Job Discussion Forums

ellanvannin · Joined: 25 Aug 2006 Posts: 17

I've had this site going for the last couple of years:

www.telephonenglish.com

and I have just noticed that a friggin copy has just sprung up here:

three 'w' shindig-jp dot com (don't want any trackbacks to this message)

As you will see, it's a replica which has stolen vast amounts of text, images and even staff names!

My site is hardly big business, and is probably only useful for the CV, so I cannot afford a lawyer. Any idea how I can nail the cyber-thief?

Furious Mad

saint57 · Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:40 pm Post subject:

It looks like the site is mocking your's rather than trying to actually get business. Perhaps it's an unsatisfied customer.

ellanvannin · Joined: 25 Aug 2006 Posts: 17

The mocking actually comes from the fact that he was stupid enough to link to images on my site.

Obviously I couldn't resist the temptation of changing the images he linked to!

Sgt Killjoy · Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 438

Well, I would contact the site owner and ask them to quit copying you and it is a violation of copyright law and you may seek legal advice. This probably won't work but it is a good first step.

Next, due a little cyber sleuthing and find out the hosted IP address of the site and from the IP, you will find out the hosting company, email these hosting companies. Provide proof of how he is stealing intellectual property, maybe even send them the source code of his site and the hotlinking he is doing to your site. (www.dnsstuff.com is a good resource for finding out stuff). Usually a threat is all you have to do.

I did some work for you, the site is hosted by www.freewebs.com and they have a page for reporting copyright violations:

http://members.freewebs.com/abuse.jsp

You may also want to contact their registrar www.godaddy.com , why? They are using the privacy domain and the domain agreement prohbits this kind of violations so maybe you can get their domain pulled as well.

tedkarma · Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:33 am Post subject:

Go to your control panel (probably CpanelX?) at your host and you can block the pictures in particular from going over to the other site(s).

On CpanelX this function is called "Hot Link Protection". Fairly easy to do.

Tis the nature of the net - nothing is worth the cost of fighting about, really.

You just have to hope that what you provide is superior - and that you provide better follow up. If it is a sloppy copy - it will fade away in to the dust over time - the perp will lose interest and move on to something else. I wouldn't stress too much about it. (easy for me to say, I know)