So my site has been ripped off..

[greg.mcausland]

This is a first for me, mildly complimentary i guess, but extremely detrimental to my mood and in my opinion the business as well..

our site, http://www.alittlephotoshop.com/ vs http://www.davro-digital.com/

As you can see it’s a very blatant rip, some graphics being directly stolen, others being a very poor bastardised copy. The footer is a direct rip, the social bar, and form layouts are direct rips. I mean I don’t even need to point it out to fellow designers, as you can see its an extremely bad rip off of my site.

My main concern, is that the sites now with similar looks, to an end user without a huge amount of design experience could mistake the two. The content matter is similar which further adds injury to insult.

I don’t know what if any legal rights I have in this situation, we’ve already contacted him to try and shame him into changing it. I’ve also had it recommended to me to directly hit on their host to get the site pulled, however at the moment we are awaiting response and of course I’m not sure if they will particularly care either..

ah well, they say imitation is the deepest form of flattery? I don’t feel flattered really..

any of you guys have any experience of this? do share..

trying to laugh it off,
Greg

[greg.mcausland]

"Robskiwarrior" wrote:

Take him down. Twitter attack styleee.

A little research:

Looks like it could have been this guy who made the theme…

http://twitter.com/theenglishguy/status/5445685232

Looks like he was under instruction from them too – see overview:

http://www.theenglishguy.co.uk/2009/11/ … o-digital/

My recommendation is to make a detailed post on your site about the duplication – and then get it tweeted about, I can help there with my account and friends…

Thanks Rob, good work on finding the designer, naturally we emailed the administrator/owner first of all. Stuart will get back to me if he replies or agrees to remove it.

Right now im taking detailed screenshots of the site for proof and i’ll get a write up going

[AshtonSanders]

pretty funny/crappy… Do you have a copyright notice on your website?

At least your design is better…

(I sent him an email for you…)

[AshtonSanders]

Haha, I know. I wanted to copy one tiny aspect of a great design, and I asked first.

Nice research skill, Rob.

[greg.mcausland]

here’s a little update,

the owner, basically blamed the designer and said that it was supposedly an off the shelf theme with modifications. (right sure)

just had correspondence with the designer, and believe me I’m using the term loosely, who is claiming the commision was to build a site and i quote ‘just like’ the little photoshop.

As far as I’m concerned as a ‘designer’ he should have said no to a blatant rip request, that much is obvious. So even if that is the case, which I cannot be sure. One of them is obviously lying about something. Even so he should have known better than to produce that pile of crap rip so ultimately, he’s still very much guilty.

Stuart is just fuming over it all, I’m trying to keep a level head. I suppose even though its my work Stuart is the one whos name is on the piece and the content delivered is his, so I can understand it almost being more his baby than mine. This isn’t to say im satisfied letting things lie as they are.

Will keep you updated, apparently there are ‘changes’ in the works, too little too late? yes probably but can we hope for more, i doubt .

Appreciating the support though guys, it gave me a smile watching them being outed on twitter :lol:

update:

He’s taken the theme off, and replaced it with an off the shelf theme. Success !

[TheDoc]

"greg.mcausland" wrote:

He’s taken the theme off, and replaced it with an off the shelf theme. Success !

Generally that’s what happens. If they are guilty, they’ll take it down right away, nobody really wants to risk any type of lawsuit.

[AshtonSanders]

"TheDoc" wrote:

Generally that’s what happens. If they are guilty, they’ll take it down right away, nobody really wants to risk any type of lawsuit.

Well, yea they’re guilty of copying the website…. but that’s also what someone does when they didn’t mean to offend anyone.

"xheathen" wrote:

… Maybe I’m trying to give them too much of the benefit of the doubt :)

On the internet, I always recommend giving a large helping of "benefit of the doubt" and "forgiveness". Someone was at fault, and ended up coming looking like a jerk, but I doubt it was maliciously intended. I wouldn’t be surprised if they both were at fault for straight up copying the website, but I didn’t see a copy right when I was on the original site, so they may have thought it was just a free theme anyway.

w/e.

[Author]

Posts