[welovepainting]

I haven't talked to my web designer about my problem yet but i'd like to share it with you guys and tell me what you think about it or what would you do.

Im on google and type is some keywords to see if our seo is working and I stumble accross a competitors website 30 miles from me. Hey ripped of our FAQ section which we removed from our site like 60 days ago, and he took our home page content and used it. Take a look for yourself. Here is his website homepage http://andrepropainting.com/

and ours is http://welovepainting.com.

Please share your thoughts I am not happy at all. It may be a little different if this guy was in Texas but he's 30 miles away and completely rips of my entire home page content.

 

[aaron61]

I don't see the similarities of the home page.
Alot of web sites use the same templates though

 

[welovepainting]

yeah I was so mad so I called them up come to find out the guy cant even speak english needless to say they removed all of our content right away.

 

[FHI Decks & Windows]

A couple of painters at contractortalk had the same problem. Your problem is that your site is so well done (a good problem).

BTW one of the threads at CT mention a site that will check your pages for other copies. It is a free service but they limit you on how many times a month you can search.

 

[slickshift]

I don't see the similarities either
Other than some basic "templating" stuff

The content they removed, however, I wouldn't be surprised if they lifted it from your site
Content theft is common
It's common among small businesses (doing their own ads without ad/marketing depts. or under contract), and common on the web
People forget or ignore if it's online (or an ad in a magazine), it's not "free" for the taking

It's always a good idea to copyright your content
It's as simple as writing Copyright 2007 by Slickshift at the bottom
(now if anyone hits the quote button I can sue^^^)

If you have a really good idea, it may be worth registering your content (a registered copyright)
If you are licensing content, you can't copyright it yourself, but let the licenser know if you find it somewhere else
It may be licensed to them also (if you don't have an exclusive license), or it may be ripped off
If you are licensing content, make sure you know if you are paying for exclusive, area/region exclusive, or non-exclusive licenses

 

[mailman]

CopyScape

Check out the thread:

http://www.contractortalk.com/showthread.php?t=17415

Never used it...just remembered reading the post. Good luck!

 

[Brian]

I had a guy do that to me several years ago. I'm in Texas, he's in Florida. My lawyer sent him a "friendly" letter, and he sent me a check that more than covered the lawyer's fees. My lawyer also negotiated a licensing agreement. I allow him to use old content from my site, and he sends me a regular check.

Brian Phillips