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David
5th Jan 2004, 07:41 pm
It has just been drawn to my attention that another website out there looks a little like one of my own. Take a look at my CADTutor (http://www.cadtutor.net) website and then take a look at Digimods.co.uk (http://www.digimods.co.uk/index2.htm).

Notice the similarity?

OK, what do I do - reach for my lawyer?
francis
5th Jan 2004, 08:19 pm
Strewth, that's a bit close.

I&#39;d download and go through the source code. Looking at the first 20 or so lines, you can see immediate similarites (JS file names are the same, there&#39;s the same CSS in the <head>). They&#39;ve whipped your entire code and tweaked bits here and there. It could be worse, you do hear of people who actually link to the orginial sites&#39; files, effectivly taking your bandwidth. They&#39;ve used FrontPage though, so it could well be some spotty oik. Although, if you look at the actual home page (http://www.digimods.co.uk/) it says &#39;As seen in Redline, Max Power and Revs magazines "4/5.. this site is full of amazing virtual modified cars".

I did see this gem in their code:

&#60;script language="JavaScript1.2" fptype="dynamicanimation" src="file:///C:/Program%20Files/Microsoft%20Office/Office10/fpclass/animate.js">
</script>

After that, most common advice is:

1: Email the webmaster with a &#39;please compare my site with yours. I coded mine, I don&#39;t know who coded yours, but I&#39;m not happy. Please change it&#39;. You might find that they paid someone to do this for them and the site owners are ignorant of the fact that you&#39;ve been ripped off/they&#39;ve been conned. Be nice and give them a chance to reply.

2: If you get no response, contact their site host (http://www.rpi.edu/dept/acs/consult.sav/web/restricted/tracing_address.html) and mention copyright theft. Try and get their site taken down.

3: After that, threaten both with a lawyer

4: After that, pay a lawyer.

Dig out all your original photoshop files - make sure you don&#39;t change anything that will affect the date stamp. Also, if you&#39;ve got the original HTML, CSS + JS files, don&#39;t change the date stamps.

A quick whois shows up:

Domain Name:
digimods.co.uk

Registrant:
Peter Smith

Registrant&#39;s Address:
3 Augusta Close
Grimsby
N E Lincs
DN34 4TF
GB

Registrant&#39;s Agent:
RedStation Internet Limited t/a RedStation [Tag = REDSTATION]

URL: http://www.redstation.com

A quick look at the redstation site shows that they&#39;re also a web host. Both digimod site and resdtation are running IIS and ASP.NET, so it would be a reasonable guess that his registrant is his host.

How about adding something to their site suggestions page (http://digimodforum.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=suggest)?&#33; Still, people seem to like your work (check the &#39;new look digimods&#39; thread).

Or you could publicly humiliate them (http://www.pirated-sites.com) in a different manner. That site is great.
David
5th Jan 2004, 10:54 pm
There is no doubt that it&#39;s a complete rip-off. The site owner seems to be an 18 year old having a bit of fun and the site appears to be relatively popular. I think the softly, softly approach is best in this case.

Your point 1 is a good one but what I am going to do is ask him to credit the designer (me) on the home page and include a link back to CADTutor.net. This way I get credit where it&#39;s due and a link from a relatively popular site (with Google rankings in mind). This way he gets to keep the design and I get what I want. Failing that, your points 2 to 4 are exactly right.

I&#39;ll let you know how I get on.
Tom
6th Jan 2004, 08:33 am
Its a surprise to see such blatent theft. Francis&#39; advice would be entirely correct if there were a commercial threat. But I think David&#39;s respose is correct. As mentioned elsewhere, it is a basic principle of web content management that you give something away and charge for something else. Hail Sir Tim&#33; Also, there is little point in a law suit against someone with little money.
Phil
6th Jan 2004, 03:19 pm
Total rip off. How did you discover it?
I notice in the newsgroup the site owner is bemoaning the fact he is going to have to digitally watermark his images from now on

"I didn&#39;t really want to do this, but looks like i&#39;ll have to with all the theiving that has been going on&#33;&#33;"

...the nerve&#33;

In addition to mailing him, you could "out" him at pirated-sites.com
James
6th Jan 2004, 05:24 pm
I&#39;m fuming about this on your behalf David&#33; Do let us know how you get on. I want to "out" him on his own forum&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; Can I?

The fact that he "mods" cars says it all. Bet he&#39;s got one of those neon light things under his Nova&#33;
David
7th Jan 2004, 10:47 am
Result&#33;

Check out the bottom of the home page (http://www.digimods.co.uk/index2.htm) and the links page (http://www.digimods.co.uk/Files/links.htm). A gentle exchange of emails is all it took.

