Top 10 excuses given by people who rip-off your site
As many of you will know my various sites have been ripped-off more than once. So much so in fact that I’ve compiled this handy Top 10 list of excuses given by dodgepots who have no talent:
1. I’m new to this and didn’t know that it was wrong to copy.
2. My business partner/outsourced designer from India must have done this. I will sack them right now.
3. Sorry I thought your design was just a template and therefore free to copy.
4.It’s not a copy it’s just a coincidence that it looks…erm…identical to yours.
5. I’m so busy I can’t remember where I got the design inspiration from, I run a lot of sites you know.
6. I didn’t copy all of your site, just certain parts so that’s OK.
7. I can’t deal with this right now there’s been a death in the family.
8. I didn’t copy it from your site I got it from another site. So they must have been the ones copying your site, not me.
9. I don’t make much money so it’s cheaper for me to get “inspiration” from websites already out there.
10. I credited you on my site so that makes it OK.
What’s the best excuse you’ve heard from people either copying your design or your content?
Mariah Carey Feat TI – “I’ll Be Lovin’ You Long Time” (Remix)
Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm and is filed under General Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
June 29th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
lol, you’re post actually made me laugh (even though I’m sure it’s not supposed to)
To be honest you’ve been luckier than we’ve been.. nobody ever responded C & D letters, but it usually did the trick and got the site either down.
If you don’t get any response from the dude, contact their ISP. If you’re pretty well established with Google and you see him advertising on your keywords alert your rep or just the general team. They won’t do anything directly but they alert the other advertiser that he’s copied your ad-text and content and that you would like to get in touch.
It’s kinda like calling mommie on him
but if you get a mail from Google telling with a complaint people usually stop and start acting like a good little bastard again 
Still - Somewhere it’s still flattering..
June 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Wiks-Store - theft is still theft, even if you only just did it four days ago, temporarily, because you were inspired by the thing you stole.
Kieron - Most offensive excuse doing the rounds at the moment is the one used by the Daily Mail when they steal blog content and reprint it (not mine, I should say). They claim you should be flattered they picked you.
They say: “We generally take the view that blogs published on the internet have already been placed in the public domain by their authors and, in case of amateur writers, most people are happy to have their work recognised and displayed to a wider audience.”
See The Girl’s Guardian piece here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/zoe_margolis/2008/05/fight_for_your_writes.html
June 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Best reply I’ve received so far was “I’m practicing”
He’s still practicing one year on, but with someone else’s site.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am
“It’s on the internet therefore it’s free”
“We’re not actually copying your site, we’re using it so as to post everything you’ve spent your time compiling to our forum so our users don’t have to use your site”
“I’ve never visited your site” - provide evidence contrary to this - “oh yes that’s my email address, oh and my IP, oh but that wasn’t me on your site for the last 8 hours”
“we don’t make any money from it”
“so and so is new and not aware of these things”
“it’s public domain”
June 30th, 2008 at 1:06 am
“Well, I might have copied your site, but I’ll sell you mine to make up for it”
June 30th, 2008 at 9:37 am
“I didnt copy your site, you must have copied me…!” - heard that one before!
June 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Nice way round this I rekon, put some comments in your header like http://www.komodomedia.com/ do. Chances are 9 times out of 10 they won’t even bother removing them
June 30th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Pete - love the idea of putting some link in the code that they’ll no doubt be too lazy to notice/remove!
June 30th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Having spotted an Ebay listing with copy (complete with product photo) lifted straight from my ecommerce site I contacted the Ebayer who replied with :
“Eeeee I’m really sorry … I’m too old to understand computers and my son did my Ebay shop for me.”
Followed swiftly with a second email that said :
“My son informs me that he is unable to amend the current listing but it will end in a fortnight and he promises not to do this again”
P.S. I love “dodgepot” … I will be copying this and passing it off as my own … heee heee hee!
June 30th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Your stuff is so pretty though……
July 1st, 2008 at 8:05 pm
#2 does happen, its happened to me a few times and I think its happened to you too?
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:23 am
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It just sort of ended up happening”
“No, its not my website its just someone I link to. From absolutely all of my sites”
Fortunately it’s never really happened to me all that often!
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I have seen some of the ones you mentioned a few times to be honest but I have also seen;
“I didn’t copy it badly I was distributing you content from RSS”
Yes, because my RSS syndicated the header and footer includes…
“I thought the content was really good and wanted to show it to others”
That’s what links are for..
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
“Copyright doesn’t apply - No-one owns the Internet” is one I’ve had a few times!