A blatant rip off of our site!

[CGM]

Hey everyone,

A customer brought this to my attention this morning, and I got quite the kick out of it. I've contacted the domain owner and submitted a support ticket through the site in question.

Take a look at: Webhost Melbourne

Then look in my signature at the first link

While our design is not 100% unique (rather a purchased template) I have made several changes to the original design and "WebHost Melbourne" went as far as stealing our hosting plans and information within the slider!

While their site shows items below the slider, ours did as well up until a couple weeks ago. This lets me know they ripped it before then.

I can't believe people will actually rip a design like this, and not only that, use it for a website that is in the same industry as theirs!

I figure the member is probably from here, or one of the other forums I post at. I am posting this at all of them so hopefully the owner will be shamed into removing it.

[ciaossu]

Honestly this is a waste of time. You shouldn't care. There are people cloning sites in every business. At the end of the day, it's not worth your time to go and try to get them removed. It happened to me before and happens to major businesses a lot

[Manny4life]

That is so wrong, they look so identical.

[CGM]

Honestly this is a waste of time. You shouldn't care. There are people cloning sites in every business. At the end of the day, it's not worth your time to go and try to get them removed. It happened to me before and happens to major businesses a lot

How can you even say that? Of course its a big deal.

If he stole our design and used it to talk about cars, or post pictures of his dog I wouldn't be too upset. But the fact is he stole it, and using it for the exact thing I am. Because of his inability to do anything original, I highly doubt he'll ever be a threat, business wise. If he can't afford a cheap template from TemplateMonster, or is too dumb or lazy to get a free template off the web I can't imagine him being able to run a successful business of any sort with his apparent level of half-assing things and taking shortcuts.

Its important to have a online presence that engages the user, and I was pretty damn pleased with our site. And for one of our 'competitors' to so blatantly steal our design is insane.

I found the owner of the site on another forum. I sent an email to him, opened a support ticket on his site, and sent him a PM. He's playing dumb and not responding to my messages. I'll give him a day or two and continue checking his site. If no response is given, or no action taken, i'll go out of my way to defame him. Simple as that.

[rogercbryan]

If you started your site from a template you have no recourse. If you did not trademark your design you have no recourse. If they haven't tried to sell themselves as you then you have no recourse. I can tell you are upset but you have to consider that almost every person that has a blog and then makes a single design change to a WordPress Template could have the same argument as you.

The reality is if your site is not trademarked then you 'gave' the person your design... they did not 'steal' anything.. this is the way the web works...

I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice

[CGM]

I understand that Roger.

While my design is not unique in the traditional sense, I did spruce it up a bit and added new things. I had made some changes to our main-page recently, but his layout is the exact same thing as ours was a mere two weeks ago. But he stole not only the design, but my writing and descriptions as well (as they were about two weeks ago. I have made minor updates to them since then). If someone sees his site first, and then sees mine. They'll think that I stole his design. I don't want that.

Just a bummer. I guess I can't understand why someone would even WANT a design exactly the same as someone else. I see hosting web sites all the time that I think look better than mine, but I would never have the nerve to steal their design and use it as my own just because I 'could' do it and 'probably' get away with it.

Eh, whatever. I've eaten lunch and relaxed a bit, so not really as upset now. If he chooses to use it I will probably get our site redesigned as to not have the same site as someone else. Of course this sucks, because thats time and money out the window. Oh well. Live and let live, right?

[ciaossu]

How can you even say that? Of course its a big deal.

If he stole our design and used it to talk about cars, or post pictures of his dog I wouldn't be too upset. But the fact is he stole it, and using it for the exact thing I am. Because of his inability to do anything original, I highly doubt he'll ever be a threat, business wise. If he can't afford a cheap template from TemplateMonster, or is too dumb or lazy to get a free template off the web I can't imagine him being able to run a successful business of any sort with his apparent level of half-assing things and taking shortcuts.

Its important to have a online presence that engages the user, and I was pretty damn pleased with our site. And for one of our 'competitors' to so blatantly steal our design is insane.

I found the owner of the site on another forum. I sent an email to him, opened a support ticket on his site, and sent him a PM. He's playing dumb and not responding to my messages. I'll give him a day or two and continue checking his site. If no response is given, or no action taken, i'll go out of my way to defame him. Simple as that.

