I own a rap forum http://www.rapnation.com and a couple of months ago I discovered while away on a medical, that one of the admins has setup a new site with the same name as mine but with '2' at the end http://www.rapnation2.com I confronted the admin who did this and he gave me some lame excuses about my site not working - he had messed about with the theme therefore disabling my forum. He went on to say that he'd copied my database from the control panel. I need a lawyer to represent me on this one, I think a a letter would suffice to put some sense into this thief's head. If anyone can recommend a lawyer or if a lawyer is available to render services, please pm me. I appreciate your help and thank you in advance.
What you want is an intellectual property lawyer possibly one with trial experience. One thing to know in a suit is "damages" and how you calculate them. Here is some basic advice though. Screenshot everything. Keep records of any access the admin had via raw log files or anything else you might have. Keep all communications you have had. Print as much of this as you can. One thing I notice is that the ripper's site is dead...he only has 32 members. Are you sure this isn't something you can work out with him? I would ask him to rename all his forum descriptions so they are not a direct copy and also tell him to get a different domain. That would satisfy me for the most part. The cost of a lawyer is going to be great and you get nothing if he has nothing. You will still need to pay the lawyer too. You can also get his site banned in the search indexes by sending out DMCA notices. You should inform the thief of all the possible actions you can take and see if he can simply comply. Possibly ask that he transfer the domain to you as well. Good luck.
Any lawyer can write a cease & desist order. You could do it yourself but it would be more effective on legal stationary. Should be able to get it done for $25-50.
Thats bad ive had people do me kind of like that before but with groups instead of forums.. they just disabled my access and took it over form me years ago befoe i learned to never ever make anyone full admin or moderator not anyone but myself
I would venture to guess that the more niche your market, the less problems you would have with people ripping off your site. People that rip off sites are lazy. They don't want to put in the hard work to make a successful site and business themselves. They want to feed off someone else's hard work. In the end, they will get what's coming to them. They will fail. Unfortunately, they will take another site down with them, most likely. They would be the bottom feeders in the food chain.
It's rather strange being an admin means he actually had to do a job, and now doing something that puts him with the "lazy" people is quite ironic.
Thanks for the advice guys I really appreciate it For your amusement: I caught the forum thief on my forum's shoutbox shamelessly plugging 'his' site and trying to poach more members. I banned the clown's IP The lengths these creeps would go to never ceases to amaze me. I will in fact get a lawyer to send him a letter. I live in London, U.K so I am not at all familiar with U.S lawyers. Can anyone recommend someone please?
I wouldn't even waste your time with a lawyer or anything. His site will never make it, you have 8000 members compared to 34, you have him beat in every aspect. All your members know that rapnation.com is the place to be, not rapnation2. Save some stress, and let it go.
If you have software that you had to buy a license for and he stole it you may be able to get the persons you bought the software from to take care of it for you because he would have to have his own license.
Piss ants like your forum thief never last very long...ignore him and block his attempts to promote on your site.
I do this stuff all the time and actually managed a successful WIPO win dealing with a UK poacher. Unless you're willing to spend bucks on a lawyer - and it will cost you in the UK - you may as well just write a letter demanding that (a) he ceases and desists from any and all activity regarding rapnation which is a brand owned by yourself and, at your option, (b) he hands over the domain to you for the cost price. Make sure you include a notation that he will remain personally liable for any damages that may result from his attempt to free ride off the goodwill of your brand. His representation that he was doing the work on your behalf (problems with the site) are proof itself that the domain and whatever is on it are owned by you. Personally I think the name he used is terrible so you can choose whether or not to buy it from him or just shut him down. If you're really going for it with this site (love the name!) then trademark it, at least in the UK. That helped us tremendously and will be worth the money in the long run. Hope this helps you out.
of those 8000 people on your site i bet at least 2/3rds are spam bots. I delt with phpBB once before (your template) and i had a small site going. within 2 weeks it was spamzillla. Screw phpBB anyway, with your issue just fire off what legal action you could take. usually that is enough to scare the parties involved off if you have a valid case, especially since the person was stupid enough to claim he hacked your site thru the phpbb control panel
Without being too forceful, this kind of a letter may work. In the event they don't comply, you send a follow up letter with a statement that you intend to take advantage of your legal remedies and you file a complaint with their host. You should follow the DMCA guidelines for the complaint (take a look at YouTube's Terms of Use and you'll see what these are) which basically is a statement where you (a) identify the materials that you own (b) claim they are are being used without permission and (c) claim you are the owner and (d) provide your contact information. Hope this helps and good luck. Dear Jerk: It has come to our attention that you are using (our materials/trademark, etc.) on your website (www.iamajerk.com/pages.htm list pages and define the materials) without our express written permission. Your unauthorized use of our intellectual property constitutes _____ copyright/trademark infringement under federal and state law. We hope that your usage has been unintentional and that you will remove ____________ promptly. Please contact us within ten calendar days of receiving this message to confirm that you have removed the ___(infringing materials) and that you will cease and desist any further use of _______________. Sincerely, Me Deep Pockets, LLC
here is a sample cease and desist letter taken from : http://www.webmastertechniques.com/Insight/cease.html it has a few helpful points about Cease and Desist letters on the page, that should about do it , if it doesnt contact his web hosting provider and shut him down Dear Jane Smith, It has come to our attention that you are republishing original content from MySite.com on your Website, located at MySiteIsBetter.com. Your unauthorized use of original material from MySite.com is in violation of copyrights owned by MySite.com. If you do not immediately remove the copyrighted material from MySiteIsBetter.com, and notify us in writing that you have done so, we will have no choice but to pursue legal action against you. We require the copyrighted material to be removed and written notice given that such has been removed, by no later than June 30, 2000. Sincerely, John Doe for MySite.com hope that helps...
Mattaw - your effort is good but the letter isn't. The obvious problem with your example is that it never identifies the content you are claiming is infringing. This is why people need to beware that there are good and not good legal forms sifting through the Internet.
i did a flash search and am just trying to help, it obviously isn't a perfect copy but looked pretty good to me GENERALLY for most of these websites a simple letter like your or mine will serve to scare the owner into shutting down the site or removing infringing copywritten material.