Plagiarism of source code

[southernbc]

I have recently been the victim of blatant theft of the source code of my website by two individuals who work for the same company as I do. I was wondering if anyone had a good resource for information on Canadian internet copyright laws. Also any comments that might help in this situation are welcome. The offending parties copied verbatum my information from my head tags and inserted their name instead of mine where it was personallized. (most of which did not even apply to them).

[webmaster]

Can you post your live site first (Live link is fine) then the offending URL's (Don't put http://www in front of them, so you don't give them links, and point out the alleged copyright infringement.

I will take a look for you and advise from there - this is something I deal with all the time, and certainly there are ways of having it dealt with (That normally don't involve lawyers)

[Eric Blackwell]

Don;
Unfortunately this kind of stuff happens a LOT on the net...I'd take webmaster up on that offer to help. I have seen 3 or 4 times where good advice was given that was able to get things back to right without a huge legal mess.

If anyone knows quite a bit about getting intellectual property boosted, it is REW and some of the other folks on this site.

Sorry to hear that this happened.

Best;

Eric

[southernbc]

Can you post your live site first (Live link is fine) then the offending URL's (Don't put http://www in front of them, so you don't give them links, and point out the alleged copyright infringement.

I will take a look for you and advise from there - this is something I deal with all the time, and certainly there are ways of having it dealt with (That normally don't involve lawyers)

The header section is what was copied, I am not sure if these are the exact pages copied but it is very clear to anyone looking that they are my writing.

[Eric Blackwell]

Ummm...Don, what is your url?

Best;

Eric

[webmaster]

Interesting, I have never actually heard a complaint against meta data, but I certainly see the similarities (Cough rip off)

Yours

<TITLE>Boundary area Residential or Commercial properties - Call Don Mann Coldwell Banker Border Country Real Estate Greenwood, BC Canada.</TITLE>
   <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
   <meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">
   <meta name="distribution" content="global">
   <meta name="author" content="Don Mann - Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
   <META NAME="CompanyName" CONTENT="Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">

   <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Don Mann coldwell Banker Border Country Realty boundary area region listing listings real estate for sale realestate list realtor agent represenative representatives agency business rock creek bridesville westbridge beaverdell midway greenwood grand forks christina lake southern bc british columbia BC canada canadian hwy 3 hwy-3 highway three west kootenay east kootenays north south okanagan valley east kootenay boundary area region canadian greenwood  heritage buildings north south east west kootenays company companies location residential beaverdel commercial">

   <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Don Mann coldwell Banker Border Country Real Estate Listings, List your residential home or commercial business for sale with me personally and you will be placed on this my personal list of Boundary West Kootenay area Real Estate listings, (BC Highway-33 Beaverdell, Westbridge Hwy-3 Rock Creek, Bridesvile, Midway, Greenwood, Grand Forks and Christina Lake) giving you the advantage of higher exposure and more selling opportunities. The way to get your home listed on this website is to list your home with Don mann, Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">
   <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.05 [en] (Win95; I) [Netscape]">

His (I mean yours with his name on it)

<TITLE>Boundary area Residential or Commercial properties - Call John Ogloff Coldwell Banker Border Country Real Estate Grand Forks, BC Canada.</TITLE>
   <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
   <meta name="revisit-after" content="7 days">
   <meta name="distribution" content="global">
   <meta name="author" content="John Ogloff - Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">
   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
   <META NAME="CompanyName" CONTENT="Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">

   <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="John Ogloff coldwell Banker Border Country Realty boundary area region listing listings real estate for sale realestate list realtor agent represenative representatives agency business rock creek bridesville westbridge beaverdell midway greenwood grand forks christina lake southern bc british columbia BC canada canadian hwy 3 hwy-3 highway three west kootenay east kootenays north south okanagan valley east kootenay boundary area region canadian greenwood  heritage buildings north south east west kootenays company companies location residential beaverdel commercial">

   <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="John Ogloff coldwell Banker Border Country Real Estate Listings, List your residential home or commercial business for sale with me personally and you will be placed on this my personal list of Boundary West Kootenay area Real Estate listings, (BC Highway-33 Beaverdell, Westbridge Hwy-3 Rock Creek, Bridesvile, Midway, Greenwood, Grand Forks and Christina Lake) giving you the advantage of higher exposure and more selling opportunities. The way to get your home listed on this website is to list your home with John Ogloff, Coldwell Banker Border Country Realty">
   <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/4.05 [en] (Winxp; I) 
[Macromedia Dreamweaver]">

The first step you need to take, is contact this person directly and request sternly (But in a professional manner) that he change his header data, that has been copied from your site. Often times this will be met with "You can't copyright that! or Shoot I am busted, better blame it on some web guy I hired in India, those bastards (Yeah right) but I will take it down.

If he is unwilling to change the information (Which you can use the wayback machine to prove that you own) - file a complaint with your broker, as well as a DMCA to his web host - if that does not work, you need to get your lawyers or a notary involved and have a cease and desist letter sent to the offender, finally if none of this works, you do have to go to court

Most of the time, the threat of a DMCA (With an explanation of what that is and that it can get their website taken down) works out just fine

[webmaster]

Incidentally, your header data could use some fine tuning from an SEO perspective, you have some superfluous tags in there, as well you are not using the meta keywords tag correctly

[HFO]

Incidentally, webmaster is on the same boat.
Webmaster's

<title>Real Estate Web Design - Realtor Websites - Real Estate Agents</title>
<meta name="verify-v1" content="R8rtYRdfJ6dieGf074/+omXfRNnWLIutWul0zkrSW+0=" />
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Webmasters specializes in custom Search Engine Friendly real estate website design and search engine optimization (SEO). Have your realtor website created by REW and succeed!" />

http://www.arkadia.com/usa/real-estate/agent/eagent/ =

<title>Real Estate Web Design - Realtor Websites - Real Estate Agents</title>
<meta name="description" content="A Real Estate Web Design Company specializing in custom Search Engine Friendly real estate website design and search engine optimization (SEO). Have your realtor website created by Arkadia and succeed!">

[webmaster]

Those bastards! - I am not "as" worried about it, as they will just get themselves put into supps due to lack of authority vs REW - I will send them a nasty email anyways

[southernbc]

(As if the code alone would do it) I guess they think they can always find someone at the top of the search engines who can spare a little code. I suppose my tags may not be quite right, (I am completely self taught so I only know what I have been able to figure out over the years). At this point it is still working well enough that my competitors want to steal it though.

I am not familiar with the wayback machine it sounds like a tool I want to know more about. Please let me know where to find it.

Thanks for the input, I am already at stage 1, I have reported this to the agent/Broker in charge. I felt direct confrontation would be fruitless as they are obvoiously aware they have stolen content.

Have a Great Day!
Don