Can a developer be sued for "copying" a site?

Question

Law in IT

Good afternoon.
Received an order for the development of LP.
They sent the data, I did everything and something pulled me and I started checking on the Internet what, and how.
As a result, I found a site with a completely identical design, here it is completely, even the scripts are needed the same.
But different contact details, the text and a different logo are slightly changed. Given that some unknown studio involved in LP was involved in the development of their site?
Can I have something to show in case of a claim against them, as a developer? Given that I just send them the archive, and they register the domain and hosting themselves, and place the code themselves?

Answer 1

they can,
but it's unlikely
, but for design elements - much more so
, if scripts - follow the licenses

Answer 2

those. just me?
I did everything according to TK and "didn't know" that they provided TK for a copy of the site
in this case too? I didn't sign any contracts with them. They don't even know my real name.

You are lumping together a lot of different questions. Here and "how will they find me" and "prove", and "can they file".
Of course they can, there have been such cases, and more than once.
Small offices like "a plumbing shop from Bobruisk" most likely will not do this, because they can file, of course, but few people in this country can collect evidence on all sorts of IT things. And you have to pay for lawyers.
If you copy someone big, such as Facebook or Google - hide better, or note the time when they come to you. On the other hand, the early versions of VKontakte were very similar to Linkedin, but he had nothing for it. While vkontaktik was small, no one was interested in him, and in the process of growth he became less and less similar.
For a copied picture or script, it can fly like this. It would be necessary to look at the licenses for these things or replace them with analogues.

Answer 3

in theory, anything can happen, in practice everything is much more complicated ... or it’s not possible.
The site developed by you is used by your customer (not you), respectively, the customer will be responsible first of all (as in the case of driving a car by proxy, responsibility , when a camera detects a violation of the speed limit, s first of all arises from the owner of the car, and not from the person admitted to driving) ... later, if any amounts are collected from the customer for copyright infringement (and this is a lawsuit and examinations. ..), then theoretically the customer can present a recourse claim against you for the recovery of losses incurred by him from you.
However, losses in Russian law (the causal relationship of their occurrence, etc. nuances) are proved very, very hard, and in the absence of normally executed contracts, acts, and other documents, this is almost fantastic. It is impossible to answer you what is the probability of your liability in this case without studying your contract and other documents.
In addition, Russian courts, as a rule, very rarely satisfy claims for the recovery of compensation, damages, penalties in full, it often happens that the amount of compensation is reduced by dozens of times (for example, hundreds of thousands of rubles are claimed for copyright infringement in a photo, and the average amount recovered for such claims 10-15 tr.)
In practice, if such a situation really arises, it is unlikely that your customer will bring it to court, most likely he will simply remove the site from public access and try to negotiate peacefully, for some small compensation for the copyright holder, otherwise this will entail significant monetary and time expenses for the litigation with both the copyright holder and the developer, with the payment of expertise, lawyers, etc. expenses ... and all this does not guarantee (I would even say that in 99.99% it is definitely not possible ...) he will be returned he spent the money in full, not to mention the time spent (and this, by the way, is at least a year, if in time, at best ...)

Answer 4

If I were you, I would immediately stop working with this customer.
Customers of this kind periodically offer me work too, but I immediately blacklist them and do not answer their letters.
Their goals do not interest me, it is quite enough for me that they are not who they say they are.
Starting to cooperate with such an audience, you can go very far. They do have friends too.