We recently had our site design stolen by one of our OWN customers! has this ever happened to you. Where does a host actually stand when a design is ripped off by someone?

Obviously i spoke to the customer and after a fairly rude response removed the account and refunded there money - but I know they will probably put the design online elsewhere, where do i stand in getting something done about it ?

As a host if i came to you proving a customer stole a design would you delete the customers account?

Some things worth thinking about!

If a customer infringed on any person's copyright, i'd delete the account with fair warning (second chances depending on the extremity of the infringement)

may i ask why you refunded the money?

Hi,

Well, I would say see where they will host next (do a whois on their domain once they moved) and if they use the same design contact the host :)

I havent yet - but i guess he would just charge back if i didnt... i still have full control of the domain because it was a "free domain when paid yearly" deal..

should i refund all money and keep domain (just to annoy him)

refund money - domain cost (and give him domain)

?

just for your enjoyment ill get some screen grabs.

Whats worse is its a site about religion, I thought people into religion new better. He has even argued with me over several emails.

if i came to you proving a customer stole a design would you delete the customers account?

Yep, and ASAP. That is a thief. I hate thieves, and don't do business with them.

<sarcasm>
Unless of course they were just putting the stolen design up temporarily to show the boss, owner, friends, family, or co-workers how they want their new site to look.
</sarcasm>

don't refund anything if you have proof of services delivered and/or a TOS violation. if you have this you can probably fight and win the chargeback (assuming you have your own merchant account)

It all depends how you contracted with him/her. If it says that you can keep teh domain then you keep it, if the contact is to relase the domain then release it.

If that was not a prt of the contract, then it is a muddy area on what you can/cannot do.

attatched is the 2 screenshots..

Its even more blatent on other pages, but i removed the site before doing other caps....

Ive refunded 100%, and kept the domain. End of story. :)

nice to see you resolving the situation in the correct manner, matt.

another thumbs up for united-hosting, you guys rock! :D

Thanks :)

I will release the domain to the customer seeing as i have no use for it - just hope they dont go and put a copy of the old site straight back up!! :)

I went to the site and noticed the message you put up.

Nice touch:

*********************
THIS SITE HAS BEEN SUSPENDED DUE TO THE OWNER COPYING CONTENTS.

Want this domain? Email
**********************
:D Good way of dealing with cheats!

Well I guess it is what ever your policy is. There are at least a hunderd copies of one or more pages taken from my sites out there. Some take a little here from this site a little there from that site some even take whole pages just change prices and names.

If they are my customers I have a policy they are welcome to any content on any of my sites except my logo's or headers, as long as it is hosted on my servers. They leave my servers they stop using any of my content.

I guess I do not see it as that big of deal as long as they are paying me money each month, saves some of my resellers having to do some work or they use it until they get their site fully designed.

No big deal to me.

Whats worse is its a site about religion, I thought people into religion new better.


Matt, that's just priceless .. 'into religion' .. :D

Not much of an infringement in my view.

Anybody can throw up a logo with some colored bars under it, which is all that both sites look like after seeing the screen shots.

You'd have a hard time proving infringement.
Besides, so many of the design styles in use these days all look that same.

You're... um... kind of late. But the tables were laid out exactly the same, the links in the exact same place, and the text also in the same place, yet it's not much of an infringement?

Who will ban Pixelbrick for their logo? :D

I've seen several other sites that look almost exactly like that. In fact, I've seen templates on free template sites that looks like that, especially the layout of the tables and links.

Maybe the guy got it off of a free template site.
I just don't see where it's exactly the same.

He didn't have any flash header on his site.
There was a color row that was missing.

If you both lived in the same town and guy #1 sued guy #2, I doubt it would even get heard by a judge. He'd probably throw it out.

Maybe guy #1 need to surf some of these free template sites so he can see his design being given away for free!

The site is back up:

http://www.magyarbaptista.com

Maybe the customer came to their senses =)

It still looks like it was based on your design. :(

you paid for the domain you keep it. plus he stole your design! see if you can "Accidently" lose it or atleast part of it...

Matt dealed it the best way you can, I'm very disappointed in how this "religious man" stole the design

Why care? You aren't competing with them, are you? I am confused.

You don't have a copyright on the way your site "looks" - only on the source code. There are dozens of browsers in use today and each OS uses different fonts. Some are fully compliant with all the standards, some are not. Your site doesn't look exactly the same on all platforms anyway so you can't possibly lay claim to the way it is displayed on even one of them - let alone all of them.

If this person cut & pasted the exact HTML from your site, you probably have a valid complaint...otherwise, move on with your life - there's very little 'original' work anyone can do in HTML anymore - it's not art...it's page formatting. :)

You can copyright artwork (aka Website Design)

soundguy, he had used our artwork in places :)

Anyway the problem got sorted out and he no longer hosts with us. :)