Gossamer Forum
Home : Products : Links 2.0 : Discussions :

What to do When someone Steals Site

Quote Reply
What to do When someone Steals Site
Hi,
I have a problem some one has stolen my site and I want to know what to do About it? I tried to email the person but the email bounced I found the site but no name to email. Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Shane Dolby
SearchLynx

------------------
Great Forum visit SearchLynx www.shaned.com
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi Guys

I have had this problem also, usually just a few threats will get them to take down your content if that fails ask your lawyer to send a seace and desist letter to them.

You can find all the trademark, and patent information you need at:
http://uspto.gov

Copyright info here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas2.html

Hope that helps.

Dave
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi,

I have had problems like this in the past. I was the team leader of a web site that had 1 Million visitors a month.

On two occasions because of our popularity we were targets for the same thing, that the design of the site was taken and used for sites on the same topic, no doubt they were thinking that they would fool the public.

These two sites were stored on 1) Geocities and 2) Tripod. We basically emailed them with our copyright notice that we had paid for before launch, which would stand up in all major courts from the UK, USA, Canada etc because of the way it was written. Within 24 Hours the accounts were deleted.

Geocities and Tripod are two companies who were bigger enough to know that our copyright notice was written in such a way that we could have taken them to court for storing our material.

My advice it to find there ISP, which is normally easy. If they have a domain name, check internic.com to see who hosts the service and work from there.

Hit them with one of there clients is storing your material.

One last trick we did was to download and save one of the HTML pages in question from there site. They no doubt will have made some changes for themselves. DO NOT MODIFY THE PAGE YOURSELF. However in windows it will tell you the modify date. Yours will be earlier than theres. We never used this, but was told by a lawyer if we kept it quite, if we had to go to court, then this stood a good chance of proving who copied who.

I hope it all works out for you.

Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi,

I have had problems like this in the past. I was the team leader of a web site that had 1 Million visitors a month.

On two occasions because of our popularity we were targets for the same thing, that the design of the site was taken and used for sites on the same topic, no doubt they were thinking that they would fool the public.

These two sites were stored on 1) Geocities and 2) Tripod. We basically emailed them with our copyright notice that we had paid for before launch, which would stand up in all major courts from the UK, USA, Canada etc because of the way it was written. Within 24 Hours the accounts were deleted.

Geocities and Tripod are two companies who were bigger enough to know that our copyright notice was written in such a way that we could have taken them to court for storing our material.

My advice it to find there ISP, which is normally easy. If they have a domain name, check internic.com to see who hosts the service and work from there.

Hit them with one of there clients is storing your material.

One last trick we did was to download and save one of the HTML pages in question from there site. They no doubt will have made some changes for themselves. DO NOT MODIFY THE PAGE YOURSELF. However in windows it will tell you the modify date. Yours will be earlier than theres. We never used this, but was told by a lawyer if we kept it quite, if we had to go to court, then this stood a good chance of proving who copied who.

I hope it all works out for you.

Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
There should be a site that posts "copyright infringement notices" that you can use when you are confronted with this problem. I always find myself not having enough time or the skills to write a convincing copyright notice. In fact, it would be nice if there was a site that posted infringement notices, copyright notices for software, and site usage policies that are "freeware" which can be cut and pasted for use at your own site. (Is is a copyright infringement to steal someone else's copyright notice? :-) )
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi,
Thanks For the wonderful advice.
Shane Dolby



------------------
Great Forum visit SearchLynx www.shaned.com
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
although this has never happened to me, I have heard that it is a good idea to put somewhere in you page a commented copyright notice. eg:

<!-- Copyright my site 1999 www.mysite.com -->

Most ppl that steal pages will probably be too lazy/stupid to check the code for the notice, and it won't show up in thier browsers, or irritate legitimate users.


DM

[This message has been edited by Danger Mouse (edited February 04, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Danger Mouse (edited February 04, 1999).]
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Are you guys talking about the layout(template), ideas, or the content of the stolen website?
Is it the case like Yahoo.com and YahooSuck.com or something?
I think it is a very good topic, because most of us use Links script, and often the layout of our websites can really look like Yahoo.com. And I think that Yahoo does have a copyright that says something about their (well known) layout.

