Ergh. So I am putting this here because I know there's not much I can do without lawyers besides writing them an angry email. Backstory: In the last two weeks or so, I've been picking up a good increase in traffic to my site from Romania. Google Analytics tell me this is coming from Romanian forums, and While looking at the forums, I realised that I don't speak enough Romanian (read: None whatsoever) to even register, nevermind see the links. Then this morning, "maxdrivers.info" showed up as a search string that's leading to traffic. So I typed that into the address bar, only to find a romanian site that has literally STOLEN my layout, my images (though colour adjusted) and changed the text. The thievery was such a bad job that the GA trackign code is still mine, and as such, all of the traffic going there is showing up on my GA. I've done a Whois Lookup on them (as their contact form is a signup form in romanian, as far as I can see), so I now have _a_ Mail address I could contact. Doesn't change the fact that I am angry at them for such a cheap shot. Taking positives away from it: I know it's time to redesign the site a bit anyway, since it's got a few issues, and am planning to do that in the coming month or so (after I launched project Hindenburg that I am working on right now). I also reckon that my layout and graphics clearly appealed to this romanian scumbag enough to steal them. It still peeves me off... also: zeics.info
Thanks, Faugusztin. I read that as well. Hence trying to be "smart" about it and venting before contacting them. I am going to send the contacts listed on their admin section (whois lookup) an email, explainign the situation, and thanks to the GA code, I can prove it. Failure to comply will lead to me taking it up with their web hosts and trying to get them kicked off the Google index. Either way, my site needs a redesign. That landing page is brutally uneffective.
These random guys will just rip the site and then use it as their own, but I don't see how they actually turn a profit with a stolen site. I've seen stolen sites with the original logo even! I realize how irritating this must be, it's probably not even a real person on the other end.
Bituser: I hear what you're saying. It's just irritating... hence the "rant" tag. Their web host is in Germany though... which makes it easier to go "intellectual property. Take down, plzkthxbye" than if it was in, say, Russia.
Design your next website with some sort of hidden backdoor, so that if it's stolen, you can easily login, and slap a big goatse on it or something like that
Not the most mature way of handling the situation, but you do raise a good point. It could be a small problem because the guys generally rip the HTML and CSS, it's very difficult to rip php, asp, python etc without actually having access to the server. It's the dynamic languages that would probably provide a back door. Perhaps you could embed one in the HTML as a form, but then the problem remains that if anyone reads the source of your actual website they'll spot a backdoor to you site!
What about when attempting login through the backdoor, the host website is checked, and if it's a mismatch then backdoor login is enabled.
I believe that would once again require some php, but it still may be possible via embedding. Not the safest way to combat theft.
Nah... There's quite literally not much one can do about this. Page scrapers (the software used to steal the CSS, images and HTML) are trickable, and I reckon I might use that somewhere in the next layout. As for backdoors, etc: Most of that would require access to the server, or severe idiocy from the side of the "ripper". One of the options wold obviously be an obfuscator. effectively: run the CSS through an encryption/decription, preferably a javascript library, and work from there... not exactly gracefully degrading or particularly efficient, though. Mind - the idiocy in this case allows me to prove that I am the rightful creator of the graphics.
I see what some people do is add a link to a website in the footer of the website. I can't remember what the site is called, but when the crawler hits the link it just keeps following it. Only problem is that you can set a limit to how many links the crawler follows. You just have to DMCA them if they are in the US, otherwise it's generally not even worth the hassle as they don't do to much harm.
Don't know how it was done, but I remember hearing something like this years ago and the website designer did some thing so everytime some one looked up the name on google it the first hit was a redirection to say this site had been stolen and a whole load of other stuff to screw up thier business
The problem is enforcing the copyright law in different parts of the world. A friend of mine works for JCB and he recently told me about problems they have with people in places like India stealing their designs. He said that they will buy a machine, so JCB ship it out, then they just reverse engineer it and sell the exact same machines for less than we could make them for over here. If a company like JCB can't do much about it, then sadly us guys have no chance. If they were in the USA or Europe then you could probably stop them, but it would be a real battle to do much about it there i think (not that i know that much about this stuff). Could always just DDoS them, lol. It's not fair, but this stuff happens.
International Copyright law is a difficult thing. I'll try to get a response out of them the "nice way". (i.e. "Hey... the design you're using is stolen from me, and I can prove it. Please cease and desist" - in more and friendlier words). Failing that, I'll talk to their ISP (Germany shouldn't be too hard to get it enforced). Failing that, I'll try to get them removed from the google index, and alert them to the fact that I did that so they topped polluting my GA stats.
The ISP won't be a problem - we're quite strict about copyright over here and since you can prove the theft, the ISP will take the site down. What's the ISP's name if I may ask?
The one server (maxdrivers) belongs to Hetzner Online Ag, IP 178.63.55.41 The other one seems to be a romanian IP, which makes it a lot harder. I got a response from maxdrivers's admin contact going "Prove that this is your front page, because I see differences". I replied by going through the images directory, pointing out images that I am using, going through the stylesheet, pointing out classes, colours, etc that are identical to mine, and pointing out the registration dates and google cache of the websites, proving that I was there before. I am not telling him about the GA code yet, because I'd like to reserve that for last (i.e. if I have to get the site shut down at ISP levels)
So it turned out that this person owns the ISP of the one site (registered in Italy, zeics.info), and the other one (maxdrivers, hosted in Germany, registered in romania) is "a client of his". He also kept asking for proof, "something like a photoshop file". Apparently google cache showing that I had the exact same markup and CSS (Besides a few colours) for over a year before his domains were even registered wasn't enough, and he accused me of downloading the layout. Combine what we know, and I figured (but didn't tell him): "Well I could send a PSD file. No isues there, but he might as well accuse me of downloading that then. Not to mention that he could modify it and turn the whole thing around on me." So I blew a bit of a gasket after the tenth mail, and reported him to Hetzner AG and Google (for removal fromt he index). Then I told him: "Combine a GA tracking code that's been assigned to me for over 2 years with the likeness in looks and markup and you have pretty much irrefutable evidence. I have reported this to Hetzner AG and Google". So I got a snotty remark back, stating that because he's an important client, Hetzner wouldn't do anythign without his approval, and that he's given his clients 24 hours to respond. 2 minutes after that, I get a response from Hetzner (besides the auto responder), stating that the issue has been addressed with the client, and the client has been asked to fix the offending pages, remove the graphics and put forward a formal statement to both me as well as Hetzner AG. This morning I got a response from Google, stating that 4 out of the 6 URLs I sent had been removed. They decided against the one image, as likeness was there, but the image is too simple to justify. Fair Enough. I still feel that this guy is most likely the offender here. 2 Clients of his having the same layout and graphics... I see a common element there: Him. Either way, Let's see what happens further.
We'll see, I suppose. Google reacted well, Hetzner did as well. I see both sites are still the same, though... Will follow up hard on Monday.
