Over the years our sites have been ripped off to varying degrees, but we have managed to stop the infringement each time - sometimes by conventional means and other times by less conventional means.

This time, someone has decided to start a site which is a practical replica of one of ours and although there is still only a holding page at one of it's locations the person in question has already taken all of the meta tags from our website (in particular our description and replaced our company name with his etc) that we have worked on for a long time to get right.

I know that this is a regular occurance, but what - apart from stamping on the person in questions head - do you suggest I do about it?

If you have included the lines '© 200x-2005 your company name', or '© 200x-2005 your company name - All Rights Reserved' anywhere on your site then, legally, nobody can redistribute anything you have created. This is also the case if you have included a meta tag in your coding, establishing that your site was created by you and that nobody may reproduce any part of it without consent.

Proving ownership rights to anything isn't always easy if you haven't registered your claim to the information or data in question. There are organisations who provide copyrighting services, whereby they keep a record of any work you wish to register and act as an infallable backup should you ever be involved in a legal battle. Banks, and Solicitors, also offer such a service, but their general involvement will be a lot less intimate.

If you feel as though you have been wronged, I would get in touch with your Solicitor and see what they say. In this day and age it's difficult to think that every website is going to be unique, but if the meta tags also read identically then there has to be a case for copyright infringement. Legal action may not always be a convenient option, the cost and time involved potentially limitless, but just the threat of such proceedings usually force rip-off merchants to recind.

One thing to note is that copyright laws are not always recognized/accepted between different countries. Hopefully, the site owners are in the same country.

Dave

A cheaper way of proving you owned something before somebody else did is to put it on disk or CD, then mail it to yourself by recorded delivery. Don't open it once you receive it - just file it away in case you ever need it.

That's a fair point Minaki, but once it has been opened there is no protection against any future legal battles with others who have been seen to contravene the website owner's rights. There are also the issues of fire (or water) damage, with there being no way of 'backing up' the security an unopened package provides, and the problems which arise when the site is updated (i.e. you'd be sending packages to yourself relentlessly).

Minaki's advice is sound, even though after that initial case has been heard and the package seal broken the evidence has become admissable in court and part of the official record.

Copyright is a 'formality-free' form of protection so using a copyright symbol is not mandatory, nor is registration.
As soon as the content exists, that is, expressed in some form, then it can be protected under copyright law.
However, putting a symbol on your pages does make it obvious that you don't want them ripped off, but this is not necessary in law.

Patent and industrial property law, on the other hand, are a different matter and it will come down to what it is you are trying to protect.

what is the site?

Give me $2,000 and I'll make this problem go away.

Originally Posted by NixCreations

Give me $2,000 and I'll make this problem go away.

LOL - I could get it done that way for 10% of that price.

First of all its copyrighting your website. If you have not done, then it is very difficult to get the other people remove yr content.

i dont see why you couldnt get somehting like a cd with the info notarized.