NEWS A serial website thief is ripping off content and other intellectual property wholesale - much to the annoyance of the companies and individuals whose businesses depend on the sites affected.
To date, silicon.com is aware of two companies that have suffered similar fates but the pattern and the ease with which these criminals can move on has raised concerns that many more companies could have fallen victim to this ploy - and that many others may do so in the future.
silicon.com was contacted by Shane O'Donoghue, who has been running a website called Car Enthusiast - dedicated to all things automotive - since 1999. It gets about four million impressions per month and O'Donoghue sells advertising on the site in order to pay the bills.
However, he recently noticed another site, called 'Car or Car', that had cropped up in the previous month or so and was ripping off his site design, content and even his copyright notice. It was then using his hard work to sell advertising of its own. The complete 'cut and paste' nature of the theft meant that O'Donoghue was even listed as Car or Car's editor - next to a picture of himself.
Understandably O'Donoghue was upset and tried to get in touch with the site's owners.
"We emailed them via the contact page, which was the same as our own, and heard nothing back," he said. "We then contacted the authority that controls the domain and heard nothing."
Part of the problem was that the site was being hosted outside EU jurisdiction, in Taiwan. This isn't altogether surprising - such a choice of location suggests that the site's owners were attempting to safeguard themselves from legal action.
While China, Taiwan and the Far East in general are not the lawless internet havens they once represented for the likes of spammers and fraudsters, they still present barriers when seeking legal recourse.
O'Donoghue said: "We're not a big company and we don't have the lawyers or the money to pursue legal action."
However, a twist in the tale came when silicon.com contacted Car or Car and informed them that their illegal business model had been rumbled. Although we received no reply the site vanished overnight, to reappear the next day in a new guise - this time a complete mirror image of another car enthusiast site - and this time one being run out of Rochester, New York, in the US.
Until its owners move on to their next victim, compare the genuine Sports Car Club of America website with the not-so-genuine Car or Car site. The only difference is the banner ad at the top left for a company called refinance-now.org, registered in Pennsylvania by an organisation called Webclients.
At the time of writing, Webclients had failed to respond to an email requesting it clarify its relationship with carorcar.com - which it may be sponsoring unaware of any crime being committed.
Michael Cover, a partner and intellectual property expert at law firm Faegre Benson Hobson Audley who also sits on WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) dispute panels, told silicon.com: "If you have this kind of problem in the UK, it is reasonably easy to resolve. But this can sometimes present very difficult problems, especially where a site is registered outside the EU."
But companies that think distance and national borders protect them may be disappointed to hear China is becoming increasingly open and Cover said: "Taiwan is a very developed jurisdiction and there should be no problems now pursuing cases such as this."
The copycat site certainly appears to be in breach of "copyright - such as design and literary content", he added and rectifying the situation may not be as problematic as first feared.
Lawyers agree that in the first instance the aggrieved companies should try "putting the frighteners" on the individuals behind these crimes, who doubtless know they are in breach of the law and may therefore give in at the first sign of trouble.
At the time of writing, Shane O'Donohue is considering his options. The people behind the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) have been informed by silicon.com of the breach of their copyright and the hosts and administrators of Car or Car, based in Taiwan and Australia respectively, have been informed of the part they are playing in enabling this crime.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Probably using XML to grab the remote page. This would take only a few lines of code and doesn't require copying all of the pages.
2. Gary Stanton
This happened to me!!!
I run a massive body piercing website at bodyjewelleryshop.com. We sell loads of piercing jewellery online. Last year I came across 'Bodyjewelries.net'. A very similar website, which had taken every single one of my product images, and was selling every single one of my products at the same prices. Not sure how they did this, but the thing is that we have several suppliers, some of which are very small independant businesses in places like brighton. This website was run in the US and could never have got all the stock that we had, which leads me to believe that these people were just using the site to harvest credit card numbers! I did a whois query, e-mailed the domain admin and within 24 hours the site had just vanished. Weird.
3. anonymous
This is absolute madness. How can the internet be considered as a serious commercial entity when we have goings on such as this. Controls over such an arena always promote critism but are needed to stop such acts. Very difficult problem I am sure you agree?
4. John Beardon
Give the IP of their web server to the authors of Mydoom. A sustained DOS would soon make their hosting provider sit up and take notice! (Not that I am advocating that sort of thing!)
