What would you do if someone ripped your site?

Hello,

What would you do if someone ripped your custom made site? How would you prove it? Please be honest and imagine if they maybe were someone far away. Can you really afford to fly yourself and your lawyer out there to chase someone down?

Just wanted to see view points on this. It happens quite often out there.

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Cameron

Hi,

what do you exactly mean with "ripped"?

Please describe a case...

Hello,

If someone were to steal an exact copy of your website and claim it as their own.

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Cameron

Hello,

If someone were to steal an exact copy of your website and claim it as their own.

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Cameron

you mean a copy cat? no one can steal your site without ftp/database access
if they use adsense report them to google (it's against their TOS, tiny hint from Matt Cuts)

Hello,

I have heard of that suggestion for the Google idea. How can you really prove that the site is yours? That you custom made it?

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Cameron

it depends on the site, if you use some software only the content is unique. A copycat can only steal the html not the application (if you have one)
check archive.org (if your site is older)

Thanks for the tips. The site was custom made in a simple text editor. Im trying to think of ways to prove that I was the original creator.

Maybe a screen shot with a newspaper next to it? lol

Thanks for your tips.

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Cameron

Well, that's not something easy to do, if it something business related, usually a cease & desist letter from your lawyer should do.

Consider writing to their web hosting provider pointing out the intellectual property theft. Usually hosting providers in their agreements specify that copyright infringment may lead to termination of the contract and hosting service.

As proof you should try to see if your site is into some internet webcache (or webarchive, I don't remember it well).

I'm facing a similar situation, a guy has copied a videogame guide I did.
My guide was written halfway in 2007 and contained personal considerations and some errors due to some mentioned missing features in the videogame. Such features were added to that MMORPG few days after the guide was posted, and a new guide was made in a different section of the website. The guy has copied the entire old guide making a fool of himself, because he is reporting as missing some features that instead are there. What's worse is that he planted a nice "(C) Copyright 2009 www . ripperswebsitename . com" at the end of my guide.

No lawyer involved.

My philosopy: strike where it hurts. Why did the guy rip off the guid and presented as his own? Because, even if with some mistakes, is still a real useful guide (I did a search on copyscape and foud that at least 8 sites have copied the guide, but they provided a backlink to my site). He was searching for recognition on how an awesome player he was or wathever.
By subtly exposing the rip-off to the gaming community he ended up looking like an idiot.
The exact opposite of what he wanted.

Hah. Thats good that it worked out for you. With my situations on addressing these issues so far I have been fortunate that everything has gone smoothly. I take screen shots of everything regarding the perpetrator and also with my website. I get all the registrars info, hosting info, any emails on the site, cached versions of the site, etc etc. I have contacted the host in one particular case and they were willing to work with me on the situation. Once it got to that point the perpetrator immediately removed the site. I am always looking for more information on going after these people what I can do with them.

Just stinks to have to deal with people like this. Thanks for sharing.

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Cameron

One thing I saw that "won" someone one of these cases was the code itself. The person who ripped the site did not update the meta tags (author, etc) that identified the original designer. What was even more comical is that the ripper left the links to the old site including both pages and pictures.

Not sure if you were ripped by someone as foolish but it sure makes it easier to prove the theft.

I have had my site ripped a couple of times. The first time I pulled up the images directory on the site and I saw a couple images that I had label as my company name - something.gif so obviously it was stolen but not every time is it so easy.

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Cameron

I will hire a hacker to hack that site in order to loose all the design ands impossibility of using it again...

I will hire a hacker to hack that site in order to loose all the design ands impossibility of using it again...

This thing is so wrong in many aspects. I don't think this is an advisable thing to do.
You might get in trouble. Even if someone did something illegal like stealing your content, the answer is not to do something illegal in retort.

I will hire a hacker to hack that site in order to loose all the design ands impossibility of using it again...

That is a good variant, IMHO... Even if it may lead to trouble, this will show people that it might be dangerous to steal designs.

However there are cases when the site rip makes an additional traffic. If you look up the sites of marblehost.com and nsindiahosting.com you can seen the complete copypasting of deising even without changing he reditrects titles and texts... The clients of the indian "company" are becoming the clients of marblehost.

i will cut his trout !!!

I purchased a template some time ago, that someone had passing off as their own. It wasn't until the original owner of the template contacted me and advised me of this that I discovered the error and had to pay for it twice. Didn't get any $ back on the first template purchased. Thought it might be something else to keep an eye out for. Another 'trap for young players'...

I'll do it in a legal purposes. I'll collect all the evidences that will prove that I'm the real owner of the contents.

I will make and work everything in the legal way.

I would move on and continue promoting my site. Someone ripping you off usually means your're doing something right. I wouldn't waste a cent on them unless I has nothing else to do. This happens a lot. I fint it flattering.

As a designer, I've often had to endure clients making absurd suggestions. Was just reminiscing today about a client who had made us use a color scheme for her logo and website that would match the new carpet in her office.

But to answer your question: try to sit back and not take it personally. Try to see if there are any valid points that you can take out of the criticism. Just because the person maybe chose a poor way to express their opinion doesn't mean there's no value in the opinion. We can all do things better.

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