going through a seperation and a whole range of pathetic excuses trying to stall before finally changing the index page. Then, he put it up again until Marc got involved. There was never any previous contact with ET, nor did he ever receive any money from ePerfect.

The bottom line is ET copied the design, content, slogan and logo of ePerfect. There is no intention of spending one dime on lawyers to take this guy to court. Nobody even cares if he puts the site up again. ET has to live knowing he is an untalented parasite. However, this is a community of webhosts, and the question posed was not how to handle this but rather if you as a host, knowing the facts stated, would continue hosting this guy.

Thanks for setting me straight. It will let me put into perspective anything else that may be said in the future by this person. And in regards to the question of hosting him, If it was one instance and it was removed asap, I would continue to host him (sometimes people make a bad decision). If it was ongoing or the reseller continued to deny it in the face of incontrovertible proof, it would nullify his contract and I would remove his account. I do not want my current or future clients to doubt my business' integrity.

NO! - not if I new it were stolen.

John

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