Non US citizen - What to do if someone steal my site design/structure

[iCyborg]

Hi, I am a Non US citizen and just want to know what I can do if someone steal my design/site structure. I am in a marketing niche and I know people who the moment will see my soon to be launched site, will immediately copy the design/structure/concept etc. I know these 3 are different thing but I just want to make sure I can keep my uniqueness and somehow prevent/scare competitors to not think of copying.

Regards

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

If they don't use your images or content and your layout is not totally unique then you are going to have a hard job getting anyone to do anything about this. I am not saying that it is right but AFAIK no one has ever been prosecuted for infringing copyright on a standard web layout.

If this were the case then the person who first introduced a drop down menu would have made a fortune in infringement cases. ;)

(IANAL and someone will no doubt prove me wrong now.) :)

[vivalasvegas]

The fact that you are not a US citizen is irrelevant. If someone steals your website copy you can take their website down in a matter of hours by writing to their host. However, as the previous poster said - if it's not an obvious copyright infringement there's nothing you can do, US citizen or not.

[iCyborg]

ok fair enough I guess. Is their any law which I can talk about while mailing to host ? does DMCA covers copying layout of site ? I mean I have a webform with 5 rows, labels and some default values, if someone copies that, can I "ask"/force them to make changes since its looking way too much like my site ?

[htdawg]

had that happen to me also, I sent an email to his host & they took it down

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Stucture, layout and concept don't call under copyright or trademark law, so there's nothing you can do besides ask the infringer to modify their site.

A tthe end of the day, success about execution, market share, mind share, and critical mass. Focus on those critical elements.

[tangor]

"Look and Feel" is very difficult to prosecute.

But it always twists the undies when somebody rips you off.

If you can prove an EXACT rip-off file a DCMA.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

AFAIK no one has ever been prosecuted for infringing copyright on a standard web layout.

As I said, I don't think anyone has ever been taken to task for this and there are thousands of examples of sites on the net that use essentially the same layouts. Someone developed all of these layouts originally but no one got taken to court for copying them. It just doesn't happen.