RobertKendall Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Hello everyone, thanks for your replies, After a formal email, he removed any copied content. I'm waiting for the hire stock to go up next :/ After looking at the site again I found the following - http://regensound.co.uk/equipment ---- Panic over! After looking at the site again I found the following - http://regensound.co.uk/equipment ---- Panic over! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHYoung Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 We operate a couple of projector hire sites and for the last couple of years have been getting nowhere trying to get someone who has registered a similar domain, copied our site word for word and added a banner with their own phone number. We have complained to their hosts. google etc, taken legal advice, complained to trading standards etc all to no avail. The joke is thta I cant see what they get out of it as they seem to be a shop that specialises in transferring videos to dvds but they hire kareoke etc and can posibly give you a budget projector, they certainly cant offer most of whats listed. Having dug arround a bit, ther guys got hundreds of domains , doubtless several clones of other compnies, It makes us look a bit stupid and we have had to deal with customers phoning us up after being let down by this chancer, but whats in it for him? It seems you can just register a similar domain and clone a site, but why bother? ive given up being annoyed, but it seems that there is very little that can be done if someone ignores polite requests to desist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Hits - search engine rankings are based on how many other sites mention or link to your site. Create a copy of a popular site so that it starts getting some hits (from people who've mistaken it for the real thing and glitches in the search scanning which assumes that websites with similar names and content are regional variations of the same website) and make it mention your other websites and slowly but surely your "mentioned" sites will start creeping up the rankings; "they must be popular/good sites because all these other popular websites mention them..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHYoung Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 that I understand as im optamised on the web optomism, but generating high rankings by many links doesnt actually get you very far if you dont use the resulting traffic it to sell something or revenue from ads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zonino Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 We operate a couple of projector hire sites and for the last couple of years have been getting nowhere trying to get someone who has registered a similar domain, copied our site word for word and added a banner with their own phone number. We have complained to their hosts. google etc, taken legal advice, complained to trading standards etc all to no avail. The joke is thta I cant see what they get out of it as they seem to be a shop that specialises in transferring videos to dvds but they hire kareoke etc and can posibly give you a budget projector, they certainly cant offer most of whats listed. Having dug arround a bit, ther guys got hundreds of domains , doubtless several clones of other compnies, It makes us look a bit stupid and we have had to deal with customers phoning us up after being let down by this chancer, but whats in it for him? It seems you can just register a similar domain and clone a site, but why bother? ive given up being annoyed, but it seems that there is very little that can be done if someone ignores polite requests to desist. I wonder if the advertising standards agency can do anything with their recent extension of their powers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Very interesting. I see after the original post (Posted 12 May 2011 - 01:30 AM) by Robert, his comments were validated by others in postings afterwards. Then, later on, others noticed the pages were no longer similar. With a view to looking at the original pages myself I Googled the website RegenSound.co.uk to have a look to see if Google had Cached any of the pages. http://www.google.co...f&aqi=&aql=&oq= Then clicking on the link to the 'Cached' page http://webcache.goog...ww.google.co.uk I see the date and time Google visited the RegenSound.co.uk was as on 26 Apr 2011 16:11:34 GMT i.e. before the original posting by Robert above. Very interesting the page was different yet again. So the good news is it doesn't look like the offending page reported by Robert was up for to long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 If this thread has achieved the aim of separating two companies by their www then fine. However in some cases the web HOST will assist as they commit a technical offence by hosting copied works and allowing them to be publicly accessed, so a call to the web host for plaguarist websites can be effective. Having had plenty of web content ripped off in a range of ways, I've found the first contact of a "just stop it" nature usually does the trick. Despite their implied involvement with breach of rights, I've not found webhosts particularly interested in what they see as small online squabbles. And having also gotten my hands plenty dirty in that there Search Engine Optimism (love that phrase AHYoung, can I use it? Copyright etc...) I can say that Google aren't the least bit interested in a whole heap of things as they have a one way customer service "system". I've published content, working on large scale webshops and small business mini sites. Whether two small business sites have "We pride ourselves in providing the highest quality service to our clients..." and a couple of stock pictures of a bit of kit on them, is annoying for the owner but pretty small beer when, as mentioned above writers are having whole orginal books scanned and given away for free. Where I really draw the line is: an image from show that I worked on and KNOW who the client and production company was is being used on a company website that provides such services, as if the gig was theirs. Even when I know the gig wasn't even in their country of origin. Again, a note to the MD of the company and the matter is swiftly resolved after they've battered their 12 year old web designer around the head for creating a possible PR problem for them. In today's world of Image Search, everything is up for grabs. Unless you keep your your thoughts and ideas in your head, tell no one, publish nothing, there is the risk that it is passed of as someone elses work at some point. It's annoying when a scraper website ranks alongside you in Google, using your own original work and even more so when content farms like Ehow rehash a misunderstood version of something you published and then start competing for eyeballs with their domain authority. But, we keep at it. Glad to see the issue looks like it's gone away for the OP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Rob's mention of 12 year old web "designers" diverted me to a side issue. Is this sort of thing symptomatic of what seems to be a belief among some younger people that copying ideas and even plagiarism from open sources is acceptable? Cut'n'pasting from web sources, downloading pretty pictures like my screen saver and the availability of material meant to be copied has blurred the lines between research and theft somewhat. There is so much pro-forma type stuff out there, I copied a contract outline only yesterday, that there should possibly be some sort of moral, ethical or even legal teaching for students allowed to use web-sourced material? Am I, as usual, out of touch with school procedures and is this being done already? