Metropol

The design of my website - right down to text AND META copyright information - including MY name has been copied elsewhere. Could somebody please, PLEASE advise me how to report this. I've emailed the domain company (freewebs) and hosting people (Tripod) but is there like an Internet police place I can report this to?

(I own complete copyright of my site, and it's clearly been nicked.)

Any help much appreciated.

As far as I know the only way is to call in the solicitors, although I suppose you could write the person a sternly-worded "cease and desist" type letter informing them that legal action would be next on the agenda. Basically the onus is on you to deal with them, as you own the intellectual property.

There's no contact information at all, so I *had* to just email the companies in question.

Something I didn't say in previous post was that my website is a 'personal' one - no money involved at all so solicitors is out of my hands.

Contact them informing that their website is a copy of your which you have not allowed which means they are under breaking copyright law and you have everyright to take all legal you can.

Freeweb's are quite good at stopping them if you report it to the "abuse" bit on their main site. I recommend you give them some evidence- like website addresses to compare. Give yourself an important sounding title like "Director" of your website, too.

I've got many plagarist's accounts suspended in the past, and it makes me want to laugh in an evil way.

I looked everywhere on the copied site for an email addy to get in touch with the people/person directly. But not finding one, I did report it to the likes of Freewebs via the abuse bit.

Am just awaiting to hear back from them now.

I've got many plagarist's accounts suspended in the past, and it makes me want to laugh in an evil way.

Thanks for that! I'll probably know what you mean when it's all sorted out.

Em okay you've all been watching a bit too much Murder She Wrote and The Bill.

There are far easier ways to resolve this. I'll go out on a limb here and say ALL hosting companies state in their terms & conditions that the site owners must have contactable information present on their site. Most people don't bother but it's something that could get them booted off.

Once you manage to obtain some contact detail e-mail them politely asking why they've copied it and that you don't see it as fair. Be understanding that this person could be about 13 not 33.

I doubt it's been done to spite you and you've not given details about what exactly your site is all about so I'll say this for the sake of it.

If your site is harbouring the usual TV Presentation drib drab and audio & video clips then there is no point in threatening legal action as you're more likely to get into hot water yourself. If your site is a few bits of information about the goings on in your life then yes it's annoying someone has copied but it's rather pointless taking legal action.

The issue here is that this sort of blatent copying takes place all over the web. MP3's, Movies, TV Shows, etc etc it all happens. It's hard to control and to be fair impossible to stop. You have to learn to live with it. As soon as you put something online it's not longer private, personal or yours. It's open for anyong to take and claim as theirs - the net is so big and vast that you might never see it being used.