We've all seen them at some point in time - the forums that "copy" your design and/or format and then call it their own. How would you go about (or, how have you gone about) dealing with such a situation?
I've had it a fair few times, usually from disgruntled ex-members who think all they need to do is open up and everyone will switch sites in droves. They end up talking to themselves. I see it as flattering really.
It's also quite amusing. As mentioned, these "copycat" communities usually fail and, when they do, a good laugh or two can be experienced.
Have you ever made attempts to contact these individuals and work it out? I don't know how effective it would be, but it's worth a shot.
I did. I constantly get 'It's uploaded online, I can use it'. EVEN when it's pretty clear that it's mine and such. It has the ©Setsou Design FullMetalBabe, they try to cover it cheaply making the image look ugly.
I C&D as well and most hosts shut them down rather quickly. Since my own forum is a hacker forum 99% of hosts disallow the material. So it's easy to get them booted. And even more foolish is those that copy my site and use Adsense. One complaint to adsense and the revenue they thought they would make is over. I have probably shut down at least 10 sites that were clones or attempts by members to fork. I know of only two that are still operating and they both took the more independent route which of course is the right way to go. For anyone that gets copied..don't just accept it as part of the business. Do something about it.
This hasn't happened to me, but as some others have mentioned I would definitely C&D immediately upon discovering that even a piece of my content was taken. I almost had to in the past, actually. As most of you know, we have a large photo gallery on our forum as a well as a specific "Pictures" section, and these are probably the most popular parts of our forum. Well, some person came onto my site advertising "Lineolated Parakeet Photo Calendars" that she made and was selling through CafePress. I looked through and noticed that a lot of the pictures looked very familiar. So I found those images on my site and I e-mailed her and linked to each image and where on my site it was originally uploaded. I also contacted the uploaders of the photos and asked them if they had granted permission to her on another site or somewhere else... They all said yes, so that instantly meant there was nothing I could do. If they had said no, I would have taken immediate action and contacted CafePress. I'm not going to let somebody else make money off of my content that they stole. I agree. We all have the right to protect our work and projects, so don't let people just copy it and be on their merry way.
I have not found anyone that has tried to copy my site. Maybe I'am just not popular enough? Who knows. Most of my content you can not use adsense on anyway. So there is not financial incentive to copy my site. Google does not want their banners on sites that promote the same of weapons - such as firearms and knives. And maybe because of the content, people do not want to deal with that.
You're also part of a more mature crowd imho. I deal with teens that think they are above the law. Some don't even think copying my site is wrong. I have to take the time to explain it to them.