Pasha

------------------

-[ It's just another night; good morning Webmasters! ]-
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi. Toughpick mentioned these two sites.

You can find all the trademark, and patent information you need at:
http://uspto.gov
Copyright info here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas2.html

I took a look at the information there, while this would work great in the US, this information would not stand up in any european courts. This will no doubt be the case in Asian courts aswell and other growing internet areas which will no doubt cause people copyright headaches in the future. My advice would be to check global companies such as Microsoft and see how they handle it globally.

Martin
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hi,
It's the Layout that is most important in that you are always looking for uniqueness nobody will take the design of a website that is not appealing. Content brings people back. But they will never come back if you have a site that is unapplealing not fast loading or easy to navigate. If your site is not unique people will not remember It. That is what makes a links site different than the others. Otherwise if you have been to one you have been to them all. Think about it why would you come to my site verse yours? It would probably be your design. in your design you offer different content. That is what makes yours and mine different.

Regards
Shane

------------------
Great Forum visit SearchLynx www.shaned.com
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Yahoo actually was amused by my YahooSUCK.com site that they added it to their directory within a week.

Do a search on Yahoo for YahooSUCK and you will find it.

The layout of Yahoo's site is widely used by many large companies such as Netscape. If they wanted to sue someone who infringes on their design, Netscape will also be included as a defendant. As long as the sites are distinguishable, I don't see why anyone should worry about this. Besides, yahooSUCK.com is NOT 100% the same as Yahoo.com. So don't even think of suing me cause they will lose!

John



------------------
www.yahoosuck.com - it really does!
jmurphy@yahoosuck.com
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Hey jmurphy, I'm not saying that you stole or copied Yahoo's website. It's just looks too similar to their, and I need to know, is it a problem to have a website that looks like their. And what if the content is similar? Like on your website you have directory names the same as Yahoo has, could this be a problem?

Regards,

Pasha

------------------

-[ It's just another night; good morning Webmasters! ]-
Quote Reply
Re: What to do When someone Steals Site In reply to
Since we are on the subject of copyright infringement I
will let you know of a case happening right from this forum.

It seems jmurphy from www.yahoosuck.com does not keep his
word and I recommend anyone dealing with this person think
twice before offering your services or products to this individual

I had an agreement with Mr. Murphy concerning his yahoosuck.com
web site as follows: For graphic development of the navigation system
and logo's I would have a banner displayed throughout the yahoosuck
web site. After spending some time and creating the graphics for his site
and countless email he does not respond.
1. Since his site is updated daily he is still actively promoting his site using my
graphics.
2. I have sent to several emails several times so he is getting the mail
3. I submitted a site to yahoosuck and it not enters yet other sites
are still being entered into the database, which concludes he is aware
of my contact.
I suggest you do not do business of any kind with this person.
Since I have had several copyright violations in the past I have explored
the copyright infringement avenue and have learned through experience to batch
copyright my graphics and content on a monthly basis.

Sine I own the copyright and original raw files and have a copy of our agreement including all email contact we have had I will pursue the next step which
is contact from my lawyer. Anyone else having a similar problem with a
copyright infringement contact a lawyer it is inexpensive as long as you have
substantial proof. (original files and copyright registration)

I am posting here so you can actually see first hand how the process goes. And
maybe I can help avoid a possible problem for anyone else who may run into
Mr. Murphy I am also contacting InterNIC since it is obvious he has fake contact
info in his registration which is a violation of their terms.

PS: Make sure you always keep your raw files and all email contact, it is very
important to the success of your copyright case. You can also batch copyright
your new images monthly, weekly, etc. Contact the copyright office for more
information they will send you the forms you need free. Since I am a graphic
designer by trade I need to copyright a large number of images on a steady basis,
doing it monthly will save you some money.

Dave