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Showing results for tags 'theft'.
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Every site owner will invariably encounter a situation where a member (or guest that happens upon your site) will take your work and start their own site with it. So with that in mind, here is what to do about it. I've heard people say they'd be flattered. But in truth most people who say that have likely never actually had it happen to them. And having been on sites that were ripped off, you don't feel flattered when it happens... you feel angry, insulted, sad, violated and annoyed (but not flattered). 1- Determination Before you even consider accusing someone of theft, you absolutely need to make sure theft actually occurred. There are some things that cannot be classified as theft and attempting to report on these are exercises in futility. (No host is going to ever take action on them, you might as well save your time/energy.) Those things are: * Ideas * Public domain images * Segments of code (a line or two of Javascript that does something neat can't be copyrighted. But a 75 line one that affects multiple specific parts of your site? Little bit of a different story.) * Generic names (so if your character is named Bob, submitting a claim on the name Bob will get you ignored.) * Derivative works (If you are a canon based roleplay and elements of canon material get taken, thus you are not the copyright holder, there is nothing you can actually do. Even if what was taken was in your writing. You still don't own it and can't make any claims on it.) For skins, check the source code to see whether they used your exact skin (like it has: your credits in the CSS, lines that you included, links to your images or etc... ) or it's just very similar. Remember that even if a skin looks similar it does not mean it was copied. For example skins using black are pretty common. So you might see #000 (Black) and #A60000 (Red) used because those are common colours. You need to actually verify they've copied before making any sorts of accusations or claims. Otherwise it looks really bad for you (especially if you make accusations publicly, which is generally a bad idea) and generally will get your claim ignored. 2- Document evidence After you have determined that you have been stolen from, the next thing to do is grab screenshots of everything. (This is to provide proof later on.) If you want to show exact comparison, open a tab with your site then open a new window and tab with the copycat and arrange the two windows to show both sites at once. Then take a screenshot of them both together. (Try to show the dates if possible so they can see that your content was posted first.) Next grab all the links and store them in a text document. Make sure to clearly label what each link is and why it's included. (This will help later in case that site goes into lockdown mode, bans you or simply moves the topic to a section you can't see.) If they stole your CSS, having a screenshot showing side by side "view source" (to show how identical your coding is) is good. And likely the only thing you'll really need. 3- Confront Then after the evidence gathering phase, you need to contact that admin/owner of the site that has copied (privately of course) and try to reason with them. Ask them to remove anything that doesn't belong. (I recommend against just asking for credit since that sends the message that what they did was ok.) Please do not skip this step and go right into the "Escalation" aspect (mentioned below). Most hosts will ask you if you've contacted that site to attempt resolution on your own. If you haven't they may well direct you to attempt that first. And they may not actually take action themselves (even if a proper DMCA and/or ToS report has been filed) unless the site in question has already refused to co-operate with you. WARNING - never threaten or warn a site that you'll pursue further actions against them (like DMCA or ToS reporting) since that may cause them to go into lockdown mode. (Where guest access is restricted, they may hide or modify things to cloak their thievery and most assuredly you'll find yourself banned.) A good sample message you can send would be: 4- Response At this point any action they take is considered a response. Even if they don't respond at all... if they state they will remove the stolen content, thank them for their time and understanding in this matter. However make sure to document your correspondence with them (just in case). And follow the steps under "Co-operation". If they: don't reply within a week, reply claiming innocence or that they did nothing wrong, or after a week have yet to remove the stolen content; then proceed to the steps marked under "Escalation". 4A- Co-operation After they've stated they would remove content watch them for a week to see if they actually did remove your work. (Some sites will tell you they'll remove your work just to get you to go away. Though they have no intention of doing anything. If this happens, go the steps listed in "Escalation".) However if they do remove your work then check back after two weeks and 4 weeks to see if they have kept it off (and not just removed it temporarily to satisfy you). If they have kept if off for a full month then they probably won't reuse it. Though if at any time (during the month) they restore content that was stolen from you... go right to the "Escalation" stage as at this point they have been warned, they know exactly what they're doing and have no desire to listen. 4B- Escalation If they refuse to listen or co-operate... Then take it to the next level and submit a DMCA report to their host (you may need to do a WHOIS to get that info). Be certain to include very specific details about what is copied and from where. (So if they copy your rules word for word then include the links to their rules and your rules.) Include every link, screenshot and conversation with the site owner you can for proof. This will authorize the host to remove any content which doesn't belong to the copycat. Or if the DMCA report is severe enough (like enough info was copied) they may elect simply to terminate the user's site/contract without refund. Though this should be a last ditch effort if they won't remove it on their own. Like stated in the contact section of this article, do not attempt to jump directly to this step. Most hosts will not act unless all other avenues have been attempted. Additionally be aware that filing false DMCA requests is a serious matter and should you be caught you could be held liable for civil misconduct. (Hence the reasoning for requiring all the evidence.)
