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Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#61

Post by sageikosa »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #59
sageikosa wrote: post #36

The classic counter-punch to resource linking is to make some of the resource grabs dynamic based on the referrer. I remember one site host who realized someone was using his images for avatars on various forums, and changed the contents to p0rn.

The less offensive form of this kind of hotlinking prevention is to provide a small-sized image with the URL of the website it was taken from, or a hotlinking notification, not pr0n unless you want to offend unsuspecting visitors. The person that hotlinks an image for usage as a forum avatar won't even realize it most of the times because his browser cache kicks in.

IIRC, other users on the forum started complaining that the offending user was using pr0n, he (or the forum owner) then complained to the person from whom content was being leeched who promptly told them to suck it.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#62

Post by jiggy2011 »

pmelendez wrote: post #42
timdorr wrote: post #17

It's actually quite easy: Find their host and, if they're in the US, issue a DMCA notification: $ dig resinternationalgroup.com ;; ANSWER SECTION: resinternationalgroup.com. 18788 IN A 66.206.15.100 $ dig -x 66.206.15.100 ;; ANSWER SECTION: 100.15.206.66.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR cpanel.siteplot.com. Send the email over to support@siteplot.com. If that doesn't work, go up to their datacenter: $ whois 66.206.15.100 ..…

They seems to be in Europe though... what happens in that case?

Hopefully they will just honour DMCA regardless.

They probably rip off designs in the hope that they won't get found out. As soon as it looks like a hassle they will hopefully just move to ripping off someone else.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#63

Post by jcutrell »

I actually set up a quick Heroku deploy to help identify when people are downloading our code and running it on a different domain than ours (just sends us an email). Most of the reckless folks stealing our stuff don't identify the little bit of JavaScript I've thrown in there, and we get a lot of these alerts. It also sends us the domain the code is running on. Of course, we aren't worried as much about localhost.

The JS also replaces the content on the page, and shows a "you shouldn't be doing this" kind of alert; we've had a TON of hits on this. It happens literally daily.

We have yet to file for DMCA takedown - good plan for those who are legit stealing.

However: I have a strong opinion on these things.

Specifically, if people are stealing your stuff, see what you can do to innovate past them. Ideas will always be stolen; edge and innovation can't be stolen.

Sometimes it's legit to call people out. Sometimes DMCA takedowns are needed. Sometimes, it's time to man up and beat the system. One step ahead, and all that jazz.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#64

Post by oftenwrong »

DanBC wrote: post #29
escaped_hn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an abuse of the DMCA since its just a design (see Flat-Ui).

No. This is directly using (even hotlinking some assets) the OPs copyrighted materials. FlatUI had 3 icons that were "similar"[1] to icons in LayerVault. There wasn't any clear copying of assets. [1] for some values of similar, including "not similar".

Is hotlinking copyrighted materials illegal?

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#65

Post by timdorr »

pmelendez wrote: post #42
timdorr wrote: post #17

It's actually quite easy: Find their host and, if they're in the US, issue a DMCA notification: $ dig resinternationalgroup.com ;; ANSWER SECTION: resinternationalgroup.com. 18788 IN A 66.206.15.100 $ dig -x 66.206.15.100 ;; ANSWER SECTION: 100.15.206.66.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR cpanel.siteplot.com. Send the email over to support@siteplot.com. If that doesn't work, go up to their datacenter: $ whois 66.206.15.100 ..…

They seems to be in Europe though... what happens in that case?

The copyright violation is coming from a server hosted in the US, so it's subject to US laws.

It would be the same if I took a DVD from the US that doesn't have a copyright in another country, went to that country to copy it, and then tried to sell it back in the US. It doesn't matter where I'm making the copy, it matters where I'm distributing it.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#66

Post by Amarandei »

pmelendez wrote: post #42
timdorr wrote: post #17

It's actually quite easy: Find their host and, if they're in the US, issue a DMCA notification: $ dig resinternationalgroup.com ;; ANSWER SECTION: resinternationalgroup.com. 18788 IN A 66.206.15.100 $ dig -x 66.206.15.100 ;; ANSWER SECTION: 100.15.206.66.in-addr.arpa. 3600 IN PTR cpanel.siteplot.com. Send the email over to support@siteplot.com. If that doesn't work, go up to their datacenter: $ whois 66.206.15.100 ..…

They seems to be in Europe though... what happens in that case?

Even if they aren't in the US, the majority of hosts will still accept DMCAs.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#67

Post by mryan »

oftenwrong wrote: post #64
DanBC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is directly using (even hotlinking some assets) the OPs copyrighted materials. FlatUI had 3 icons that were "similar"[1] to icons in LayerVault. There wasn't any clear copying of assets. [1] for some values of similar, including "not similar".

Is hotlinking copyrighted materials illegal?

That doesn't really matter in this case - the fact that the HTML references assets that are on the OP's site is pretty conclusive proof that this is a direct copy, rather than an "inspired design" or convergent evolution.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with someone ripping off your design?

#68

Post by ameen »

jcutrell wrote: post #63

I actually set up a quick Heroku deploy to help identify when people are downloading our code and running it on a different domain than ours (just sends us an email). Most of the reckless folks stealing our stuff don't identify the little bit of JavaScript I've thrown in there, and we get a lot of these alerts. It also sends us the domain the code is running on. Of course, we aren't worried as much about localhost. T…

Any particular reason why you've been repeatedly targeted by such individuals? Some of them could be related and if targeted might cease abusing your code.
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