5. anonymous
We were on the receiving end of an attempt to steal a copyright database from our web site last year. It showed up as a million data requests in one weekend. We tracked it back as far as his/her ISP, who were UK-based, and "persuaded" them to finish the job by threatening to bar access from all their customers to our site unless they identified and dealt with the offender. No trouble since, but what would we have done if it wasn't a UK ISP?
6. anonymous
I don't know much about IP laws at all but is this really illegal?
If I create a site which includes a frame that loads another site within it but I'm not altering any of the data of the second site, nor changing any of the copyright information, is this still a breach of copyright? After all, all copyright notices are being left intact? Technically, I haven't actually copied any of the material, I've redirected visitors from my site to it.
If this is legal, can I not then sell advertising on my own site around the frame?
I'm not trying to say this is legal, I'm just curious as to exactly why it isn't.
7. anonymous
Nothing new here as some websites 'rip off' the news then ajust to their own sites to make it look like a scoop!
8. Jeff
The best way to deal with a site like this is to cut off their source of income.
The ad banner on the site is an affiliate marketing banner from websponsors.com.
I'm sure if someone contacts Websponsors and can prove that the content of the site has been stolen then they are likely to close the site owners account without paying him.
9. Steve Markham
Weve just had for second time in a year, possibly different operator, attempted scaremonger scam along the lines of: we are a major ISP just had application to register (your company name) for all available domains .co.uk, .com, .net etc; as a
concerned provider we call to warn you of this: no one in the world actually owns these domains- we could however protect registration for you for £xxxx. They summarily hang up if you ask questions that sound like you know a little about the subject... many might fall for this though
10. anonymous
This sort of thing is all too common... however, all the articles I've seen on what to do if your site is copied say to contact the offender and ask them to remove the site.
However, this means the offender can potentially have months or years of use of the content until the copyright owner spots them, at which point they just go and copy someone else's site. Does anyone know of any cases where the copyright owner has got compensation from the offender for the use of the content?
By the way, if you need evidence that your site has been copied check out http://www.archive.org
11. anonymous
As an information site owner, I am all too aware of the problems faced here.
We accept article submissions to our site and have had another webmaster copy these articles. We are unable to do anything about it (not our copyright) and the authors seem unconcerned that their work appears on a site designed specifically to generate advertising revenue.
It's a slap in the face to all the hard work I've done contacting people and seeking permission to use their work, for someone to come along and copy it on a daily basis to make a quick buck.
Fortunately, most of our content is original and written in house so we can protect our own copyright, so the other site is far from a carbon copy of our own.
In situations where our own work has been copied, the offenders have removed the material either on request or when we contacted their hosts.
There should be more legislation in place to protect copyright interests. As it is, information is a free for all and simply removing the evidence when asked to removes all responsibility.
12. Adrian Lee
This isn't especially rare, I know several people who have had to send cease and disist notices to web sites who have ripped content and/or design completely.
Dave Shea at www.mezzoblue.com had the same problem a while ago with someone saying they were going to rip off several of the designs at www.csszengarden.com
The article here makes out like its something thats only just started.....
13. anonymous
To the person who asked if this is really illegal....IMO, it's the virtual equivalent of stealing someones product, slapping your logo or adverts on it as a co-brand and selling it.
Im pretty sure the law doesn't cover this on the net (other than copyright infringement).
@Steve - Ive had that scam as well. Was a royal pain when 2 senior managers are demanding that I (web designer at the time) instantly snap up all these domain names because "people were searching for them right now" *sigh*.
There should be accountability for people who use content without permission.
After I posted my comment above ("As an information site owner..."), I checked some of my articles and lo and behold, I found one on another site without permission or credit given.
(in all fairness, I emailed them and they removed it within minutes, as well as giving me 6 months advertising on the site....probably unware that I also emailed their managing director....ah well...we'll see if the ad is still there tommorrow!)
I once had someone copy my site, but link to my forum (ie the "forum" link on their site went to mine). So I setup a redirect based on the referrer (their domain) and a custom page to let all their visitors know exactly what they were up to! ;)
The sad fact is that there is little that can be done to protect your content, and even less that can be done to seek compensation. (I suppose you could agrue someone profiting from your content from content based adverts such as Adsense owes you....).
