Copying other people's websites

[Ian J]

I am not sure whether this is the right forum but I made an interesting discovery today. One of the problems with having a well rated website is that many of the visitors to it aren't after my services at all but are competitors who want to see what makes my site tick so that they can copy it.

Analysis of good ranking websites is not only fair game but makes sense and there are many ideas that I have taken from other sites but one thing that is neither fair game nor even legal is the wholesale copying of someone's website (like that Brazilian company did with mine) or cutting and pasting lumps of text.

I was told about www.copyscape.com today which is an interesting site that will examine any web page that you ask it to and will produce a list of other sites that contain similar text.

The index page is too easy so test it out but inputting the second page of my site http://www.factoringsolutions.co.uk/...ng_company.htm into copyscape will produce a list of what it thinks may be sites plagiarising mine. Most could well just be inbound links to my site but in this instance if you click on the first link to "all-about-factoring.info/factoring-company.html" it shows sections that have been copied from mine. What it doesn't show you is that the majority of the text that hasn't been highlighted has actually been cut and pasted from different pages on my site.

Someone will be turning up to work on Monday to find a rather nasty email in their inbox warning them of dire consequences if they do not change the text and I will start to use copyscape regularly now.

[MarkD]

Hi Ian,

copyscape seems like a very interesting product. I've given it a quick try and shall investigate further.

regards
Mark Dalton

[TWD-Tony]

Copyright law is a very complicated thing... As far as I know (and there is probably someone here more qualified to answer this) You cannot copyright a website - only actual copyrighted material on a website (images, software downloads etc).

If you went to microsoft's website and copied the source and used it for your own website - you could as long as you removed any copyrighted images etc.
Now whether TEXT on a website falls into the category of "copyrightable content" or "code" I'm not 100% sure???

But I do know that you cannot be prosecuted for copying a website layout or design if you do not copy any material that is copyrighted (if you see what I mean).

[microbe]

Yes, text is protected.

The law varies from country to country, though, so does the enthusiasm with which it is enforced.

[Marvin]

Copyscape is great and I have found another use for it. If you've posted an article on an article site you use Copyscape to see where it has been picked up. The only drawback is that it only shows ten sites.

Does anyone know a tool like Copyscape that would pick up more than 10?

[Ian J]

Copernic Agent is quite useful for things like that

[Marvin]

Thanks Ian - I had a quick look at Copernic Agent. I think I'll try out the basic version to see how it worke.

On the subject of copying - take a look at this site for completely obvious rip-off behaviour: http://www.baddesignkills.com/logoworks/index.htm

[Teresa2084]

You cant take someone elses source code and copy it and assume if you change its contents your ok. And if you copied microsofts source code, I assure you they would be on your case. I own the source code on 2 of my sites & if anyone copied my source code, I would be straight down the solicitors filing a case. Its like if you buy a template site, you do not own the source code (the web master does) therefor you cant go and knock out 20 copies of that site even if you change the pictures because he owns the source code not you. I cant imagine Microsoft saying to everyone, yeah go and copy IE source code and just change its pics and look a little and we will let you do it. My gosh they would take you to the cleaners ha ha There is no way I paid out thousands of pounds just so someone else can go and copy my source code either.

[TWD-Tony]

Originally Posted by Teresa2084

You cant take someone elses source code and copy it and assume if you change its contents your ok. And if you copied microsofts source code, I assure you they would be on your case. I own the source code on 2 of my sites & if anyone copied my source code, I would be straight down the solicitors filing a case. Its like if you buy a template site, you do not own the source code (the web master does) therefor you cant go and knock out 20 copies of that site even if you change the pictures because he owns the source code not you. I cant imagine Microsoft saying to everyone, yeah go and copy IE source code and just change its pics and look a little and we will let you do it. My gosh they would take you to the cleaners ha ha There is no way I paid out thousands of pounds just so someone else can go and copy my source code either.

Copying a software app's code is totally different - what we are talking about here is basic HTML (something that you cannot copyright). Imagine if I was successfull in copyrighting the <META> tag or maybe the <DIV> tag! I would be quids in!
Just as you cannot copyright words - except branding & slogans obviously... I doubt you could be sued by anyone because your general layout was identical.

When you say you own the "code" for your website then I presume you are talking about php or asp (or something similar?), this is different bacause the code is owned by someone, not just a few HTML tags arranged in a certain order...

Like I said earlier in this thread, I am not an expert - but this has been discussed accross the net thousands of times and the majority of the time, the opinion (of some lawyers too) was that HTML cannot be stolen - as it is just a jumble of open domain tags, where as website CONTENT is dfferent and images etc can be copyrighted...

[Teresa2084]

Im glad you explained that fully as one of the posts didnt look that way which is the one I responded too and if your new to the business or web side of things, it could easily be misread and the last thing we want is some young wana be mega rich kid copying internet explorers source code and doing it in red with pics of me in on it
Yes i own my sites source codes and the flash designs and one isnt built in either of those and is C++ which not many webbies use these days and not normaly for a site like mine. Damn hard to transfer too So im forced to stick with the original webbie on that one for now. It has over 4000 registered active users on there but I want it rebuilt with someone else.
Copyright info should be put on business sites/forums because more and more businesses are using the web and its such an important part of any business new and existing to know these things. Other good info people should know is about peoples personal details you hold on the net.