NEWS Since silicon.com unearthed the underhand activities of a serial website thief, we have been inundated with examples of similar infringements.
It would seem the problem of intellectual property theft - the stealing of content, designs and images - is a common one experienced by many website owners.
One silicon.com reader, Gary Stanton, wrote in to tell us of his experience and showed us that even fairly niche websites are ripe for stealing.
"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 independent businesses in places such as 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, emailed the domain admin and within 24 hours the site had just vanished. Weird."
Another reader, Adrian Lee wrote: "This isn't especially rare; I know several people who have had to send cease-and-desist notices to websites who have ripped content and/or design completely."
As if to back up the assertion that this is a far from rare event, Rob Kelley wrote: "Someone copied my entire site and changed the copyright into their own name. I called the ISP who closed it straight away - I was mad with anger that someone would do that."
Another reader who also got lucky with a responsive ISP wrote: "I had that happen to my site as well. Not only did they steal 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."
And yet another reader wrote of his own experiences: "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 and keep an eye on your server logs. If they do you can have fun replacing the image."
There was also some practical advice for those wanting to keep tabs on their own content.
"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," wrote the reader.
Has this happened to you? Submit a reader comment below and let us know.
Comments
There are 10 comments. Join the discussion
1. Amanda Sutherland
We have had the same problem with things being stolen from our web site. We have had on our web site for the last 4 years a section for self diagnositics of faults. Another Maintenance company naming no names, when they had their web site updated recently they had a section inserted for Self Diagnostics and it was exactly the same as our, same wording everything. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
(Ed note. Well don't let them get away with it then. Bring it to their attention that you are aware of their theft. If this doesn't work, report it to their ISP and thirdly if you still have no success then I suggest you raise the issue with a lawyer. It is likely even a preliminary lawyer's letter will put the frighteners on them - especially if they know they are in the wrong.)
2. Mark SPLINTER
I think it takes a LOT of very clever work to do a ripoff site that is actually convincing. Trouble is, normally intelligent humans seem to go into "dumbass" mode when sitting on a computer, and just believe whatever they read with zero cynicism. If a similarly designed junkmail came thru their letterbox they would probably bin it immediately.
But if a website offers a good deal on a banner, they don't stop to think.
More internet, HTML and graphic design teaching is needed. Forget maths. I know I did.
3. Nick Harewood
This has probably been going on as long as people have been 'designing' webpages. More often than not - it is a case of an young inexperienced wannabe web designer taking a site design they like and modifying it slightly to suit their/clients needs.
You just need to look at http://www.pirated-sites.com/ to see some of the thousands of examples that have occured in recent years. Many of these may just be designer/developers personal sites being ripped off, but it's still theft of intellectual property. Especially not funny for the clients (who to be fair - are probably getting what they paid for) presented with a second-hand site, pay for it, and are then told to remove it.
4. Jon Pickles
This happened to me but on a slightly different level. I had a specialist guitar for sale on eBay. Someone ripped off everything on that and was selling the same guitar I guess to get credit card details. I emailed eBay and they bumped him off right away. Its maddening because it will stop people using eBay for fear of fraud - and eBay's such a great means of passing on your unwanted things to others who could use them!
5. David Ward
Part of my site has been ripped off by a dodgy Holiday Company that does not answer its phones and has non-working fax numbers and email addresses. I have just posted a 'cease & desist' to the domain registrants home address... which is not far from my own! Gulp.
(PS. so far 2 of my email addresses are accused of being invalied by your narrowminded software).
6. anonymous
I work for 1st Broadband Ltd, our website was copied by another broadband provider who also copied the copyright and changed it to their own name. Unfortunately they failed to check their site fully and had left several references to 1st Broadband in the text.
7. Kenneth Wood
Website theft has recently happened to me and I am mad as Hell!
I have owned OldChevyTruck.com since 1999 and I allow Internet users to sell their trucks on my site. It has been a lucritive business for a single webmaster, like myself.
Now I find that OldChevyTrucksForSale.com has not only stolen my idea, my format, most of my advertisers, but they have also stolen images and even drawn from my server to use my images.
What can be done here? Would they have to obey a cease-and-distist order if I sent one. Do I need to take them to court?
At least I have comfort in knowing that they have no search engine ranking and only receive 90 visitors per day, where my site is ranked #1 on major search engines and receives 1700 to 2000 daily visitors.
8. anonymous
major portions of my website were stolen also. I have been using the Way Back Machine to out them for what they have done. I think it is time we all get together and fight back on this sort of theft, and am open to ideas. my website is http://www.lorrettawoodbury.com if you would like to see the approach I have taken thus far to address this problem
9. anonymous
An ex-employee of our shop left suddenly and took our website access passwords and then registered the website in his name, he now frames our website and links people directly to our rivals shop. We dont know what to do next.
10. anonymous
This happened to my partner and me not to long ago. Oure website was stolen completely duplicated and the thirty most popular pages where ads were run were rewritten by the thief and she directed another adserver to send ads to these pages and she was getting the checks! It was a total mess and the trail went from New York to finally Russia. It took a long time for the server to shut it down because I was unfamiliar with how you have to word things in the emails based on legal issues. Finally after five days the website was shut down. I would find that in my quest to stop this thief that she does this regularly, enough so the adservers have her personal information and they do not forward any checks to her. So for all her thievery she didn't make any money- but man did she cause me some heartache and anger issues!