I've been ripped off!

namealot · Oct 21, 2011

Simple Cease and Desist Letter/email to host company to Stop Copyright Infringement for me has worked every time,,,
example
http://www.free-legal-document.com/copyright-cease-and-desist.html

Send one to them one too ISP most ISPs will immediately close the account of a person if found to be in flagrant copyright violation.

retired_member18 · Oct 22, 2011

Well after being completely slated for two pages, it's kind of hard to figure out what to say here...

Take a look at the websites again before commenting: savingenergy.com and pregnancy.co.uk.

I admit that to a point I 'used' someone else's design. However, this was not to save time, not so I didn't have to do it myself, etc... I 'used' the design because I admired the work that'd been done. I could see that the way pregnancy.co.uk looked, with a few changes, was exactly what I wanted to achieve with my website.

It was always my intention to change the design. I was never going to leave it looking identical to James site, which I told James via email.

The only similarities are the positions of the wrapper, and the three sidebars. It also shares the navigation bar, which can also be found on a number of other websites.

However, when James clicked on the website, it did look identical, so I can see why he (and other designers on the forum) are angry, which you have every right to be. My apologises for that.

-----------------

I think it's in my best interest to leave this forum now, it's more of a 'community', and I don't think I'll ever be fully included now I'm going to be labelled as 'that guy who copied a website'.

James: If you still want me to take the website down, after you've viewed the changes I've made, send me another email.

Thanks to whoever it was who brought this topic to my attention.

scottsmith · Oct 22, 2011

Hi, it's me you should say sorry to as it was one of my content writers that emailed you as I couldn't be bothered. It wasn't the fact that you had copied my design (Greg Findley's design) it was that you had taken a complete 'dump' of my site including Adsense and Analytics code etc and made it live. I can see you have totally changed the site now and if you had done this to start with I'd have never have known.

Totally up to you if you stay on the forum, as far as I'm concerned thats the end of it.

Scott

retired_member18 · Oct 22, 2011

scottsmith said:
Hi, it's me you should say sorry to as it was one of my content writers that emailed you as I couldn't be bothered. It wasn't the fact that you had copied my design (Greg Findley's design) it was that you had taken a complete 'dump' of my site including Adsense and Analytics code etc and made it live. I can see you have totally changed the site now and if you had done this to start with I'd have never have known.

Totally up to you if you stay on the forum, as far as I'm concerned thats the end of it.

Scott

The reason I'd taken a 'dump' was because when redesigning the website to look similar, I messed up a float/clear class, and was finding it difficult to fix. The easiest way to fix it at the time was to copy the code from yours to see where I went wrong. However, I admit this should not have been made live.

The intention was always to change the website... Why would a Saving Energy website have a link to Baby Names at the side?...

I told James (your content writer) the website would be changed within 24 hours, and it was. If you'd have emailed me, I'd have apologised to you too, and told you the same. This forum topic, the 'looking into other websites I've developed', and emailing my boss about it was just unnecessary.

vikrantjain22 · Oct 22, 2011

tempestmedia said:
The reason I'd taken a 'dump' was because when redesigning the website to look similar, I messed up a float/clear class, and was finding it difficult to fix. The easiest way to fix it at the time was to copy the code from yours to see where I went wrong. However, I admit this should not have been made live.

The intention was always to change the website... Why would a Saving Energy website have a link to Baby Names at the side?...

I told James (your content writer) the website would be changed within 24 hours, and it was. If you'd have emailed me, I'd have apologised to you too, and told you the same. This forum topic, the 'looking into other websites I've developed', and emailing my boss about it was just unnecessary.

Right, everything was unnecessary except the copying part

retired_member18 · Oct 22, 2011

vikrantjain22 said:
Right, everything was unnecessary except the copying part

I'm sorry, but this this what designers do. They notice websites which are well designed, websites that are attractive, and they change them to meet their own websites needs.

If you look at the websites now: http://www.savingenergy.com and http://www.pregnancy.co.uk you'll see the differences.

I made a mistake in doing something wrong in my code, so I checked the website I was taking the inspiration from's code to fix it. However, I do admit I shouldn't have done this 'live'.

This happens all the time, there's millions of websites on the internet. Do you honestly think the designers you pay to create your websites sit and write 10s of 1000s of lines of code themselves?

Edwin · Oct 22, 2011

1) That's a VERY naive and blinkered view, not worthy of a professional designer. But then, neither is the attitude you've shown on this thread. No, that's not how I would expect a designer that I paid to behave. There is an ocean of difference between looking at dozens of leading sites for "inspiration" (smart research) before coding something that synthesised the best of what you'd found and iterating with the client, and cut-and-pasting a particular site's underlying code as a "scaffold" on which to hang your changes (copyright infringement and theft).

2) Most professional designers can actually design. So they don't need to resort to cut-and-paste. See 1)

3) A oft-repeated piece of advice applies here: "If you're already in a hole, stop digging!"

Over the years, I've had to issue a couple of dozen takedown notices (some under the DMCA, some ad-hoc) so it's something that's close to my heart.

cc976a · Oct 22, 2011

tempestmedia said:
I'm sorry, but this this what designers do.

No they don't

They may ask clients sites they like for inspiration and to use preferred elements or styles but just copy the website and you've just become a cowboy

This is a terrible statement to make considering what has been uncovered here.

I have designed websites personally and for a number of small to medium sized businesses over ten years, and have never done this even once.