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Bringing Down A Copycat Site

Posted by timothy on from the cajoling-and-threats dept.

Nigel Cross wrote in with an interesting story from the world of software fraud. Cross writes "I found a copycat site fraudulently selling my own software and kept a record of the steps it took to bring him down."

8 of 468 comments (clear)

  1. More than just copyright violation... by procrastitron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know that a lot of people are going to compare this with suprnova/etc to support their stance on copyright law. Rather than take a side right now I would just like to point out that this is not just simple copyright violation. The site in question was also committing fraud and trademark violation, both of which are separate issues in addition to the copyright violation.

    1. Re:More than just copyright violation... by zakezuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      so, hang on, let me get my head wrapped around this - it is somehow okay to rip off somebodies hard work ("just a simple copyright violation"), but to rip off his *logo* is somehow mean and nasty and below the belt? dude, you have some serious prioritisation issues....

      Piracy is one thing. You are getting something for nothing. You *could* place a dollar value based on what the software would normally cost but that's about it.

      To misrepresent your self as another company is a form of flat out fraud. In this case someone was getting money for someone else's work, taking credit for someone else's work, and one could argue causing them harm through this misrepresentation. After all the guy was asking for credit card numbers. Not only is there the dollar value of the software someone else profited from but the possibility of harming the character of the rightful owner. Would you do business with a fraudster? Would you use their software or reject it? Would you tell others to reject it?

      I will not say piracy is OK in this reply. I will say that bootlegging is greater offence. And to misrepresent your self as being the owner of code that doesn't belong to you and use this lie to make money one would be no better than.... I don't know.... SCO.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
  2. Re:/. it by procrastitron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the issues that concerned the poster was that the copycat site might show up (early) on search engine results. The probability of this would greatly increase if links were posted to it by people trying to bring the site down. As such, a /.ing might have wound up increasing the damage caused by the copycat site.

  3. Great job by hexed_2050 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Awesome! Great work on taking the copycat's site down. There are way too many punks on the internet these days that will stoop to massive lows just to make a buck or two, it's pure garbage. I have many ideas always in the mix and I dare tell a couple people about them before the official release date - I've been ripped off by people before like this.

    sadly, you know as well as I, it won't be long before your copycat starts up on a new hosting server and does the exact thing again.

    --
    Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
  4. He won with a counter threat by lodn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To bad the hosting provider didn't take his complaint seriously. This guy can just pick the next company and start all over again.

  5. Re:MailList: Used by Spammers? by lxt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe, but from what I can tell it doesn't actually get supplied with any email addresses - it's just a mailing list utility program (which looks pretty good, actually), with hundreds of legitimate uses.

    That said, some of the tools the software provides do look like being tailored towards the bulk advertising market...but they too also have some legitimate use...

  6. Re:MailList: Used by Spammers? by balloonhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, it's ok for KaZaA/BitTorrent/P2P as they have legitimate uses, even if they are used mostly for copyright violation, but it's not ok for this guy as it could be used for spam?

    Give us a break. Can't have it both ways. The guy is just trying to make a living. If someone uses it to send spam, it's THEM that are at fault, not the writer of the software.

    It's the same as guns don't kill people, people kill people.

    --
    This idea was invented by Shampoo.
  7. Just a question by ducomputergeek · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yesterday there was a story about a priacy ring and people being sentance to 15 years for charging for access to pirated materials. There were a number of highly modded post about how wrong it was to sentance that guy to years in prison and a few posts about the evils of the DMCA and closed source software that always accompanies just stories.

    Today we have this story where someone was selling pirated software taking credit from the creator, but because this wasn't some giant software company overwhelming there are modded responses about "way to go", "stick it to 'em", etc. etc.

    My questions is what is the difference between yesterday and today? Both folks committed copyright, trademark, and fraud, but because its the work of some smaller outfit it is more of an evil than the same thing happening to "Evil giant corperations"?

    Piracy is theft. Fraud is Fraud. Infrigement is Infrigement. End of story. It doesn't matter if its small guy or giant huge megacorp.

    I hope that the creator(s) of this program nail this guy and take 'em to the cleaners. Its times like these that lawyers are not an evil word and lawsuits in federal court aren't either.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.