I've found in the past that having links to other pages on your site within the text of your content deters theives a bit (they are lazy - dont want to remove the links and edit the text). Trick is to write your content in such a way that they wouldn't make sense if the links were taken out.
I agree with the comment that these people are harming Internet business - even if they are not ripping off customers, their method of doing business will leave a sour taste in the mouths of the industry.
14. Shecky Malmsteen
There's a simple fix. Particularly for sites in China... Simply identify (via the site logs) the host mirroring their site (it's the one that disregards the robots.txt file and hits every page), the configure your site/server to deliver alternative content to that site. Perhaps a screed condemning the local goverment for human rights violations, etc. Once their mirror shows that content, I guarantee that it will be looked into.
15. Danny Hatt
That is a real copy. Im surprised this article alone wouldnt get the webmaster to drop the site.
Until they make a browser that LOCKS every single internet page, and really smartens up, there will be site theft.
Drug laws work well too..
16. Rob Kelley
I had this happen to my site
www.logosformobiles.com - someone copied my entire site and change the copyright into thier own name!! I called the ISP who closed it straight away - I was mad with anger that someone would do that!
17. Joe Job
XML to grap the content? Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
18. anonymous
Here's a question: can you copy an actual copyright agreement from a website...those are just legal documents. :)
19. anonymous
Couldn't the advertisers be charged with a crime? Something like purchase of stolen property or something?
20. Steve
> There should be accountability for
> people who use content without
> permission.
And how exactly would you impliment that?
The fact is this is the real world, this is what happens when you make a crime out fo something that can't actually be accounted and stopped.
Perhaps the real problem is that the government has granted a subsidy in the form of copyright that they can't actually really make good on except in certain limited cases, and now people are taking advantage of the fact that it can't really be enforced.
The law gets broken and you can't do jack. This is what you get when your buisness model relies on effectivly unenforcable laws being enforced.
All in all their weak link is the money, they are obviously trying to profit... so they have to actually get the money.
Of course, if they are real good, then they have their asses covered there too, but, thats doubtful.
21. anonymous
One really good solution is to just make your site entirely dynamically generated via [your favorite scripting language] pulling from [your favorite database]
They might be able to emulate the look of your website, but all your content is going to harder to get.
22. anonymous
To the idiot who said using XML. You just proved you don't know what you're talking about. XML is a markup language. Nothing more, nothing else. It doesn't grab webpages, it doesn't anything of the sort. Next time do your research.
23. Anthony
I had that happen to my site as well. Not only did they suck the entire site, but with pictures of me as well. A friend is the one who told me about it and i promptly sent an email to abuse@ their isp and took care of it right away.
24. Jeff Sprigg
Perhaps there is a solution? Why not rig the web server so that any attempt to 'rape the website' would result in a block IP? All you'd have to do is gauge the requests made... perhaps the shear number of requests in a given time period, or maintain an 'internal' log of each item requested... if it looks as though the site is being ripped off, block access. You could also 'hide' a URL in a webpage that shouldn't be followed by a regular user (say a white on white link that is too small to click on). If that link happens to be followed, block the IP. Website crawlers rip every link.
25. Brian Greene
I like how the membership form still has the url for the original site to grab the pdf form. I have borrowed, I use that term very loosely ideas from other sites. Content perhaps, though I did take the time maybe to reword the content if it was in text format. As far as images if it wasn't free, as in uncopyrighted I wouldn't use it. Someone has blatantly ripped this off the other site. I am amazed at the need to swing a quik buck, HTML coding takes almost no skill. Anyone can master it in a little over a week, yet this person has no interest obviously in trying to come up with orgiginal content. I am disheartened.
26. anonymous
Interesting because the only difference is the main page, and when you get ot the secondary pages, the links using the full html of the main page lead to the original site from the fake site... so as long as you keep all your links with their full urls, you might be safer?
27. anonymous
I've had complete graphics stolen off my site and confronted the users. Some had the gall to claim the graphics as their own work! However, embedded within them was our copyright notice. When I told them that I just looked at our graphic on their web site and that it contains our copyright, the offending site removed it immediately
28. tt
Our school's webpages was also copied by another China's university. And we have nothing to do with them.
