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.



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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?

[Business Brian]

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!
 

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?

[solar]

Wow, that really sucks.

I've heard about this, but i think there will always be good guys and bad guys...the bad guys will always find a way if they want something bad enough...

[Grace]

Unfortunately, there are people who think and do these bad things against people without regard to conscious .  Others pay the high price of  their stealing.

[sweet_mayhem]

Unfortunately, there are people who think and do these bad things against people without regard to conscious .  Others pay the high price of  their stealing.

i agree with grace's post but has anyone of you heard of a thief who actually got the taste of his/her own medicine? i would love to hear about a story of an internet pirate who got severely punished.

[Melos]

Well, on an extrememly small scale I have had people steal some of my product images that I took for an old website of mine.  After realizing the theft, I just replaced the pic URL (they were hotlinking) with a big ad for my website. 

That was just completely classless what that Reverand did to you...