My website pages layout and content stolen by a local software company

[rajesh8759]

From last 2-3 days, I am seeing some strange visitors via my website chat software (Zopim), At first the source was showing to a local computer directory and today it was a live site. The site is a local software company according to their website (some bad reviews on Glassdoor and consumer complaints sites). My content (including html, css, textual content, images) all are now live on their site directory. They have changed the logo but the rest of the things are same.

What are the possible actions can I take now? I am from India and my site is in e-learning category.

Thanks.

[not2easy]

Because copyright laws and enforcement vary from one country to another there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. The first step is always to gather your facts while you research your options.

Document the unauthorized visits with your raw access logs. Do a whois search to determine the owner and contact information of the offending site and to determine where they are hosted. View the page source information for copied content. If the chat visits are due to hotlinked assets, disallow that on your server and with the service provider.

Often the documentation step can give you information to fix the problem yourself. If not, visit their hosting website for the steps to take for copyright violation. These are generalized steps to take because to get specific advice you would need to contact a copyright lawyer in your area. The findings along the way may point to a simpler solution.

[tangor]

Unless you wrote all the code yourself, your rights might be limited. If one is using canned software (chatware) and then apply some logos and maybe a theme look, you probably do not have a very strong copyright position. That would be like one wordpress site suing another for using wordpress with different pictures.

If you DO have created content then pursue your remedies, else lose it.

[rajesh8759]

Yes, it's my own HTML and CSS and I spend a lot of time on developing this. For now, I have send the DMCA notice to host as the content is also copied. Thanks.