People who make a 'clone' of your forum?

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Madly Diligent
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What do you think of people who full blown copy your forum, its domain name, the layout of the forums, the descriptions and basically make a clone of your forum?

This has sadly happened to me quite recently and I do not know how to go about stopping it.

The descriptions are clearly copy pasted and the forums are laid out to be an almost identical clone apart from the forum theme, its members/posts and one single letter in the domain name.

How can I stop this person doing what he is doing?
 
I just sent a DMCA takedown notice to his host, I hope they help solve this.
 
ShadyX said:
I just sent a DMCA takedown notice to his host, I hope they help solve this.
Click to expand...

I hope you get this guy taken down! I wouldn't want to see your hardwork stolen.

I just found the forum and they have been copying the descriptions from here too, look at the GT board, a complete copy! 🙁
 
Yep, I don't understand why people can't just spend 20 minutes of their lives doing it the right way.

The person behind it also contacted me a few days ago asking for a copy of our forums theme, I said no and he hired me to create a custom one. I was not bothered that he had a similar domain or the fact he was running the same software.

At that point the forum was closed and I did not realize he had constructed a near identical clone of my forum with elements of FP.

Needless to say I will not be completing his custom theme.
 
Well You could always put the little script in your templates for no right clicking which makes people less likely to steal work since it actually takes work.
 
Yeah, File A DMCA

And have you tried asking them to change their forums around frist?

(Only issue they can take backups and move to a new host)
 
Deathstarr said:
Well You could always put the little script in your templates for no right clicking which makes people less likely to steal work since it actually takes work.
Click to expand...

Disabling right click just bothers legit members and does nothing to stop people from stealing images. All someone needs to do to get around it is to click the image with the left button and hold it down while dragging it to the URL field. It will send your browser to a page with just the image which can be easily copied at that point.

It's dumb to copy people's work because they will simply point it out and draw haters to the copy so no one could do anything but fend off angry members who don't care much for their favorite forum being copied.
 
I think you've done all you can with the DMCA, your site was up first so google should know the other is a copy. Work on building more backlinks to your site and you should be okay.
At least that's what I would do if it happen to me. I wouldn't give the cone site any attention, that's for sure.
 
So who is this cloner, he/she should be named and shamed and if other owners stood up against them and banned their sorry ass, they might realize how wrong it is to rip others work. Someone did this to an old forum of mine, right down to coping the theme, thankfully I took him down thanks to DMCA.
 
Deathstarr said:
Well You could always put the little script in your templates for no right clicking which makes people less likely to steal work since it actually takes work.
Click to expand...

You can only do that via Javascript and so it would pointless. It takes less time to disable Javascript than it does to actually install this security measure.
 
At best, if they're just going to try to clone your forum and that's their attitude, why are you scared of him/her in the first place? You've established your forums quite well, ShadyX.
 
Cloners are the ones that wont get sucessfull
if they canr tgo thought eh trouple of building their own forum
how do you think they will have enoguh power and engergy to gain members?
 
To answer everyone`s questions.

I am the person whom shadyx was talking about and to explain why i did that? and what was the mistake i did? i am here.

I always wanted to make a admin forum like everyone of you may be thinking of and was also a fan of xenforo from the last November but was not able to buy a license till yet. I was always hunting for a good domain to start of my own admin forum and also took theadminstalk{dot}com for this a few weeks ago but suddenly i came across to a this thread viewtopic.php?f=118&t=77410 and it was the one i was looking for. I was not thinking about shady`s af at that time. I just took the domain from him and then tried to get a license and got it at digitalpoint. After that i asked shady to make me a good theme as i liked his new af theme a lot.

After installing it i was thinking about what forums should i make and what should be its structure but as i am not a native English speaker i always do spell & grammar mistakes and this looks ugly and unprofessional too. I was also in a rush to make the forums ready for the beta users to get started posting. I also merged my old databases to it so i can have a good start.

In this rush i thought of shady`s af and thought i should make that structure for now and will change it after a few days, as it was open for only beta and paid users which were a very few. I just thought that i will get some professional to make forums for me with good English. But suddenly i got the mail from shady and this was in it.

The above is a DMCA takedown request I have just sent to *hostname* regarding your near clone of AdminForums.

