Someone Stole My Entire Website!, (what can I do about this in Canada) Options

[diana]

I hope I am posting in the right category.

Well tonight I was browsing yahoo to see where I was listed on the search engine and noticed that someone else has stolen my entire website (the layout, the graphics (exactly identical), my faq word for word, my rates page (almost word for word), my about us page (word for word but substituted their name in place of where mine was), you name it, they stole it and I mean everything!

My husband designed this website and we are wondering what we can do about it. They are even located in the same city as me in Canada.

Here is the kicker, they are claiming to be web design specialists and under their portfolio, they list their other website (which is my website in reality) showing that they designed it!!!

Help from fellow Canadians would be appreciated as I'm sure the laws would be different here than in the U.S. Regardless, I am looking for feedback from anyone at this point.

I am just extremely fuming!

Thanks,
Diana

[Jill]

Hi Diana, sorry that had to happen to you. Unfortunately, it's not that uncommon these days.

You will find this article by Debra Mastaler helpful to at least get them removed from the search engines:

Google Nails Copyright Infringers

You can find some additional articles and resources if you search this site a bit.

Good luck!

Jill

[diana]

Thanks Jill. I am going to read the article. I have heard of people stealing bits and pieces from websites but not the entire website word for word and then claiming that they designed it.

I am still in disbelief.

[leadegroot]

Assuming you are absolutely certain that they stole it (and it does sound like you are (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ), send them a cease-and-desist letter giving them, oh, a week to remove the offending material.
If you would like, you can either have your lawyer write the letter, or just cc the law-guy.
If you are lucky, that will be all that it takes.
Don't take any flack, tell them if they try to make excuses that this is *your* material and they are not authorised to display it.

If that doesn't work, contact their host. Its remarkable how fast a host can take a site down when they see the need (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . You might be able to see your site in the wayback machine predating theirs, or the timestamps on pages may be sufficient.

You have the advantage of both being in the same jurisdiction! I'm amazed they were that stupid!
Have a look at http://pirated-sites.com/ to know that you aren't alone (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

HIH!
Lea

[cyanide]

ooo ouch, diana..
it does happen alot though...

You might want to think about taking some screen shots of the site as well as the offender's as proof... you might want to consult with a lawyer, although it's pretty tough to get legal action taken care of across the Internet...


Whereabouts are you in Canada? (you can pm me, if you like)

[diana]

I am currently in Toronto but we are moving to Mississauga in one week. They actually listed their web page in the google directory under business and economy. Pretty stupid! I will be contacting Google, Yahoo and whoever else I can.

Oh yeah, one other thing. As I said, they copied everything on my page including organizations that I am a member of. (they are not actually members themselves, I guess they forgot to remove that part when they copied my whole website) I have already contacted these organizations and they are sending their own legal letters out to them (LOL)

My husband has everything backed up from the website so it clearly shows that he designed it a while ago.

I am still trying to track down their ISP.

Thanks for the responses. Any more feedback from anyone?

[leadegroot]

You know that you can get a good pointer from the whois data?
eg. go to http://www.internic.net/whois.html and enter the domain name.
The 'Name Server' entry will normally tell you who is hosting them, although sometimes its hard to tell who that is (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

But I would approach the thieves and give them an opportunity to rectify the situation before getting them kicked off, myself. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Martin C]

You might find that this website has some useful evidence you can use http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html

[McFox]

You may be interested in this article on Juiced, where someone has copied the site.

What makes it particularly interesting are the comments added by the person who did the copying.

Copycat Clone of a site

McF

[diana]

Thanks for the responses. I checked out http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html but I couldn't find my previous version of my website. It's okay though because we have copies of how it looked previous to the last change. I would like to see the activity of this other company with regards to changes.

I was on a website in the past couple of months that listed the previous version of my website but I cannot remember the url.

Does anyone know of any other websites that list old archives of someone's website?

[keywordguru]

They are in the same area as you???
I saw show up at their door!!! (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/censored.gif)

[diana]

I just decided to do a "view source code" on their web site.

Well it turns out they are not too swift. They have left my company name in the source code itself throughout various web pages.

I have copied all their web pages to my computer (for proof if needed) but will that be enough evidence if things turn ugly?

[SearchRank]

Make sure you get "screen shots" such as with a Print Screen program. That way it is proof of what you viewed in your browser. If you end up going to court, you might be able to sue for damages as well as they are directly competing against you and committing copyright infringement to do it. I would also report them to their web host and the search engines.

[Jill]

That's pretty funny, and not all that uncommon among dufus thieves! :hehe:

[kevinsource]

The same thing happened to us on more than one occasion. We had our attorney issue a cease and desist letter. The first offender tried to say that they would not be able to take the site down with-in the time frame specified in the letter (1 week), we responded with a new time period of 24 hours, which was intended to let them know we were not messing around, and would not tolerate it. We had another instance where an offender was still serving images from our server and some were even linked back to our site. That was fairly easy to put a stop to.

Another thing for e-commerce sites to watch out for is eBay sellers using your copyrighted content to sell products at auction or in their eBay store. This also happens to us all the time. I discovered this by looking at log files. In some instances, the images were still being downloaded from our server. eBay has a form for sending a complaint and they are usually prompt about removing the listings. I now check eBay listings periodically to make sure that none of our content has been stolen.

I am sorry that this happened to you. I know first hand that it can cause much frustration and cost you time to get the material removed. I would advise that you let the offender know that you intend to pursue the matter and that you will not back down in making sure the content is promptly removed. Good Luck!