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cbscreative
12-16-2008, 01:59 PM
As flattering as it can be to have your web content copied, there are some cases where it is just deplorable. The one I found a while back was in the especially unethical category.

A company in the UK, which provides many of the same services I do, had stolen several pages of content from my site. Most of it was used unedited, and where it was changed, it was either to insert their company name or alter an "analogy" to suit cultural differences. What I found most disturbing was that they were selling "original" design but passing off my content as their own.

I would post links for comparison, and I seriously considered doing that, but the offending material is already gone since the person responsible is aware that I caught them with their hand in the cookie jar. My main point in making this post is to caution business owners about the designers you choose to work with for obtaining services, especially web design and graphics. Another reason for posting this is that you should routinely check for your material that someone may have helped themselves to.

One source to check for stolen content is Copyscape (www.copyscape.com), but I can't vouch for their completeness. In fact, I have found it to be very incomplete, but it can still be helpful.

For the record, I received an apology for the theft, but it still is one of those cases where they thought it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. I was much less concerned about the theft itself. What irritated me much more was the way the offending web site mislead potential clients. The web design industry has its share of scammers, and unfortunately that often reflects on the rest of us. We probably have a bigger concentration of scammers then most because anyone with a few bucks to spend on software can call themselves a web designer.

If this thread helps prevent someone from being taken, or helps you catch a thief, then it has accomplished its purpose.

KristineS
12-16-2008, 03:56 PM
I see this all the time with blogs. One person was lifting whole posts off our corporate blog and passing them off as his own. He didn't even bother to change the references.

We finally got the blog shut down, but you have to be on guard. Stealing content is a favorite trick of spammers.

cbscreative
12-16-2008, 04:50 PM
Kristine, you raised a good point for dealing with this issue, and that's getting the offending site shut down. I did not have to go that far in this case, but if the owner of a site using stolen material will not remove it, contact their hosting company. As long as the hosting company isn't a bottom dweller themselves, operating behind the borders of a country that could care less about copyrights, they will usually pull the plug on any site posting stolen content.

I've never yet pursued this course of action, but when all else fails, it is supposed to be possible to get Google to blacklist the site, but I've also heard that is not easy.

Business Attorney
12-16-2008, 07:14 PM
And if they operate at all in the US, send a DMCA notice, just for good measure!

cbscreative
12-16-2008, 07:52 PM
Quite often when I have content stolen, the culprits turn out to be in some place like India. When the site is also hosted in India, they are unresponsive. Bottom line, there's very little I can do.

However, let their buyers who are in the US beware. If they sell stolen goods to a US company, the savings the buyer thinks they are getting with a cheap price could have a venomous bite. I seriously doubt any US author/designer would have mercy on a company caught in possession of stolen property they bought through a foreign source.

billbenson
12-17-2008, 10:30 AM
Report them to Google. G doesn't like stuff like this.

cbscreative
12-17-2008, 01:10 PM
Report them to Google. G doesn't like stuff like this.
Yes, that goes along with the DCMA notice. It's a bit tedious, but if you can't get the material pulled, you can get the offending material removed from Google.

Jagella
12-20-2008, 12:22 AM
As flattering as it can be to have your web content copied, there are some cases where it is just deplorable.

Thanks for posting this information, Steve. As we both know, designers and illustrators look to other people's work for inspiration. I do. Now, I haven't gotten that much inspiration from Web designs, but I see a lot of illustrations, both digital and nondigital, that I will use as a “basis” for my own work. That is, I will create an illustration of my own that borrows some obvious techniques that the other illustration uses such as shading, shape, and color. I also may use the same basic concept and alter it. For instance, I saw an illustration of a jet plane in an Adobe Illustrator book. I decided to create a similar illustration with a plane that looked like the the plane on the illustration except it had four engines instead of two. I also used a different background with the plane flying out of earth orbit with the sun and stars shining in space. You can see the earth below the plane. The other illustration had clouds and blue sky in the background and a landscape beneath.

Anyway, I never published this illustration, and I hope it's original enough to be my own work. I certainly put enough creativity and effort into it to be my own work. So my question is: would it be a copyright violation if I published this illustration? I don't believe so, but are there some legal experts here who can elaborate on this subject?

Jagella