I had no problems with you using *mydomain* as a domain or xenforo, but fully copying the forums layout and copy pasting the forum descriptions really got me mad.
Click to expand...

I was just shocked and then realized what i have done. Then i closed the forum and sent him a this reply.

Bro, Sorry 🙁 if i hearted you. But as you have seen this is a beta
release and those forums were there just to take place untill i get
them properlly made. I did that for a handfull of paid posters to get
some content before i open it.

I have currently set the board offline & will open it when i had made
the forums ready.

Bro, i know we are now competetors but i also want healthy competetion
not a fight between us.


Once again i am sorry for what i did but that was just a rush act.

Hope you understand and forgive me 🙂
Click to expand...

At Last i just want to say sorry for the act that i have done and its the only thing that i can do at this time. I am investing a lot of my time and money into this project and don`t want it to be ruined because of my mistake.


That`s all that i have to say now i am leaving it to the fp members either they want me to stay here or not.
 
I'm not going to argue, because its ShadyX who should decide this.
But just wished to say, you should never use others work as a placeholder, because once they see you are using their stuff, they won't like it.
You could have hired someone to write descriptions for you, if you are not a native english speaker.

Also, i believe you could have more chance of success if you use the domain theadminstalk.com, instead of adminforums. Because when you have a domain which is same as an established forum like ShadyX's, most people(or almost all) would prefer his over yours.
 
Samar said:
To answer everyone`s questions.

I am the person whom shadyx was talking about and to explain why i did that? and what was the mistake i did? i am here.

I always wanted to make a admin forum like everyone of you may be thinking of and was also a fan of xenforo from the last November but was not able to buy a license till yet. I was always hunting for a good domain to start of my own admin forum and also took theadminstalk{dot}com for this a few weeks ago but suddenly i came across to a this thread viewtopic.php?f=118&t=77410 and it was the one i was looking for. I was not thinking about shady`s af at that time. I just took the domain from him and then tried to get a license and got it at digitalpoint. After that i asked shady to make me a good theme as i liked his new af theme a lot.

After installing it i was thinking about what forums should i make and what should be its structure but as i am not a native English speaker i always do spell & grammar mistakes and this looks ugly and unprofessional too. I was also in a rush to make the forums ready for the beta users to get started posting. I also merged my old databases to it so i can have a good start.

In this rush i thought of shady`s af and thought i should make that structure for now and will change it after a few days, as it was open for only beta and paid users which were a very few. I just thought that i will get some professional to make forums for me with good English. But suddenly i got the mail from shady and this was in it.

The above is a DMCA takedown request I have just sent to *hostname* regarding your near clone of AdminForums.

I had no problems with you using *mydomain* as a domain or xenforo, but fully copying the forums layout and copy pasting the forum descriptions really got me mad.
Click to expand...

I was just shocked and then realized what i have done. Then i closed the forum and sent him a this reply.

Bro, Sorry 🙁 if i hearted you. But as you have seen this is a beta
release and those forums were there just to take place untill i get
them properlly made. I did that for a handfull of paid posters to get
some content before i open it.

I have currently set the board offline & will open it when i had made
the forums ready.

Bro, i know we are now competetors but i also want healthy competetion
not a fight between us.


Once again i am sorry for what i did but that was just a rush act.

Hope you understand and forgive me 🙂
Click to expand...

At Last i just want to say sorry for the act that i have done and its the only thing that i can do at this time. I am investing a lot of my time and money into this project and don`t want it to be ruined because of my mistake.


That`s all that i have to say now i am leaving it to the fp members either they want me to stay here or not.
Click to expand...
Samar, it does not matter if you are a great speller or not, there is spell check. Copyright can get you into a lot of trouble, even jail sometimes. Just because your in a "rush", does not mean..."Oh! This forum is like mine, I will copy it word by word..just for a few days!!." That's not the way it works in this world.
 
I know guys that i have done some mistakes but you can say this was the movement to let me know all this or will say i learned from my mistake.

I don`t want my name to be ruined that`s why i wanted to face you guys and don`t just run away from this situation.

I have updated the forum structure and will be changing them to completely my own custom one shortly.
 
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