falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
administrator Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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 Quote
PicnicTutorials Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) 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 January 18, 2009 by Eric Quote
falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
administrator Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 Now you know how Adobe feels. Quote
falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Posted January 18, 2009 I suppose, seeing how I really can't force them to take it down, I'll just have to take it as a compliment. It probably won't be the last site I do that gets ripped off somehow. Quote
Wickham Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) 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 January 18, 2009 by Wickham Quote
virtual Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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? Quote
Susie Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 Oh Ben, that's horrible! I would definitely say something. I mean - they even took the darn favicon!! Quote
Andrea Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 Ben, they did do some changes to the code: Quote
newseed Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 What a dip they are. Spam the suckers! Really, not much you can do. Another discussion here. Quote
newseed Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) Another one and also this one. Edited January 18, 2009 by newseed Quote
newseed Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 ...and another. That one is more detailed and quite informative. Quote
falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
JBall Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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? Quote
falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
lm Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
JBall Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) 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. 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... Edited January 18, 2009 by JBall Quote
Andrea Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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? Quote
lm Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 it will be great - this thread will be at the top of their google search Quote
JBall Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) 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. Edited January 18, 2009 by JBall Quote
falkencreative Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. 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. Quote
JBall Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 That's probably the best solution... :| Quote
MacRankin Posted January 18, 2009 Report Posted January 18, 2009 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. Quote
falkencreative Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 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. Quote
Susie Posted January 20, 2009 Report Posted January 20, 2009 He agreed to pull the site, and it looks like it may turn into a web design/logo design job for me. Way to go, Ben! I hope you get the job!! Quote
DesignBySLS Posted January 20, 2009 Report Posted January 20, 2009 *chuckle* I think I had forgotten to tell you I like the design Ben... but hey... You've been ripped so that says more than I could! Good luck with the potential client! S Quote
JBall Posted January 20, 2009 Report Posted January 20, 2009 Er. It's Slovak, not Russian It's all Greek to me! ba dump bump ching Quote
newseed Posted January 20, 2009 Report Posted January 20, 2009 He agreed to pull the site They may have agreed but your design is still up on their site. Quote
falkencreative Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Posted January 20, 2009 He agreed to pull the site They may have agreed but your design is still up on their site. I realize that. I'm working on that part... Quote
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