Site Rip Advice Requested

[mresell]

Well your sit was black and white. I have just seen some people go off the deep end w/o proper evidence...like they think they invented the wheel. Heck often they aren't even involved with either site. I know you know what I mean. Thank goodness not something I have personally experienced. But some of these forums have some real hotheads.

[epiphany]

This is an old thread. The site that you see up there at the moment isn't what I had a problem with. Before they took it off line and redid it, it was using graphics directly taken from my website (not just page backgrounds, but icons, graphical titles etc).

When viewing the source code of the page it even had most of the same code in it (along with references to ethical design - my site). The reason that I even noticed it in the first place was through my referral logs. Whoever was stealing the site had pasted in chunks of code which still had links to pages in my website, and must have at some point clicked them. This was very clearly a rip-off in progress and not just some similarities that I had no right to comment on.

I know what you're saying and I agree some people do go over the top without evidence, but in this case I can assure you that I wasn't being hot-headed about this and throwing accusations around without reason. All of the evidence was there that they were ripping my site rather than being inspired by it or arriving at the same design by accident.

As I say, I don't have a problem with their site the way it is at the moment. I just had a problem with the way it was before it was taken down and they re-did it.

[mresell]

I wasn't saying that applied to you at all just saying that I find it annoying when people do assume w/o following thru properly. Yeah I knew it was old, I saw the site at the time. Like I said your sit was undeniable because it was very obvious what had been done. The fact that you were even asking for input shows that isn't your approach. Just glad you had the right attitude about it. I have had art work stolen before (actual drawings) under false pretenses. It definitely is not a pleasant feeling.

[cjmelhorn]

If they really liked your design, and were enlightened by your work, a simple e-mail saying, "Hey, we like what you have done, can we use your idea?" may have been really appropriate. I am sure, then, much of this would never have happened.

[bootNumlock]

are you kidding... they still have links on the index2.html that link back to your site at the bottom of the page...

i would keep hounding them until they at least set the links... the site is still a pure rip off... they just aren't using your style sheet anymore....

on the other end of the spectrum... i kinda wish someone would rip off one of my designs

best of luck with this situation.

[cjmelhorn]

Holy Cow, he's right! I hadn't looked! All the icons at the bottom of the page still link back to your website!

OK...now I am with the other guy....that is bull, I would be going after them again.

[epiphany]

I wasn't saying that applied to you at all just saying that I find it annoying when people do assume w/o following thru properly. Yeah I knew it was old, I saw the site at the time. Like I said your sit was undeniable because it was very obvious what had been done. The fact that you were even asking for input shows that isn't your approach. Just glad you had the right attitude about it. I have had art work stolen before (actual drawings) under false pretenses. It definitely is not a pleasant feeling.

Sorry. I misunderstood you. I didn't know you realised the site had changed since I first posted.My mistake

are you kidding... they still have links on the index2.html that link back to your site at the bottom of the page...

i would keep hounding them until they at least set the links... the site is still a pure rip off... they just aren't using your style sheet anymore....

Oops. I didn't notice the links to my site. It looks like they're still using some of the page code or something (though I haven't checked this I can't think of another reason why they would link to my site).

I'm not too bothered about people taking page code and ripping it apart to learn how to do something (not that my current code in would be the best teacher ofcourse), as long as what they come up with isn't exactly the same as my site.

The design is sufficiently different I think to just leave it be for the moment. It's certainly a lot better than the last version that was using my graphics etc. directly on their page and looked much closer to my site.

I know there are a couple of minor graphical elements that they've kept like the background striped tile image (albeit recoloured), but that's hardly an idea I can lay claim to. I can see some other similarities between the sites, but this is largely due to the proportions I think, and colouring of some of the other elements.

I'll just leave them be for the moment, but I'll be keeping an eye on it to see how they develop and if they're stealing anything else.

Ofcourse my decision could be influenced slightly by the new tableless xhtml complaint layout I've been trying out tonight, so my site may end up being replaced at some point over the next couple of months anyway. Hopefully their web designer will be too inexperienced to rip that off and if they do then I'll be after them all guns blazing :lol:

Thanks for pointing out the links though. That's much appreciated. Definitely worth me keeping an eye on this to see how they go.

[generic]

I had a guy hotlinking to a few of my images once.

heres what I did,
took a bit of work, but it was fun.

Renamed my own sites image and uploade it.

Then found a real good porn pix and named it the name if the image the guy was pulling, Took about a day and they stopped.

One time I had a kid in the uk linking to a flash file audio track I had.

same thing, I recorded a real nice loud "i s** d*** and i steal files" and uploaded that as the flash audio file. that took about 3 weeks, I smile every time thinking about the reaction everyone had visiting the site during that time.

now I am not giving you ideas, thats just what i did when i was at a different hosting company.

[bocosoft]

Originally Posted by tracewebspace

Renamed my own sites image and uploade it...

Great idea :love:

Much better then any other idea that pops in my mind.
When it happened to me I just renamed my images, but I never thought of uploading juicy images for this guy to show on their site

[cjmelhorn]

NICE!

I think I am going to keep that in mind!

[Silverbug]

oh thats good. the fun you could have.

[bootNumlock]

that is beautiful, trace -- nice

now i do kinda hope that someone rips off a design of ours

is it okay if i use your technique?

[generic]

feel free...

just to reiterate, I did this at my old hostingprovider, not here, as my little story of using naughty images may infact violate vortechs adult content rules.

[bocosoft]

Originally Posted by tracewebspace

just to reiterate, I did this at my old hostingprovider, not here, as my little story of using naughty images may infact violate vortechs adult content rules.

But you could use any kind of "insults" or better yet something that is connected with what he is offering. If he is offering webhosting, you could say (in Jpg/Gif): "We will only take your money and give you nothing in return. We steel from poeple on regular basis."

Too funy :wink2:

[generic]

this might be fun...

"to my newclient, click here to learn where i ripped off your new layout from"