Internet Piracy

[allsetnet.com]

There are many types of Internet piracy.

The most common type is to do with stealing and copying some of the important contents of a website, but the worst experienced by some, is focussed on diverting traffic and stealing customers by copying some or all the features which attract traffic.

In one instance, someone re-produced an exact replica of a successful website.



http://www.silicon.com/networks/webw...9119015,00.htm



I am sure, there are many examples and stories to tell.

The question is, what would you do to stop this kind of piracy if it happens to you, without getting into a lot of expenses, which small businesses cannot finance?

[Brian Turner]

I don't believe I can offer any truly sage advice, as if someone is truly inclined to steal your site design and content and host it offshore then it's extremely difficult to get a resolution forced.

However - I did have a site ripped once - just a hobby site - but what alerted myself to the fact was that I was getting click-throughs.

Reading around, it seems that site ripping is often done as a hasty business, and one of the most effective ways to counter it is to simply use absolute, rather than relative URLs.

A site that uses relative URLs immediately works fully and completely on a new domain. But absolute URLs requires some editing work - and even with a global editor, there are various call ups that would all need editing - background image commands, IMg src, CSS and Javascript external file call-ups, plus - of course - the actual links and e-mail address(es) themselves.

That's my 2c.

[Owen]

Good question!
We developed a site for an American Reverend in Florida. We didn't take any money up front (which we usually do!) as we foolishly thought such a person could be trusted - we put the site on a test domain for her to view. Basically, she downloaded the site and put it on a free hosting account. She won't answer any e-mails or communication and obviously won't pay anything.

We got her kicked off three free hosting accounts when we reported her for website theft (Yahoo (twice) and Bravehost). She's now put it on a free Netfirms hosting account. They won't remove it until we get a court order.
Basically we would have to goto the expense of getting a court order as a UK business against an American civilian hosting a stolen site on a Canadian web server.
The Federation of Small Businesses advised us against it due to the potential expenses. So basically, she's got away with it.

Not the behaviour befitting a reverend!

Originally Posted by allsetnet.com

The question is, what would you do to stop this kind of piracy if it happens to you, without getting into a lot of expenses, which small businesses cannot finance?

[DavidM]

Originally Posted by Brian Turner

I don't believe I can offer any truly sage advice, as if someone is truly inclined to steal your site design and content and host it offshore then it's extremely difficult to get a resolution forced.

However - I did have a site ripped once - just a hobby site - but what alerted myself to the fact was that I was getting click-throughs.

Reading around, it seems that site ripping is often done as a hasty business, and one of the most effective ways to counter it is to simply use absolute, rather than relative URLs.

A site that uses relative URLs immediately works fully and completely on a new domain. But absolute URLs requires some editing work - and even with a global editor, there are various call ups that would all need editing - background image commands, IMg src, CSS and Javascript external file call-ups, plus - of course - the actual links and e-mail address(es) themselves.

That's my 2c.

That's way more than 2 cents. Very intelligent in fact. But if we are talking about a web site with a basic structure and such the thief will definitely edit the links on the page.

[Peter Bowen]

I just noticed that someone has ripped off an article of mine and posted it on their blog. It's hosted on hostgator and I wondered if it would even be worth the effort of trying to get them shut down.