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Hello everyone! I'm here hoping for your opinions on how to handle claims of one of your members using plagiarized characters for your site. I've never run into this particular problem before, and I think that's because for the most part, we all consider RP characters to be pretty personal. We put our time and effort into them, and as such we respect that others have done the same for THEIR characters. I know that for me, personally, the idea of stealing someone else's character never occurred to me to do, and I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people. Anyway! Last night, a guest popped up into our CBox and made a claim that one of our members had stolen her character from another site. The guest did not back up or substantiate their claim, and when we inquired about it, the member in question was adamant that the character had always been HERS, and that SHE was the victim, not the other way around. Personally, I know that plagiarism is a serious accusation. But I have also been accused of art theft on images that I myself drew from scratch (and spent hours on, no less!) and posted. People would see the image posted in two or more locations, and assumed that one of those was a thief. Taking that into consideration, I took to Google and searched for traces of this character on other sites. I tried copy/pasting the app text into the search, including the most commonly used strings of text. I visited the link the Guest had provided in the CBox to check for a copyright date, a "posted on" date, or similar, but found nothing except that it was last updated in June of this year. The earliest iteration of this character I could find was December 2015, using the same RL name as the person on my site, even though the OOC tag she's using differs from that. Someone suggested checking IP addresses, but as I personally know, that can change for a number of reasons, including switching from mobile access to PC, from PC to laptop, from home network to work or school, and so on. It can occur with a change in internet service provider, or sometimes even by moving houses, AND if you have a dynamic IP address, it can change from day to day. So checking IP isn't the best way to go about that, unfortunately. So, given all that I've listed above, how would you admin handle a situation like this one on your forum? I'd like to avoid placing blame or pointing fingers. At this point I have asked the member for evidence that this character is hers, such as logging into existing apps and making a note which contains our site name so that we know they are indeed hers. I've also made it clear that while we value her as a member, we cannot condone plagiarism and she may need to re-write the app from scratch as opposed to copy/pasting it directly from another site. Thanks in advance for your input!
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You pour your heart and soul into a site. You manage to get it off the ground, and it's awesome. There's nothing better than a site that's active, that everyone enjoys. Then your activity dwindles. Real Life kicks you in the balls. You notice a member has 'borrowed' a ranking system you developed from scratch, to use in a different genre site. Whatever, it's not that big of a deal. They changed it. It's not a carbon copy. Your site dies. Everyone's real life kicked their ball-sacks and everyone's just kind of, poking it with a stick. Go back to actually be dutiful, close things properly, and there's an advertisement from an old member. Catches your eye. You read it and think "Huh, this sounds just like THIS EXACT SITE." They even slip something about 'Inspired by [yoursitename]' into their advertisement. What is this tomfoolery? A quick browsing of the rules, and they are SO DAMN FAMILIAR. Because they were STOLEN. WORD FOR WORD. FROM YOUR SITE. That's not all! Your Plot! Your information pages, it's all on THEIR SITE. What in the good name of Grace are you supposed to do? How do you handle this? Am I wrong for being unreasonably irate?