Kevin's Watch

One of the sites we made for a client's business is very popular. His competitors and others who do the same thing in different cities have copied the site layout and style a lot. Today, though, we found another site that had just wholesale copied everything we did. They took the entire layout, all images, everything, and just edited the text and a few images (very poorly done images) and put the site up as their own. The meta data section still even has our company name in it.

I don't suppose you can sue them for copyright infringement, can you?

I had a good day. It's Restaurant Week in DC, when the posh expense-account restaurants each offer a special menu at a set price. This year's price is $20.14. (Wonder how they came up with that...?) So my friend Kim came downtown and we went to Taberna del Alabardero, the swanky Spanish (not Mexican) place around the corner from my office. The food was great and the service was awesome. We thought about asking whether they'd let us move in, but decided they'd probably say no.

My first reaction was "Gee, ali, you probably know better than Ananda whether this is actionable", but I suppose the law on such things may differ between here and there.

With her company name in the metadata, I suspect that there is a smoking gun. Whether the plagiarist has any assets worth suing for is another question...

Ananda wrote:They took the entire layout, all images, everything, and just edited the text and a few images (very poorly done images) and put the site up as their own. The meta data section still even has our company name in it.

So, a couple things of options...

If their site outranks your clients site, you can report it to Google here: Google Scraper Report. You need the URL of the search(es) for which they outrank it.

If it's not outranking it, or even if it is, you can also submit a DMCA takedown request here: Legal Removal Requests.


My personal favourite is, if they are still linking to your original images (in other words the img source code still points to your site, replace those images on your server with ones that say, for example, "I stole this content from XYZ" or whatever.

(Remember to change the path of your own images though. )

--A

I feel well! This last week my life completely changed.

I feel as thought for the last 48 years my life has revolved around the next cigarette. No more. Since last Wednesday I've been getting my nicotine fix electronically. My fingers are no longer yellow, I don't have a yellow moustache and I don't smell like an old ashtray. I'm sleeping better, and waking up earlier. I had a couple of panics when I remembered I had no tobacco (long time smokers will understand that) but that hasn't happened for a couple of days now.

One disadvantage is that I feel hungry a lot, but so many advantages can't be outweighed. These Ecigs really do work. And it's a lot cheaper than tobacco!

I've not been here much during the last week and have a lot to catch up on, a lot of reading to do.

Lorin, I hope you are feeling better now after your surgery. Everyone, love you all. I feel great.

we don't sue people here so much.

Av, the image idea is funny, but they downloaded them all. Would have been great, though! Thanks for the google links. I think our client will be trying to handle it for now as it is his material. We might contact them and offer to make them their own site. Maybe we can get a small project out of it, though they seem like they probably don't want to pay. Will try your google route if it comes to it.

Iolanthe, congratulations!

Congrats, Io!

Congrats Io. I should really quit some time.

No probs Ananda...if I think of or see anything else, I'll let you know.

--A

WTG, Io!

congrats Io.

Thanks a lot everyone. It helps to get some support.

Yes, Av, you should. Can't tell you how much better I feel, both physically and mentally.

Yay Io!

That's great, Io.

One of these days I will remember not to reload Internal Server Errors. Don't know about anyone else, but it causes double posts that can't be deleted.

Sorry!

Looks like somebody deleted it, since there's only one post of yours here.

Maybe try going to the index, then to the post and only deleting then? (Maybe? I dunno?)

--A

Congratulations, Io!

Oh, Io, congrats. I wish I could work with the ecigs, as I have one myself, and it does come in handy when I'm trying to quit, but it just isn't the same and doesn't give me the same satisfaction, which is why I fail (though obviously not the only reason).

I'm sorry to hear that, Cag. I found it so easy. Haven't craved a proper fag since I got the ecigs. Smoking black cherry flavour at the moment with nicotine in (12 strength, whatever that is). Also bought two girlie batteries this morning (the bottom bit that screws in) so now have pretty cigs instead of plain black ones. I am going to persevere with this!

Avatar wrote:Looks like somebody deleted it, since there's only one post of yours here.

Maybe try going to the index, then to the post and only deleting then? (Maybe? I dunno?)

--A

I still see two; the second one was edited to form the apology for not being able to delete it. Nah, I just need to remember not to hit reload if I get a server error.

I am in London! I've wandered around the LonCon3 halls a bit, been to one panel, and just got back from seeing Book of Mormon in Leicester Square. Blog post coming soon, but it won't really say much more.