Design Theft - The Webmaster's Recourse

Every now and then, us Web designers will have to face the fact that our design has been illegally copied. And the typical designer will want to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. This guide explains not only what steps you can take to prevent the theft of your designs, but outlines what actions you should take against anyone who copies your work.

Note that this guide is not intended as legal advice, and you shouldn't take it as such. The guide includes tips on what actions you should consider if another party illegally copies your design. For legal advice, consult your lawyer.

Preventative Measures

Prevention really is better than cure. The best thing to do is to try to prevent the illegal reproduction of your design before it even happens. Some suggest that you should disable the users' right click capability, place transparent images over your real images, "scramble" your source code, and more. However, none of these methods truly protect your content from being copied -- and all do more to alienate your regular visitors than they do to protect your design (for more information, see SitePoint's article 'Don't Disable Right Click!'). The absolute bottom line with copyright is: if you don't work to be stolen, don't put it on the Web. For some, it's not even worth the risk. But for others, this approach is a bit radical, and the majority will try to think of some better ways to protect what's theirs.

The most important thing you should always do is to label your work with the appropriate copyright disclaimers, trademarks, etc. It's a great idea to have a "legal notices" page on your Website, to inform everyone in complete detail that copying someone's work is a violation of international copyright laws, and that they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if they use your work without your express consent. Publishing this warning helps deter would-be design thieves, and helps reinforce to all users that you know your rights.

You've Been Ripped!

There are several ways to ascertain whether your site has been "ripped", or copied illegally. Plenty of Websites exist solely to list sites that have been recently ripped -- one of the most popular is Pirated-Sites. It's not a bad idea to bookmark these "watchdog" sites and visit them every now and then to ensure that your work isn't being illegally reproduced.

A good user community is not only essential to maintaining a good traffic flow; if your site is copied, and you have a good community of visitors, you can be pretty sure that someone will notice it and let you know. If you have a message board, create a thread in your forums to let your users know that any information they can provide about illegal rips will be greatly appreciated (or even consider providing some rewards for good leads) as an additional measure.

Doing a little work like this in advance won't eliminate every threat of illegal copying, but will cut down on the number of cases you have to chase.

Seeking Retribution... and Justice

After you've found the site of someone who's copied your design, you're likely to be quite angry. A great piece of advice that works in any situation is this: don't make any decisions due to anger. Your design may be great, and you certainly do have every right to use it exclusively on your site, but feeling anger when dealing with the culprits won't make your job any easier. Difficult as it may be, try to stay calm during the process.

The first step that you should take is to get some basic information about the Website that's illegally reproduced your work. Mentioning the Webmaster or site owner's name and/or address will add a lot of impact to your emails. Drop by your preferred domain name registration service and search for the domain name the ripper is using. If you receive a message that the information is unavailable, access the "whois" entry for the domain name. The name and address of the domain's owners will be there -- note this, along with their namerver. You'll need these details to contact their Web host, if the need arises.

In many cases, the owner of the offending site may not even know they're using an illegally copied design (for instance, they may have received it from someone else who ripped it). This is the best time for the owner to act on the matter if they want a resolution that benefits both themselves and the owner of the copyright. Finding the Webmaster's email shouldn't be hard -- just look for the site's "Contact Us" page, or something similar.

Your first email shouldn't be too legally-oriented -- try more of a civil approach, and make it as straight forward as possible. In as friendly a manner as you can muster, explain to the Webmaster why it would benefit them to take the design down. And if you need help composing your email, I've included a few sample messages at the end of this article for your reference.

In most cases, this initial email will see most copyright issues resolved. However, there are situations when the Webmaster won't cooperate right away. In that case you should send a stricter and more legally-toned email to explain that you will press charges to the fullest extent of the law if they don't remove the site. Also mention that if no prompt action is taken (give them 24 hours or so), you will contact their hosting provider about the issue.