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Ripped off sites


falkencreative

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Well, that was fast. Apparently having your site on a couple CSS galleries increases the changes that someone will simply copy and paste your code... Looks like someone literally downloaded my whole site and just added their own content. I'm equal parts frustrated and honored... Mostly annoyed though, since that was a huge amount of work.

 

My site: http://www.falkencreative.com

Their site: http://www.smahuservices.sk/

 

Anyone had this "honor" before? How did you handle it? I've sent a very nice but firm email, but I don't know if they even understand English and I don't want to risk using an automatic translation like Babelfish.

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Ouch!

 

I've had people rip off old designs and articles in the past and I am sure the future will see the same.

 

You could try contacting the ISP, but given this is an international website ... I wouldn't hold my breath. Take it as a complement and move on from there. That said, sometimes contacting the jerk might give you results.

 

Stefan

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Mines always the content. Which I think is worse. Then, google brings them up instead, often leaving me out entirely. A page here a page there - I don't "much" mind. I get crazy on them though when they copy and paste all 40 plus pages. It's happened to me about 5 times so far. Although, I believe my new stern copyright notice is discouraging some.

 

If you contact them though and give them an "or else" altamatum they will most likely remove it. Always worked for me. Actually, I have yet to have to resort to such extremes. So far, I just politely ask and it's gone. Did they take all the images too? Same color?

Edited by Eric
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Mines always the content. Which I think is worse. Then, google brings them up instead, often leaving me out entirely. A page here a page there - I don't "much" mind. I get crazy on them though when they copy and paste all 40 plus pages. It's happened to me about 5 times so far. Although, I believe my new stern copyright notice is discouraging some.

 

If you contact them though and give them an "or else" ultimatum they will most likely remove it. Always worked for me. Actually, I have yet to have to resort to such extremes. So far, I just politely ask and it's gone. Did they take all the images too? Same color?

 

It's literally exactly the same, besides the fact that they replaced my content with theirs. I wouldn't mind so much if it was "inspired" by my design, but they simply copied and pasted. Basically, the only thing they weren't able to copy was the contact form, and some of the dynamic elements that relied on PHP.

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I think that if they copy the code, I'd take it as a compliment, but if they copy content and especially images, that would be infringing copyright.

 

As I've written my own tutorial I expect people to copy my code, and of course if you put anything up on the web you must expect people to take it.

 

I set up a village website with a photo of the village hall. A year later someone set up a village hall website and used my photo, even using the same filename! I discovered that he lived quite cose to me although I didn't know him. I emailed through his webpage email and said that I had listed his site as a link on my site and would he like to reciprocate and credit my photo, which he did. I thought it was cheeky to take my photo, he must have known that I'd notice. Edit: I actually wish he had used some of my code because his is diabolical!

Edited by Wickham
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I'm sure they understand English. I would also email the company whose products they are selling spector360 dot com and tell them about the problem, maybe they will have some influence. Although if you notice the links to spector from their product page does not work.

 

How did you find out?

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I'm sure they understand English. I would also email the company whose products they are selling spector360 dot com and tell them about the problem, maybe they will have some influence. Although if you notice the links to spector from their product page does not work.

 

How did you find out?

 

I was looking at my stats and noticed that one of their pages were redirecting to mine... at least, before they changed it. Otherwise, I probably never would have known.

 

Thanks for the links Newseed -- I'll take a look.

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How do you say "thief" in Russian? Thats despicable.

 

At least they are not trying to claim to be a web designer!

 

We could all spam'em. ALL of us. I could ask some friends from other boards as well. I wonder if we could make his site crash?

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How do you say "thief" in Russian? Thats despicable.

 

At least they are not trying to claim to be a web designer!

 

We could all spam'em. ALL of us. I could ask some friends from other boards as well. I wonder if we could make his site crash?

 

Er. It's Slovak, not Russian, and no, spamming them isn't really necessary. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but that's probably not the best professional response. :P

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can you report them somewhere ( like google or yahoo) together with contacting ISP about this report?

Also, discuss ripp off on all social network available reporting their link. Hopefully it will get into their Google results and they will not like it.

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Er. It's Slovak, not Russian, and no, spamming them isn't really necessary. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but that's probably not the best professional response. :P

 

 

I know...

 

And in the long run it would probably come back on you somehow. It just infuriates me. You have a beautiful design one worthy of emulation. But stealing is wrong!

 

Wish I could reach through my monitor and set his desk on fire... :P

Edited by JBall
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What if we instead make the link to them in this tread a real link? That way, if someone does happen to look for this guy via some search engine - they might just stumble upon this thread and read all about his ethics?

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Well, the article that Newseed posted says not to do that yet. :/

 

 

...and another.

 

That one is more detailed and quite informative.

 

 

I wouldn't want to do anything that would impede on Ben getting his justice.

 

:P I dunno, I don't want to do anything that I can't fix later. I'd rather not post it all over social networking sites unless I know that I can remove those posts later if they make things right.

 

I'll wait on some sort of response from them first.

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I have been searching for a website that compares rip offs, but I can't seem to find it. Anyway, I have also found a helpful website with regards to these matters...

 

http:// www. invision-graphics.com/ design_ripoffs.html

 

Ben, I've often wondered why instead of using copyright to protect work, why can't there be a online tool out there governed by some international body that will easily allow you to make public all updates of your websites from day one, and for there to be a real sense of justice administered when someone has crossed that line.

 

Of course, I wouldn't like people to be dissuaded from gleaning inspiration from one's website, but still this internet has been around a while now, and these issues need to be seriously addressed.

 

If something is not done about this then, perhaps there will soon be people trying to hide their code and files from everyone. Personally though, I like JBall's solution... Just reach in through my monitor and set their desk on fire. :lol:

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Just as a quick update, for those who care... I was able to get in touch the the company that "borrowed" my design. Seems like it just came down to laziness on their part, though obviously that doesn't excuse it, since there are a lot of free or low cost templates out there... He agreed to pull the site, and it looks like it may turn into a web design/logo design job for me.

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