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grum Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I'm really struggling to see a problem here, even if the text was a direct rip off all it says is; we are X, we're based in Y region, carry Z equipment and we're client focused. Sounds like pretty much every website out there. The big problem is if they're trying to take credit for your work such as suggesting that they were the people behind a job that was yours and that they had nothing to do with. I've had this happen to me (by a former member of this site) and it was especially annoying. Copying fairly generic text just shows a lack of originality from a team of people that are supposed to be creative, taking credit for others work is false advertising and to me no different from stealing. Was it right that they copied your text rather than finding their own way to say the same thing? No. Is it likely to harm your business? Personally, I wouldn't worry about a company that consists of three people, one of which seems to still like playing on the swings at his local play ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolley1466 Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Yep they've changed the text. I went to the extent of taking screen shots for Rob just in case. It's been changed now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Ref Kerry and thievin' little scrotes who do the plagiarism ploy for school work. I understand that this sort of thing was not uncommon, and worse yet the culprits did not actually read the stuff they "borrowed" for their course work essays. So yes Kerry perhaps anything on the internet is regarded as up for grabs. I gather the solution is some sort of search engine which is able to recognise the character strings(?) thus alerting the staff to computer literate yet strangely ignorant students. Of course it could be down to the fact(?) that wifi and mobile phones are no longer "safe" for nippers), today's Sunday Telegraph, front page...which have addled their brains? So if said devices are banned from schools will we see an increase in diligent application from those nippers in education? (Hah!) (Yes, there are further ramifications.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karl Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Is this sort of thing symptomatic of what seems to be a belief among some younger people that copying ideas and even plagiarism from open sources is acceptable? Cut'n'pasting from web sources, downloading pretty pictures like my screen saver and the availability of material meant to be copied has blurred the lines between research and theft somewhat. There is so much pro-forma type stuff out there, I copied a contract outline only yesterday, that there should possibly be some sort of moral, ethical or even legal teaching for students allowed to use web-sourced material? Am I, as usual, out of touch with school procedures and is this being done already?It goes beyond school kids. The internet has blurred the lines in ways never before imagined, things that would have been difficult or impractical to copy can now be duplicated with a click of the mouse. Many people have difficulty with equating copying something with theft. After all you haven't deprived the original owner of possession just made another copy. The whole thing is made even more cloudy by the fact that many people are giving stuff away for free. Sometimes it isn't theirs to give away of course. But there's freeware, open source, copyright free, royalty free and just plain free. It's sometimes often hard to tell what the status of material actually is. I suppose we should assume that it is copyrighted and protected unless explicitly told otherwise. With regard to copying text on websites advertising technical entertainment related goods or services, I suppose a common problem is that most web designers will have little or no idea about what exactly the site is advertising. They will probably struggle to make head or tail of what their client tells them so they look for a similar site and 'borrow' the wording from that. I'm sure most people, at some point, borrow ideas from other people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHYoung Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 In our case the borrower took our hire services website and copied it verbatim then added their own header, this included equipment listings, descriptions and pricing all for equipment they presumably dont have. Imaging getting a pizza hut menu photocopying it and then sticking your pitza-hut logo and phone number over the top. its one of these cases thats winnable if we want to spend thousands on lawyers, but whats the point? Its mainly annoying as google don't care, ISP's dont care, and the only way to make things happen is buy paying lawyers, but why bother as anyone with the brass next to do it in the first place will just wait till the last moment. move slightly sideways and it all starts again...The laws that cover copyright , fraud, passing off and missreprersentation are well out of date and simply havent caught up with today and combined with attitude of the copy and paste generation, mean that if you need some content or ideas whatever, just take it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 What happens all the time (ie its normal practice) is someone says "I want a website like X but better", so the designer copied chunks of X as a start point, so he has something to discuss with the client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew C Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Ref schools - We caught one (the old fashioned way, teacher spotted stuff the kid wouldn't have written) and his course work was torn up, he had a new a*** ripped for him, and he's got one week to do three weeks work in. Very lucky he hadn't yet signed the "This is all my own work" declaration. If he had, that would have been £150k down the drain, and no Oxbrige place... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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