My Website Was Stolen

[stillshadow]

Today I was looking through my statcounter statistics, and a referred link came from this page: http://www.pokermaster.biz/

It's a copy and paste of my entire Beat The Fish page with a couple of words mixed around! Check it out:

http://www.beatthefish.com

This totally pissed me off. What the heck do I do?

Thanks for your help,
-Josh

[tomysole]

Oh my gosh, That sucks big man. I don't know what to tell you but I would try to email the owner,find out the domain info using godaddy and see who owns the domain. I don't know bump to whoever has dealt with this before.

[Pokerboy]

e-mail him. Do a whois, and if his info is there write him an e-mail and tell him to take it down within 48 hours - if no respons send the info + the guys affiliate codes to the programs involved. They will take care of it...in most cases anyway.

[stillshadow]

Thanks for your help guys. I'm pretty new to this, and I'm disgusted that this kind of crap can happen. I've e-mailed the address on his whois, called the phone number, and also wrote to his registrar. The weird thing is that he hasn't changed my affiliate codes yet, and he has taken on old version of my page. Nevertheless, I'm thankful that I had a redirect from this site so that I was able to track it. I'm trying to stop him in his tracks. Here is what I wrote:

Doteasy,

After recently reviewing referring page traffic to my website - beatthefish.com, I noticed a redirect from: pokermaster.biz. This pokermaster.biz website has directly stolen my website content, pasting in my pages DIRECTLY. This page is in violation of my copyrights as a webmaster, and you are not only this crook's registrar, but also mine. I demand that you remove their domain as soon as possible. This will eventually cost me money, frustration, and search engine rankings. Please respond to let me know what actions you have taken. I am posting all available contact information that I was able to locate below.

Thank you for your cooperation,
-Joshua Heilpern


Domain Name: POKERMASTER.BIZ
Domain ID: D9628273-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar: IN2NET NETWORK INC.
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 604
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Registrant ID: TUZDUYCM6QPZLO5X
Registrant Name: Phillip Damianidis
Registrant Organization: Phillip Damianidis
Registrant Address1: 254 Banbrooke Crs
Registrant City: Newmarket
Registrant State/Province: Ontario
Registrant Postal Code: L3X2W5
Registrant Country: Canada
Registrant Country Code: CA
Registrant Phone Number: +1.4167292003
Registrant Email: pdamianidis@wajax.com
Administrative Contact ID: TUZDUYCM6QPZLO5X
Administrative Contact Name: Phillip Damianidis
Administrative Contact Organization: Phillip Damianidis
Administrative Contact Address1: 254 Banbrooke Crs
Administrative Contact City: Newmarket
Administrative Contact State/Province: Ontario
Administrative Contact Postal Code: L3X2W5
Administrative Contact Country: Canada
Administrative Contact Country Code: CA
Administrative Contact Phone Number: +1.4167292003
Administrative Contact Email: pdamianidis@wajax.com
Billing Contact ID: TUZDUYCM6QPZLO5X
Billing Contact Name: Phillip Damianidis
Billing Contact Organization: Phillip Damianidis
Billing Contact Address1: 254 Banbrooke Crs
Billing Contact City: Newmarket
Billing Contact State/Province: Ontario
Billing Contact Postal Code: L3X2W5
Billing Contact Country: Canada
Billing Contact Country Code: CA
Billing Contact Phone Number: +1.4167292003
Billing Contact Email: pdamianidis@wajax.com
Technical Contact ID: TUYJHOQP7QEAQ0QI
Technical Contact Name: Domain Hostmaster
Technical Contact Organization: Doteasy Technology Inc.
Technical Contact Address1: Suite 210 - 3602 Gilmore Way
Technical Contact City: Burnaby
Technical Contact State/Province: BC
Technical Contact Postal Code: V5G4W9
Technical Contact Country: Canada
Technical Contact Country Code: CA
Technical Contact Phone Number: +1.6044344307
Technical Contact Facsimile Number: +1.6046086832
Technical Contact Email: hostmaster@doteasy.com
Name Server: EXTERNAL.WAJAX.COM
Name Server: EXTERNAL2.WAJAX.COM
Created by Registrar: IN2NET NETWORK INC.
Last Updated by Registrar: IN2NET NETWORK INC.
Domain Registration Date: Tue May 03 19:00:03 GMT 2005
Domain Expiration Date: Tue May 02 23:59:59 GMT 2006
Domain Last Updated Date: Mon Aug 08 15:47:42 GMT 2005

Yea dude that totally sucks. The best way to avoid this is to add a "no right click" script. Just email the dude and you'll probably scare the hell out of him. Here's the script below:

<script language="Javascript1.2">

// © 2003 CodeLifter.com
// Source: CodeLifter.com
// Do not remove this header

// Set the message for the alert box
am = "This function is disabled!";

// do not edit below this line
// ===========================
bV = parseInt(navigator.appVersion)
bNS = navigator.appName=="Netscape"
bIE = navigator.appName=="Microsoft Internet Explorer"

function nrc(e) {
if (bNS && e.which > 1){
alert(am)
return false
} else if (bIE && (event.button >1)) {
alert(am)
return false;
}
}

document.onmousedown = nrc;
if (document.layers) window.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
if (bNS && bV<5) window.onmousedown = nrc;

[PPP]

Email him, give him 48 hours, then report him to any site with he links to... unless he hasn't changed your links yet, there wouldn't be any point to that. Report him when he does change the links though.

More and more of these thieving scum will appear as time goes on, and they have to be squashed whenever they pop up. Fortunately with poker or gambling affiliates, they can be easily reported.

[Stephen]

Stillshadow

Presuming he has his own Affiliate Links, contact your various Affiliate Managers and ask them for assistance too. I have frozen Affiliate Sites who copy material form other affiliates - and all programs should do the same 9or help you withthe problem).

Stephen

[boris]

jeremy what does that script do?

[stillshadow]

Update:

I got a simple email from the webmaster within a couple of hours of my e-mail saying, "The site will be taken down." I'll keep on it to make sure that it is.

Jeremy, thanks for the script - I've added it to all my pages. That should make it a LITTLE more difficult for people to do this in the future. Unfortunately, they can still take everything from the source code if they really wanted to. I wish that IE didn't make it so easy to view anyone's source.

boris - the script disables anyone from right-clicking on your pages to do things like take your images.

Thanks for your support, guys. Hopefully he does voluntarily remove the page, or else I will contact my affiliate managers and try to take further action. I got lucky that I caught one of these today on my stats, but what's the best way to see if anyone is doing this in the future? Put a phrase from my site in quotes into Google?

-Josh

[Acapulco]

Josh, I am sending you a copy of the email I sent to an a$$hole that copied one of my sites awhile ago. It might sound a little more official than the one you sent him. He took his site down in a couple of days.

I copied his hosting company on the letter, and unfortunately they basically told me to F-off (Layered Technologies, Inc. is now on my blacklist). I also sent a letter to Pacific Poker, which he was promoting with his own affiliate code, but they never responded to me.

Anyway, that sucks. It has to be one of the most frustrating things we are faced with, especially with the duplicate content penalties these days. Good luck!

EDIT: Ahhh, I see you beat my post by 2 minutes ;-) Congrats on getting a response so quickly!