Forum Moderators: phranque
Names were changed to protect the innocent. I received no response OTHER THAN THE REMOVAL OF THE ENTIRE OFFENDING SITE yesterday.
First email to offender:
Today I discovered that you have two pages on your website that
were lifted word for word from my site. Except where noted, all
material on my site is copyrighted original content. The material
you lifted is copyrighted original content.
Plagiarism of my site is not uncommon. Most of the time it is
simply a lazy webmaster who put it up without the [owenr's]
knowledge. I assume that to be the case in this instance.
Usually a simple e-mail is sufficient to solve the problem.
Consider this e-mail a DEMAND TO REMOVE my copyrighted material
from your website IMMEDIATELY. I have one of the top two Georgia
websites dedicated to [business specialty] and will take whatever steps are
necessary to protect its integrity.
For your reference, my material is located at
www.myhomesite/page1.htm and www.myhomsite/page2.htm . The two
pages I located on your site are www.yourhomesite/page1.htm and www.yourhomesite/page2.htm .
I am hopeful for a speedy response and resolution to this act of
plagiarism.
Follow up email:
I have not received a reply to my previous email regarding the
copy/paste job of my text into your website at www.yourhomesite/page1.htm. Just thought I'd let you know that your webmaster not only stole text from my website, he/she also stole
the design and text of a [one of 50] state lawfirm. You can find
them on the internet at:
thirdparty/homepage.html
They were not hard to locate. Suffice it to say that all the
information needed to track down the other firm is in your source
code.
I will call your office tomorrow to find out why you haven't yet
removed my text. At this point the theft of the [Thirdparty] Firm's
text and site design is not my business. That could change as of
Friday.
I expect you to remove my text by tomorrow.
lawman
I just think that a lot of people do not fully understand that a website is as much copyrighted as a book. People just seam to think that can copy what they want and use it for their own purposes.
He's also put up many fake directory sites that look an awful lot like established directories. One look-alike directory even says "open directory project" and has that dragon hauling tater.
I was just concerned with having my site's info removed. Otherwise it's every man or directory for himself.
lawman
If the other site owner had written or emailed you with a request to use some of your content and retain the copyright info would you have felt any different about it?
Just curious as to weather it was someone using your content or someone stealing your content that was an issue. :)
Judges and lecturers have called and asked to use my stuff in their seminars. I've always granted that right as long as I'm given credit.
lawman
I think a lot of people would allow their work to be used on other sites so long as there was a request for permision, and no conflict of interest. The main aim of content is to have people read it, dont think it matters where they read it but so long as they know who wrote it. In the past I have been given permission to use other peoples work and am happy to link back and acnowledge who wrote it.
lawman
This was all hand crafted advice on different consumer products - in other words 'information' pages, but hand crafted slog nevertheless.
In this case, it was not their web design firm, they 'did' the site themselves and refused to remove it when requested by e-mail, using the strange defense of 'well you probably copied it yourself anyway - everyone does it'.
My client didn't want to go 'legal' on them so I sent e-mails to the major search engines reporting them for copyright infringement and requesting that the site be removed. I sent one per day and copied it to the offenders.
By the third day the site was removed.
Sure, it was a little bit of bluff - but also a little bit of self protection.
Lawman is right though, usually it is the web design company doing the nicking in which case a more considered approach is required
[edited by: 4eyes at 9:00 am (utc) on Sep. 20, 2002]
I'm much more tolerant when there's a request for permission first and the offer to link back.
Most importantly it explains why with Web, there is abslutely no need to copy material as it can always be accessed at an open URL. Copying just gums up the web. Usually that is enough to make people understand and discorage blatant stealth. It also lets them know in a nice way that we monitor for our content regulalry and they are unlikely to get away with it.
I am happy to provide the statement to fellow WebmasterWorld users as long as you don't copy it word for word. (:- It would be useful for news or article sites like ours.
I'll use comic sans then copy it ;)
I then wrote to all of them and told them that if they would like to be removed from the list, they could e:mail me when they had removed the material they "borrowed". I have had zero responses since the page went up. Seems humiliation has no affect at all. People have no pride anymore!
I think a lot of people would allow their work to be used on other sites so long as there was a request for permision, and no conflict of interest.
No way, no way, no way. I'm a consultant - I sell my creative ideas. Why should I take food off of my table because someone is too cheap to pay for my efforts?
No way.
Lawman - I gave someone in your business a bid for a site - $13,000, including research. They came back and said someone's nephew had offered to do the site for $500 and showed me the draft. It looked great! So I did a quick Yahoo search for law firms, and very quickly found that he had lifted the entire site from a major West Coast law firm.
However, he was smart enough to strip identifying code. By the way, the (former) client accused me of trying to "rip them off" because they could buy from him for $500.
For my new website (the one now in my profile) I hired someone to design a template and come up with a logo. I nixed the first two logos but loved the third (the one on the site). He also put together the online questionnaire. I am responsible for everything else.
Haven't got a bill yet, but I'm sure it will exceed $500.
BTW, the site in my profile isn't the one that was ripped off although I expect it to be at some point.
lawman
By the way, the (former) client accused me of trying to "rip them off" because they could buy from him for $500.
Oo, that angries up the blood! One of the major downsides to our industry and the clients in our industry is that no one knows exactly what to charge, and there are enough poseurs to throw off legitimate web developers' numbers.
When I first started, I did a contract for a rebuild of a website for a business a friend worked at. I charged under $800 (let's leave it at that). They were surprised because when they first had it made, it cost them $3000. I was surprised because the website wasn't very good.
Just shows to go ya, experience tells you when and where you should charge more (not necessarily because it's worth it to the client, but because you can).
experience tells you when and where you should charge more (not necessarily because it's worth it to the client, but because you can
I don't think we've ever had a client express surpise at our low rates ;) If we did, we would sure raise them in a hurry!
