Website Plagiarism - What can i do?

robfenn's picture

He has: 471 posts

Joined: Jun 2005

As you are probably aware, the Chinese have been known for plagiarism, it seems to be culturally acceptable over there. Well, a client has fell victim.

Check out their site:
http://www.british-accreditation.co.uk/

Then the Chinese one:
http://www.china-iso.net/

Its not exactly the same, but thats because it is a design we had last year. It is virtually identical, it even has Website Design by Sixth Sense ESP at the bottom (my company!). The only changes are the text and a few different pictures.

Clearly they are trying to pass themselves as The British Accreditation Bureau for their own benefit. I have no idea where to start on this, i can see legally it being very expensive and time consuming. Do you think it is even worth doing anything?

If anyone has any tips i'd be very grateful.

Cheers

Rob

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Here's some advice from a lawyer at SEOmoz:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/four-ways-to-enforce-your-copyright-what-to-d...

We've had similar problems here on the forums. We've caught quite a few people copying and pasting content from other sites as their own. You can always tell because it's a little bit out of context and often more formally written that what you'd normally see in a forum post. One person recently was actually copying parts of other peoples' posts from the same thread and posting them as their own!

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

I also notice you've got some stock images on that site. Did you purchase them? Might be worth informing the company you purchased them from that someone is using their images without paying for them.

a Padded Cell our articles site!

robfenn's picture

He has: 471 posts

Joined: Jun 2005

Good idea, might be worth a shot!

Thanks for the link!

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

I hate people who copy other's stuff !
But I am just a noob , so i think people above have advised you well....

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

Yeah, try to get at this issue from every angle you can. If anything you've used is being infringed upon (images, etc.) contact those companies directly.

I don't know much about the legal aspects, but I just wanted to say, I can't believe it! I've heard about plagiarism, but I seriously did not think anyone with a conscience would be able to rip a site completely to pass it off as their own. In a weird way, you can take it as a compliment, but I'm sure that does nothing to ease the blatant insult.

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

I saw its same site. same title, maybe it same keyword. Google will notice its plagiarism . But in internet many site has plagiarism. And we can not reach them. But i hate with this plagiarism.

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

I'm just curious, how did you find this site? Did you stumble upon it by accident, or were you using some kind of program to detect any instances of plagiarism on the web?

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