Hopefully this is the right forum.... We sell template websites for the mortgage industry and we give our users a lifetime license good for one domain. Since we give them the full source code so that they can make customizations as needed, there is the possibility and liklihood that some of these users may try to put the website on multiple domains and even worse sell copies of the website. My question is: Does anybody have any good ideas on how to track the code so that we can know if the website is being duplicated and or is there any way to automatically disable "rogue" websites once we actually find them, outside of a DMCA takedown notice.....? All ideas, thoughts, and feedback is appreciated! I know we are putting ourself in the way of danger by giving the source code, but I'm not seeing any other way to enable them to customize the site on their own without the source code......
By template do you mean you are simply giving them HTML or are you giving them a full "application"? If it is pure HTML then there aint anything you can do but just accept it as a risk, price accordingly and contact the sites webhost if you find a breach of copyright - a DMCA is only strictly applicable to the USA so if they/ their host are outside the USA it has little more influence than a straight forward complaint of breach of copyright. If it is an application then you can put in code that will both be able to validate the installation (as per vB for example) and allow you to remotely disable the site. If you are pure opensource then people could find it and remove it. If you are partially opensource there is a risk that even if you put a key function in the same encrypted/ compiled file that someone can easily enough rewrite the small part of the app to remove the validation installation. If you sell it as closesource then you are on much safer grounds but then have very much changed your product.