Help! Someone Stole My Website
29th November 2010
It was Pablo Picasso who said "Good artists copy, great artists steal". Unfortunately, in an internet world of cut-and-paste it's all too easy to take advantage of somebody else's hard work as was the case with the UK's leading childrens soft furnishings business www.LittleKidsBedrooms.com.
Jacqui Donalsdon commissioned eCommerce specialist INDEZ to produce a high-end website for her business. The site took almost three months to design and develop and involved a large number of design innovations that have allowed her to grow one of Scotland's most successful eCommerce businesses. A key aspect of Jacqui's business is that she sells her products all around the world to customers from as far afield as South America and across Asia.
As with any form of business success come the copy cats. One start-up company in Malaysia thought that they could pave their road to success by copying LittleKidsBedroom's web design.
When Jacqui found out about the site she took legal advise and contacted the Malaysian site owers making it clear that the site design and code had been stolen (they had even left the LittleKidsBedrooms phone number within the site source code). It was made clear that legal proceedings would be taken against the copycat site and that damages would be sought. The threat of legal action was sufficient to have the offending site taken down.
There are some interesting lessons here for website owners:
- If you have a fantastic website then it is almost inevitable that others will try to steal it so that they might gain some of your success. This means that you need to be diligent to protect what you have paid for.
- You need experience in how to handle such problems effectively. INDEZ has been responsible for many of Scotland's most successful eCommerce businesses and has had to develop various technologies and processes to hunt down the copycats.
Stephen Marshall from INDEZ said "We constantly keep an eye out for design-thieves and have developed processes to protect the Intellectual Property of our clients. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but INDEZ have a zero tolerance policy for cheap imitations or copies of our clients' sites."
The most difficult part of getting the ball rolling is knowing who to contact and what to say. The following tips will help you stop Copyright theft. If however your not confident enough, please get in touch and we'll try our best to help!
- Download your Cease and Desist Template
- The main point of contact should be the owner of the site. (Details from Whois Record)
- If there is no reponse, contact the Hosting Company. ( Details from Whois Record) They have a legal obligation to adhear to Copyright infringement.
- Your Content should contain hard facts and examples. Ask your designer or developer to help give you the specifics.
- Remember to date and sign it.
- An email is a legally binding contract, so you can email a covering note and the document ( It's quicker than snail mail!)
