Website Design Copied

[stevesideas]

The messages they are sending you are totally imature in my mind. They sound very unprofessional.

[judderman]

What a bunch of tossers. I love people putting evermotion stuff directly in to their portfolio. Like these guys from Ireland...

http://www.urban3d.ie/

Can't remember what page.

[glyph]

to be honest I dont think they have necessarily copied your site - a left hand column on white with a centred logo bordering a full height image...

its not a unique format by a long shot - yours has better balance, proportion and attention to detail - and surely they'd have copied the layout exactly if they wanted to rip it off

though they're clearly a dodgy outfit

[Da_elf]

juju has not removed his posts :0

they said they would post something on the forum ;0

anyone seen anything from them yet

[jujubee]

to be honest I dont think they have necessarily copied your site - a left hand column on white with a centred logo bordering a full height image...

Wow. I can't believe you would honestly say that. I'm in the top 10 search results for the field. I get copied ALL the time unfortunately. Even the text on the page is written very closely to my own - which I may add, was carefully constructed for search engines and badly written to squeeze in as much information as I can.) And my site dates back to 2003...

The colors? The background? The colors of the links? The bars above and below the navigation?

They even got the copyright in the same f*cking location!

Are you blind? Or are you just trying to royally piss me off????

The other thing I should add is that I recently updated the entire website - his is currently copying my older design (which didn't change too much.)

its not a unique format by a long shot

OMFG. My site was and is original. I have never seen a site like that when I first started out back in 2003. I coded it myself and figured out a way to get a page PERFECTLY centered vertically and horizontally. The only other way I had seen it done was with Flash at the time.

surely they'd have copied the layout exactly if they wanted to rip it off though they're clearly a dodgy outfit.

No, because whoever did it is a moron in a hurry. Honestly, my code is not an easy code to figure out and would leave most web designers dick in hand. It's pages linked to pages and scripting.

[jujubee]

My apologies Glyph for the name calling. But, you're not helping.

[jujubee]

I actually have a list of websites which copied my design - most have had the courtesy of changing it when I confronted them about the copyright.

I have one other site right now that referenced my code and text. The guy accidentally left a link back to my website on his homepage, and I didn't bother informing him that it was there (it's still there) so his site can bleed PageRank back to mine.

[glyph]

I really didnt mean to wind you up and I didnt know you had a past history of being copied - I was just considering the 200 million+ websites that exist and the likelihood of convergent evolution
I only briefly read the text for similarity
and in Firefox his site doesnt center vertically or horizontally so looks less similar

but unfortunately page layout can't be copyrighted.. so unless he's trying to pass himself off as you I dont think you can enforce very much

[jujubee]

Sorry man. I have to learn to cool down.

It's just I got my website up really high in search terms for various things over the past few years. It's good to be high - free advertising. However, the downside is that it becomes one of the first things to be seen and copied - including images. Trust me it's not a coincidence. I'm following about 15 people/websites and artists right now and have filed cease and desist notices.

I'm also seeing in my logs today a ton of attacks and people trying to enter through back doors.

Now that I know for certain that this place is in China and using a "virtual" office in the US, I don't know if there's anything US or Chinese authorities can do about it.

[jujubee]

You also probably missed the thread a few months ago (which was removed) of the person that applied for a job to me and used my own images in "his" portfolio lol.

The guy called me about 20x in one day from Europe crying after I called him on it and managed to get Evermotion, Chaosgroup, and CGArchitect to remove my posts.

I get it all the time. Maybe I'm just better off staying quiet...

[Neilg]

I get it all the time. Maybe I'm just better off staying quiet...

The images thing I'm with you on, I dont think that should ever go by quietly.
But this website thing - unless he's copied your code directly or used some of the same images, theres really nothing that can be done. Shit, but thats how it is.


A few years back I was working for a civil engineering company (16 at the time) and the boss hired someone to design a corporate identity. Strung him along for ages, kept the printed copies, then sacked him off and said he'd changed his mind. Then he told me to learn illustrator, scan them in and trace over them - making sure they looked like it was our file.

he was a man of questionable ethics, but got away with it every time. Never got very big though, and I know that designer is doing some major branding work and has his own shop with a few staff now.
edit: typoo

[paulison]

I had to laugh when comparing the sites when i noticed that The 'about us' text is copied almost exactly word for word. I dont understand people who can think they can get away with this kind of thing?

Everything seems to have been changed slightly but they clearly at least used your webpage as a reference for both layout and text.

Their work is pretty good though so you would think that they would go to an equal amount of effort on the webpage. I find it pretty dishonest though to pretend a company is based in the US when in reality, the people who do the work are in China - this would really effect the service people are getting in terms of amendments and turnaround as mentioned.

[Da_elf]

do like me. make mediocre images that no one would copy. lol. and lots of towers. and a shitty site hehe (although i get hit a lot in my tutorial section

[Neilg]

I find it pretty dishonest though to pretend a company is based in the US when in reality, the people who do the work are in China - this would really effect the service people are getting in terms of amendments and turnaround as mentioned.

It would also affect the amount of profit they get in a massive way - probably enough for them to forget about everything else.

[glyph]

ah - Jujubeee - yes I certainly remember the ripped off images thread - didnt know that was you - dont worry I get really steamed up sometimes too

I work with a graphic designer (a one man company) - he was showing his work to a potential client one day (logo and brochures) when the client paused, took a deep breath and said " that's odd somebody else showed me the same work yesterday"

luckily this was at the designer's office so he got up and pulled out all the intermediate work - the client thought it better not to say who it was had showed him the work previously..
just couldn't figure out where they'd even got hold of it

you cant trust anyone it seems
(I should feel disappointed no one's ripped me off yet)