Not that I don't see your point or understand why you're upset. But this is life and the reality is, you're wasting valuable time. I say this because it's the reality of the business world. I can't even keep count of the countless number of people who've ripped off my site designs and used them for the exact same thing over the course of the past decade or so. And this is true especially with large businesses as well. At the end of the day, you can't be concerned with something mundane and stupid like that. You need to focus on growing your business and getting it to the top. If you're at the top, and you own the rights, then you sue. That's exactly what companies like Facebook do to those who copy their site (and boy where there a ton of copycats both domestic and international). But if you try and target every person that copies your business, you're going to be spending a huge amount of your time as your business grows dealing with this rather than focusing on the thing that matters, which is your business.

At the end of the day, as shitty as the situation is, the person that ends up the winner is the guy who builds his business fast and focuses on it 24/7. Not the dude trying to knock down every wannabe that comes his way. It happens ALL THE TIME. Eventually you'll get over it and work on what counts. Let's face it. You're reacting out of anger, not out of rationale behavior. You need to worry about the big things, and ignore the crap that just drags you down. If it makes you feel any better, all those that have tried to copy my businesses over the years have all ended up quitting after awhile because they simply couldn't outpace me so in the end, it didn't matter if they stole my design and business model or not.

[rogercbryan]

You should be a bit flattered... and pissed (rightfully so). You need to visit legalzoom.com and look at trademarking or copy-writing your site if this really concerns you. You could also contact a lawyer and have them draft a letter requesting that they take down the content they stole. If they are from the US you may be able to scare them enough to take it down. If they are from another country you are basically screwed.

I have an adult photo sharing site that someone recently posted copy-written pictures on. Because the site is so big I had trouble finding them and taking them down so the real owner of the photos contacted my hosting company and they took my site down. If you copywrite your site you'll have a little leverage in these situations.

[waterbymidnight]

People do this all the time, unfortunately you have to get on with it. There is not really a lot you can do.

[guidemesingapore]

So did the website in question answer to your ticket? Unfortunately website design ripping off is very common. If you want them to remove the site, you might have to call them or they will just ignore your emails.

[CGM]

I pressured them into changing it.

Although, they simply stole a ThemeForest theme. But its no longer my problem now.

[hockey97]

If you started your site from a template you have no recourse. If you did not trademark your design you have no recourse. If they haven't tried to sell themselves as you then you have no recourse. I can tell you are upset but you have to consider that almost every person that has a blog and then makes a single design change to a WordPress Template could have the same argument as you.

The reality is if your site is not trademarked then you 'gave' the person your design... they did not 'steal' anything.. this is the way the web works...

I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice

No that's not true. Any work you make is copyrighted. If he made the design of the website himself or hired someone to do it . He owns the copyright but if he hired a person he needs to have the person sign a contract that with the sale that he gets the copyrights to their work.

This is a copyright issue and can be a trade mark issue. Trade marks you need to register them with the U.S gov.

Copyrights don't have to be registered but is recommended because it gives you 100% protection where as if you didn't register it you will have a 50% chance of protection of it since you need to prove you are the original creator.

To the original poster: I would say the rest are right on saying you don't have a good solid case.

In the business world people steal designs and formulas and they would add to it and change it in some way that the original owner can't sue them over copyright infringements.

I understand your frustrations because I am currently developing a website I took so far 2 years on it setting up the servers and all that and I also have plans to protect my website design from events like this.

I just would like to tell you that there are ways to prevent people from taking your work. You need to know programming to protect your content of your website.

Not many programmers and people know that you can actually protect all your content on your side and prevent people from downloading your images and grabbing your code. The reason not many know about this is because like what you hear here most people just say that is how the world is and accept it. So they are saying every other business can steal your website design or grab your code and make a duplicate website in seconds and start a business and make profit from it or a benifit from it while yet people go crazy over pirated software and games and music.

So my advice is to prevent rather then become victim. If you get a lawyer to go after someone for this... no lawyer will spend their time because it's not worth spending your time. Meaning they won't be making alot of money on such a case and you really won't benifit from it.

Hope this helps any.


again this is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer. I spent so far 3 years in business major.... majoring in accounting. I took a few business law classes.