What to do if your site is stolen?

Question

Law in IT

Recently, we were stunned when we stumbled upon a site we created on the Web with two differences: it was hosted on a different domain and in the copyright the authorship link led not to our company's website, but to some kind of web studio.
I decided to tell our case and ask Habralyudey for advice for two reasons:

• Perhaps someone has already been in such situations and knows how to solve them.
  
• Caution to anyone who has yet to face similar situations
  

How it was?
A couple of years ago, our studio developed a website for the legendary Pyatigorsk Hippodrome. It was a beautiful promo site with an original feature - in copyrights, instead of the standard "Website creation - WhiteStudio", random original inscriptions were displayed, for example:

1. We plow like horses. white studio
   
2. Horses were bred at WhiteStudio
   
3. No horses were harmed in the development of this site. white studio
   
4. etc.
   

What was our surprise when we discovered the site we created on a different domain and with other people's copyrights: a certain Deltalab company posted a copy of the site of the Pyatigorsk Hippodrome at fasthorse.ru and replaced the copyright with its own. They did not even bother to change the phrases in the signature - they stupidly changed the link from our site (www.wstudio.ru) to their site (www.deltalab.ru). True, the function of dynamic updating of copyrights seems to have not been mastered - the same inscription hangs statically there.
To be honest, we haven't had anything like this yet. There have been cases when our site designs have been stolen, but stealing the entire site in order to replace the link under it is something new.
With great difficulty, I got through to one of the numbers of this company (as a rule, either no one picks up the phone, or “the subscriber is unavailable”) and asked how they generally feel after such events? Because the head of the company "rarely happens in the office", then Ksenia - my interlocutor - took a break to chat with the boss. She was genuinely surprised that their company was capable of such a thing. An hour later I received a call from her and the conversation went in a completely different direction :) It turns out that since our contract with the client was closed by an act, now we cannot claim the authorship of the site we created. The question "do you think Shishkin's works after they were sold to the buyer ceased to be Shishkin's works?" and other rhetorical questions, as expected, crashed against Xenia's impenetrable arguments like "these are your problems, we have nothing to do with it." Well, actually
I decided not to give up and continue trying to resolve the issue peacefully - I found out who the founder of this company was and wrote him a message on Facebook. Three days passed - silence. To be honest, I don’t want to switch to unfriendly methods - the question is small. I would rather talk to the head of the company and understand why he is doing such ****.
I would be very grateful for the ideas - how would you deal with this behavior of these guys?
Maybe someone already has a similar experience, how did it end?

Answer 1

Contact a law firm, have them send a lawyer's request (letter on paper) to this firm explaining the concept of copyright and demanding an explanation of the situation.
They are obliged to answer the request, but there is no liability for ignoring it. If there is an ignorance, then this is an obvious disrespect for the law - you can safely go to court with a demand to reimburse five times the cost of the stolen project, the judge will be on your side.

Answer 2

You already decide what you want - just ask or fight :)
As I understand it, it turned out to ask, I just didn’t like the answer. And in order to fight, you need to apply strength - consult about a legal perspective, find out the possibilities of extrajudicial influence, and so on.
But before publicly doing something, it would be nice to know the opinion and position of the owner of your work.

Answer 3

Write to the support of all search engines (that you know) so that they exclude enemy sites from search engine results.

Answer 4

Make the story public. And go to court. Acts of completed work and receipt of transfer can be evidence even if the design is not registered. Then to the police for the theft of intellectual property. Immediately after initiating a case, take notarized screenshots, there is such a rule that allows a potential criminal (we still have a presumption) not to destroy evidence.

Answer 5

Would you at least give a link to the original site
www.fasthorse.ru
www.fasthorse.su
A really strange situation. It seems that the guys lost access to the old hosting and they did not have the source code of the site. Well, they ordered another company to clone the site.
Write a statement to the police.

Answer 6

Oh, well, I'm certainly not an expert, but the site from "deltalab" is more accurately laid out (http://www.fasthorse.su - the layout is going in chrome). and it does not throw errors and notices (http://www.fasthorse.su/index.php?mod=page&ctg=15 - Notice: Use of undefined constant BPATH - assumed 'BPATH' in /home/user/www/fasthorse. su/www/top.php on line 7)

Answer 7

By itself, the right of authorship is inalienable. Therefore, neither the owners of the site, nor possible legal documents or verbal agreements, nor all sorts of circumstances for changing the site have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Important - the design was created, and the engine was screwed. Both were signed.
Then the design remains the same, something changes in the engine (If I understood the author correctly). And the signature changes. Since the design has not changed, the signature is changing unreasonably.
The natural way out is to correct the signature. something like creating a site (new) - new guys. Site design (old) - old guys. If the natural solution does not work - (here it makes sense to clarify the topic again with the new office) - go to court.
With the maximum probability (that is, miracles happen in our jurisprudence and we believe in them), the result will be a ban on the mention of a new site in the portfolio of a new office, as well as a correction of copyrights. True, the owner of the site (and this is already his right, if otherwise was not expressly indicated in the original contract for the creation of the site) can generally remove the copyrights of the creators from the site. But that will be a completely different story.

Answer 8

To the police. Why not.

Answer 9

Is the content changing? Maybe it's worth tracking down the parser? Or use services to protect against bots?

Answer 10

Generally speaking, I'm not sure that there is some kind of copyright infringement. You need to read the contract with the customer. Copyrights on both sites are "Pyatigorsk Hippodrome" (and in both cases with one "p" :)). If under the contract you transferred all exclusive rights to the design to the customer (as it usually happens if the customer is not a fool), then his full right. Your "copyright" is not legally such, at most advertising under the contract, as part of the payment for the design. In both cases, you can require the customer to indicate the authors of the design, but the authors, by law, are individuals, neither WhiteStudio LLC, nor ??? "Jam*" are not. And even if the court obliges him to indicate authorship, he is not obliged to put a hyperlink to the site, only to list the names of the authors.
Another thing is if the contract with the customer clearly states that the design is transferred to him only for non-exclusive use on the fasthorse.su website, without the right to install it on his other websites and / or transfer it to third parties, as well as under the conditions of permanent placement of your "copyright" ( studio advertising). Then, first of all, he does not have the right to put a copyright sign on the entire site as a whole, only on the content, but not on the design, not to mention making copies of it. But even in this case, the guys from DeltaLab, in theory, should not have any complaints. There is no copyright for them, as the authors are not indicated - it is also impossible to attract for plagiarism. Unless for the illegal use of your design, if you can prove that they used it (copied, changed) - the customer can help you with this if the question is who used it illegally:
In general, first all claims (if there are grounds for them) - to the Ipodrome, in my opinion. If he says that he is not aware of the second site at all, then to physical. the person to whom (judging by whois) the domain is registered - here you cannot do without the police / prosecutor's office / court: the domain registrar is not obliged to disclose the data of this individual to you. The same is true if he says (in words without witnesses) that the second site is his, but he is not going to do anything. If he officially (or at least in front of witnesses) admits his involvement, then to arbitration regarding the violation of exclusive rights to the work (if you have them, and were not transferred along with the design) or the advertising agreement (if he was obliged to indicate your "copyright" on all their sites where your design will be used). Well, your employees can (privately) demand to be credited as authors in any case. Perhaps even the court will oblige to put a hyperlink to any page on the Web, where they are named by name (or under pseudonyms), but I wouldn’t really count on it.

Answer 11

If I were you, I would start acting publicly - let them know about the theft, create a “reputation” for the company.