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I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

andresmax.com

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Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#41

Post by zeidrich »

nnq wrote: post #14

The propeller site I'd consider flattering imitation, at least they are in a totally different lob :) For the other guys, talk to a lawyer or just someone who knows "legalese" well enough to formulate a serious sounding email complaining about copyright infringement and threatening with a lawsuit. And have someone with a title of "copyright lawyer" or "IP legal consultant"or anything along the lines co-sign that emai…

The propeller site actually uses the ideaware site's background image, slightly blurred, as it's cloudscape background.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#43

Post by kybernetyk »

fusiongyro wrote: post #18

The propellers site is so similar I halfway wonder if it's a parody of your site. "We handcraft propellers."

It must be because I can't imagine anyone would prefer handmade propellers to industrial manufactured ones.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#44

Post by andresmax »

mimiflynn wrote: post #38
0x0 wrote: post #16

Haha, the smacontech guys even include a javascript file with your site's name on it: line 173:

Even copied their google analytics js file.

This is how I first noticed them, our GA was showing some weird links.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#45

Post by utopkara »

elboheme wrote: post #4

Make a premium WordPress theme based on this design, slap a price on it, and distribute through WordPress theme sites thereby creating an additional income stream for your company. I'm in Miami and I'd be happy to help.

Me too. Even better, give the stuff for free and offer paid help. Because, obviously these guys could use some.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#46

Post by ChuckMcM »

Interesting, given the copying of the js directly, you could use that to your advantage. Have it behave one way if the page is served up from an IP address you own, and slightly differently served from a foreign address.

Could be sublime, like adds a menu item/link to their pages that has "Web Design Services" that points back to you, to the silly "Get free copyrighted material here" and a link to some dubious content site. Or it could just break periodically and cause them great frustration until they give up and use something else.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#48

Post by DanBC »

zobzu wrote: post #8
bdfh42 wrote: post #6

Trouble is - web site design is very fashion oriented. You can tell a 2011 site from a 2012 site. I find a lot of sites are very similar and put it down to a common fashion more often than copying. Font selection, icon colours and general layout is bound to "cluster" around a limited range of values at the leading edge. Look at the "please review our start-up" requests here on HN - most of those web sites pretty near…

I always feel like its a flash website at first :P But yeah, I didn't realize either so many just flat out copy website designs. I guess this is a pretty common thing now :(

There used to be a site that would run side-by-side comparisons of a site and a copy of that site. Some of the copies were pretty blatant.

(http://pirated-sites.com/)

They were pretty active around 2005. (http://web.archive.org/web/20050211143916/http://www.pirated...)

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#50

Post by andresmax »

mnarayan01 wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's a really nice layout, but honestly -- should the essence here (full page photo, small menu at top right, logo at top left, Title/quote in middle with "more info" button) really be "protectable" IP? I just don't see it, sorry. That doesn't make those designers (or probably just one) honorable or talented or honest. But they have the right to clone layouts too.

He mentions that he found the sites due to getting odd values from google analytics, which makes me suspect that they copied the (copyrightable) page markup. That said, I agree with the comment that just selling a WordPress layout is probably going to provide him with the best outcome.

This, they copied markup. Some files even have names from our team members who coded them.
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