He claims that he was given the site as a template on CD by a friend and that he didn&#39;t know it had anything to do with CADTutor. While I don&#39;t actually believe this, I don&#39;t mind too much since I got the result I wanted - credit and a link.

In any case, the current design for the CADTutor site was done in August 2001 and as you&#39;ll see if you look at the code, it wouldn&#39;t pass muster with even the most liberal of standards geeks. It is overdue for redesign (no, this won&#39;t be the next project :D) and so I don&#39;t feel too precious about it.

No need to out him on his own forum James - it already happened (http://digimodforum.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=general), see the Conspiracy Theory topic. Poor guy, there can&#39;t be much to do in Grimsby when you&#39;re 18.
Phil
7th Jan 2004, 11:24 am
Well done David.

now will you be adding a link to his site from yours? ;)
Tom
7th Jan 2004, 12:50 pm
Google are willing to take action against The sincerest form of flattery (http://www.highrankings.com/issue048.htm#guest).
francis
7th Jan 2004, 07:51 pm
Good result, for you anyway. I saw an example on pirated-sites a few months ago where the thieves were so lazy/stupid they had forgotten to take out the original site&#39;s name from the <title> of the home page.

Now - how long until that "conspiracy theory" thread vanishes from his forum?
Tom
5th Feb 2004, 08:33 am
My son and a friend were asked to design a website for a school friend&#39;s father. Henry (my son) did the logo and some other graphics. The father said they were too late with the design and decided not to pay them. This was 2 years ago. Yesterday Henry noticed that the company had decided to use his animated logo anyway. Healthcare-at-Home (http://www.healthcare-at-home.co.uk/). Henry has no documentation regarding the original &#39;commission&#39; but I think he should send them an invoice by registered post. Do you agree - and what should he charge? I think the original figure they talked about was £250. I think he should double it, because they have a damned cheek&#33; There is a useful lesson in professional practice here.
francis
5th Feb 2004, 09:16 pm
I like the logo, but the rest of the home page is pony. It&#39;s the curse of Dreamweaver&#39;s dragable, absolutely positioned layers. I&#39;ve read an article on this but have never seen it happen in real life. For Tom not to mention this, I assume he&#39;s slunked back off to IE ;) - have a look in Moz/FB. Oh, and for an "interesting" dropdown effect, have a look in Opera.

Has Henry got the original PNG/GIF file with a date stamp on it from the time it was created? If so, maybe follow the same course of action that I mentioned above. It&#39;s not going to be much use without a date stamped file, as I can open up the animated GIF in something like fireworks and look at each individual frame - an identical to the original. Only the original will do, I suspect. Write a nice letter (perhaps with invoice for £250), follow that up if there&#39;s no joy with a "solicitors if you don&#39;t respond", then maybe a solicitors letter. I take it the friendship is already over - if it isn&#39;t, it soon will be...
James
5th Feb 2004, 11:23 pm
Originally posted by: francis
I like the logo, but the rest of the home page is pony.

I don&#39;t think it&#39;s that bad. When you say "pony", do you say that because it works properly in IE only, or do you not like the design?
francis
7th Feb 2004, 12:03 pm
I like the colour scheme (which reminds me of CoolHomePages (http://www.coolhomepages.com/)), and I suppose the site is okay visually, but I&#39;m not overly fussed. You know that if it doesn&#39;t work in my browser, then I&#39;m not going to be impressed. This is a business site after all, not a personal one, so it should work cross-browser.
David
21st Feb 2005, 12:52 pm
12 months on, here&#39;s another (http://www.light-gun.tk/)&#33;

Admittedly this guy asked for permission first - I got an email from him after the site was live but it&#39;s not yet finished so I guess he had a flash of guilt about it and thought he&#39;d better ask.

I&#39;m not sure turning those stripes round was such a good idea ;)
James
21st Feb 2005, 02:57 pm
David, I think you&#39;re far too nice about all this.

If it were me I would insist they design their own site&#33;
David
21st Feb 2005, 07:05 pm
Well you say that but the fact is that the digimods.co.uk site has been in the top 10 referrers to CADTutor.net since I negotiated that link from their homepage about a year ago. On average, nearly 100 people per day click that link. That&#39;s quite a lot of traffic so pinching my design seems neither here nor there.
James
21st Feb 2005, 07:51 pm
Fair point, and it IS flattering, and at least this one told you in advance.