29. anonymous
Am I the only one that realizes the banner traffic we are giving these guys? Way to discourage site theft. lol
30. anonymous
Compare www (dot) autraining (dot) com with the front page of http://www.perltraining.com.au/ (I've obsured the above because I don't want to give it any further legitimacy).
autraining used to be a great site for finding all sorts of IT training in Australia. Now it's a porn pointer. That's right, have a look at it's page source. The idea is to to trick search engines into thinking it's valid content and so that the pages it links to will also be indexed.
This is a very common motivation for people to rip off other people's content and has nothing to do with advertising.
31. Andrew Bairnsfather
I made a web site for my brother in the middle 90's and someone did the exact same thing, copied all my work. I don't know the outcome since my brother lives outside the US and isn't very talkative.
However, it seems to me one of the easiest ways to bring folks back to your site instead of the ripped-off one is to use absolute links instead of relative ones.
However, I think the suggestion to redirect automated copying to a rant about the local govt. the thief is in (especially if it's communist) is a funny tactic!
32. anonymous
Prevention.
I use a bit of javascript to make sure my site isn't framed in.
Also all the articles on my site have a line of script that check if their document.location is the correct one and jump to the correct one if it isn't.
33. dave
XML to grab the content? Maybe they could use JPEGs to upload it, and finish it off with a CSV to host it on... XML is a format. XML does nothing but hold data. It has no code. It does nothing. sheesh
34. adam
"Probably using XML to grab the remote page. This would take only a few lines of code and doesn't require copying all of the pages."
I'm sure I've seen a stupider comment than that somewhere before, but the sheer stupidity of the statement has blocked out all recall.
35. Stephen C
Javascript to prevent a site being ripped off?
Ahahahahah Whoever posted that can't be serious. So all a person has to do is turn javascript off in their browser, or use wget (and maybe make it lie about its useragent so you don't even know they scraped the site).
The simple fact is that anyhing someone can download, they can edit and republish. Period. The End. Anything.
Even if you used a cgi to generate dynamic content, they can still steal all the static content that it generates.
They can edit your javascript.
Not so sorry to say ytour javascript stops nothing.
36. anonymous
I have had this happen to my websites too.
I think many people either do a view source in their web browser or just highlight and copy the text. A lot of them still link back to your own images, so use absolute urls for images keep an eye on your server logs. If they do you can have fun replacing the image.
If you put a strange phrase in the middle of your text then it will be easier to find on other sites using a search engine.
37. anonymous
"If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio, and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation - until now." --http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html
--
bendymind.com
38. Paul
One can easily lock content with Flash... and to be honest, I don't think there is anything illegal here!
One can easily make a site that has nothing but a few line of code and copies the entire look-and-feel and presentation of another site ... and the content of your site is just something like 5 lines of code ...
39. anonymous
XML *might* be used to grab remoted content...or, more accurately, an XML processor might process some XML that uses either XLink or XIncludes to pull in remote data and feed it to the client.
40. Matthew Wright
That is horrible. I've never had anyone jack my website ENTIRELY, but that's probably because I've never had a good enough one ^^. I tell you what though, when the abilities of programs like Getleft 1.1.1 were allowed to leave the hands of people who wanted to write a socket script themselves, it was just asking for trouble. It is the natural progression of the internet though, as people learn, pride taketh over, sharing of information ensues, and sooner than later, you have an entire army marching in the back of you that has adapted everything, existing only to adapt more of your creations. Kind of pathetic if you ask me, but more annoying than pathetic, as that is the main reason people are using flash movies as entire websites now, to avoid the "sourcing" of them. Frankly, I'd rather risk the presence of the idiots, write a script to do a a google search for my materials everyday (which major companies as well as universities actually do to check for cheaters), rather than have everyone on anything less than DSL have to wait an hour for my "impossible for the rest of the non-flash staff to update this" website to load. ;)
41. Craig Morris
People representing someone elses work as their own is nothing new. In the 80's I worked as a photographer and designer for an well known studio in a tourist location in the southeastern U.S. Often I would design a project, write the copy, provide the photographs and do the mechanicals for printing of client materials. A few years later while production manager for a publication in a nearby city I had need to hire a graphic artist. One of the applicants had worked for the same studio, and I called them in for an interview. Much to my surprise the applicants portfolio contained pieces I had produced. They didn't get the job.
The web just makes it easier for even less talented people to steal other's work. When people steal my internet property I use them as examples of the validity of my work.
42. Pharme
Very nice site!