Website Theft.
By Rik Tairea

I'm an active member @ the A Best Web forum and I have read discussions where webmasters have reported the stealing of their designs, content, graphics and even whole websites. Like many of you I am a webmaster with ethics and I am totally disgusted with this. It's now a major pet peeve of mine because a couple of my webmaster peers have been the victims of this (insert your expletive here) crime.

For example : a webmaster of a freebies site had his site design, layouts and graphics copied and all his content was translated into another language. No doubt as you can all imagine the webmaster (or should we say victim) of the original site was a bit mad. To tell you the truth, when I read the news so was I for that matter because if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.

The good thing about this story is that after some communication between both parties (and a public ribbing from A Best Web) the offending website was taken down and the defendants confessed to their crime and apologized. Albeit no one really accepted the apology because it sounded like a case of "you got caught".

Is it really that hard to create your own work? For some maybe but I am a firm believer that if you put the time and effort into a website, and keep at it then you can achieve the desired results that you're looking for. If you place someone else's property onto your website is it really that hard to ask for their permission first and give complete and total credit where credit is due?

For example : @ Groundzero I have plenty of content which I have created myself and I used to showcase the articles of other's who are experienced at what they do. I make it an absolute rule to obtain permission to post their work, follow their guide lines for publishing it, give complete and total credit (including their name, byline, website and optional e-mail address) and inform them that I have placed it on my website. It's not that hard to do.

If someone creates a carbon copy of your website then I suggest you enter into some sort of dialogue with the criminals (yes, that's what they are) because if they have some sort of conscious they will right their wrong very quickly (hopefully). If nothing comes from that then I'm not sure what you can do next.

I don't know squat about copyright or infringement law so I won't even try to give you some legal advice because the chances are is that it would cause more harm than good. A search @ Google for copyright law would yield better results, either that or talk to a lawyer for about $200 per hour (in any currency).

Here's hoping no one steals your original work.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above article was written solely for Groundzero and may not be reproduced in anyway on print or other media. This article was written by the webmaster, creator and owner of this site.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------