FAQs
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Pirated-Sites.com showcases side-by-side comparisons of web sites that are suspected of borrowing, copying or stealing copyright-protected content, design or code without permission. Have we not covered something in this document? Please let us know.
Who runs this thing?
At the reins is Tim Murtaugh. He's a professional web developer in NYC and has been building sites since 1996. His web standards fanatacism can be traced back to the first time he opened a FrontPage document in Notepad.
Where do the comparisons come from?
Some of them are examples I run across during my day. Most of them are submitted by users, and about 50% of those are submitted by someone affiliated with the site being copied.
Do I need to be the owner of or affiliated with the victimized site to submit?
No. Anyone may submit. We review all submissions for authenticity and appropriateness prior to posting.
This has really got my blood going! Should I send an email to the perpetrators?
We don't encourage it, but we don't discourage it either. If you do write a letter, may we suggest a little common sense? People tend to get worked up and send off emails in the heat of the moment. Poorly-written, offensive emails will not be received well. Try to write a polite, respectful letter, one you would not mind receiving yourself. Remember, you don't know the whole story. The person reading your email may have had nothing whatsoever to do with the development of the site.
Not such a good idea:
dear sh*t head,
your site is such a total rip!!! i hope he totally sues your ass off!!!!!!
l00ser!!!
A better idea:
To whom it may concern,
I don't know if you are aware, but your site, located at www.foo.com, bears striking resemblance to another site, located at www.bar.com.
May I suggest you look into this matter?
Regards,
Your Name
My site is labeled as 'copy?', but I didn't design it!
Then the person who designed it may have taken liberties they shouldn't have. If it's a friend, I would talk to them about it and ask them not to do it again. If it's someone you have hired, I would cease doing business with them.
I can't afford to take my site down until it gets redesigned.
Then come to an arrangement with the rightful copyright holder. At least write them a letter explaining you are aware of the situation and are taking steps to remedy it.
How is it wrong?
Oh, it's wrong in so many ways. Ethically, you are benefiting from someone else's work, without permission or due compensation. You are taking something that does not belong to you. Legally, you are violating that person's copyrights, and they may be able to sue you for infringement.
Who do you think you are?
Nobody.
When was Pirated-Sites.com started?
The domain was registered in 2000, shortly after a web developer called the "Website Captain" was discovered offering up other developers' sites in his own portfolio (I'm still searching for the original posts on K10K and Metafilter). It struck us that a site to spotlight pirates such as these could help them come to light, and archiving them could help make them regret it in the long run.
It took a few months for the site to be launched, but it immediately found its niche. A special shout goes to K10K for managing to link to the site before it was launched...
Any good press?
You bet. Some highlights:
- Web: Christian Scenice Monitor: Site Reviews
- Web: la Tercera: "Sitio web denuncia a plagiadores de internet"
- Web: Pirated-Sites.com was featured as a "Hot Site" by the USA Today Web Guide.
- Print: PDN's PIX magazine: "Steal this website!" by Jeffrey Zeldman. Pirated-Sites.com is mentioned in the print version of the article.
- Print: Setting sites on nabbing pirates, an article about BannerBox v. Hesketh features comments from us.
- TV: ABC Affiliate KTRK in Houston mentions Pirated-Sites.com during their morning newscast (10/09/02).
- Radio: Pirated-Sites.com was mentioned on 102.1 The Edge, in Toronto (26/09/02).
- Radio: Pirated-Sites.com is featured in an on-air program called "Sites" on Singaporean radio station Passion 99.5.
(Some research was done at www.rightsforartists.com.)
Isn't the web "open-source"?
Not in the traditional software development sense. When talking about software, open source means that a program's source code is freely available and users are encouraged to make modifications to it in order to further development of the program. Despite this, open source does not mean "free" and it does not mean that the original developer has given up their rights of ownership.
When speaking of the web, many consider it open source because of the nature of the medium. In order to view a web site, you must make a copy of it on your local hard drive, meaning users can open up those files and see what makes them tick. But this does not mean you are free to make use of them for yourself and, again, it does not mean that the owner/developers of the site have given up their rights of ownership.
Don't you have to register a work to own the copyright?
No. As soon as an idea takes a tangible form, be it on canvas, cd, photoshop, whatever, it becomes a) copyrightable, and b) copyrighted. The owner of the copyright is the creator, or the person/company that creator is working on behalf of.
Registration is not neccessary, but is beneficial if it looks as if you may have to protect your work(s) from infringement.
If a site does not display a copyright notice, or the copyright symbol (©), does this mean they have no interest in protectiong their copyright ownership?
No. Use of such notices were required for a time, but the 1989 Berne Convention declared it optional. Again, however, use of such notices are beneficial if it looks as if you may have to protect your work(s) from infringement.
A thorough copyright notice usually includes the name of the property, a copyright symbol, the years of creation and last modification, the name of the copyright holder and the phrase "All rights reserved."
Example: Pirated-Sites.com, © 2000-2002, Tim Murtaugh. All rights reserved.
To display the copyright symbol on your web page, use the HTML entity "©".
Any thoughts on protecting web-based assets?
Why, yes, thank you for asking. If you're interested in protecting your web-based imagery (and other assets), you might find this article interesting: Protecting Your Assets: Seven techniques to help prevent image theft.
What technologies were used in building the site?
The new Pirated-Sites.com is built with fully validated XHTML and CSS, with functional assistance from DOM-based JavaScript.
Isn't it very difficult to build a standards-compliant site?
The Pirate Captain is very gung-ho about web standards and forces us to work day and night to make sure the site is fully up to specs.
Please don't tell him, but it was actually very easy. Minor tweaks had to be made to the XHTML and minor hacks introduced into the CSS (the IE5 box model hack, for instance) to achieve as much pixel-perfection as we could across the modern browsers, but for the most part it was very logical and intuitive. We highly recommend this technique to all our friends.
What browsers does the site support?
As of re-launch, Pirated-Sites.com is 100% standards-compliant. That means the site will look as we intend and will function as you expect in all modern browsers that support standard XHTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Development will continue to achieve 100% accessibility across all browsers and devices, made possible by the same technologies and methodologies — viva la web standards!
Why are you abandoning the older browsers?
Because I do this for a living and I'm tired of wasting 60% of my development time on writing redundant code for antiquated browsers. When it comes to CSS and JavaScript especially, the older releases major browsers speak different dialects.
If you have any interest in this subject, I encourage you to read an essay I wrote on determining browser specifications for Web-based projects.
But I've been using Netscape 4 to browse the web and read my email for about 5 years now, and I like it. It has all my bookmarks, contacts, emails, etc.
That's your choice, but you should know that Netscape 6 offers a web browsing experience vastly improved from version 4, and comes with a very good email client.
And you shouldn't worry about your data being lost, or having to transfer it manually. These days, update applications for most pieces of software, browsers included, detect your preferences and stored data and pass them along to the new version. Even if this feature should malfunction for some reason, installing Netscape 6 does not delete Netscape 4. You could always go back.
But I heard that they just released an updated version of Netscape 4... Isn't it better?
No.
Please, for the love of all that is good, if you are even thinking about downloading the recently released Netscape Communicator 4.79, let me know so I can come over to your house and shake some sense in to you. Unless you are a baby. Never shake a baby.
What's the bitmap font you're using?
It's a free font with the catchy name of 04b_19. You can find it, and other nice freeware fonts, at www.04.jp.org.
How do I email Pirated-Sites.com?
Please visit the contact page.
How do I submit sites I think are pirated?
Please visit the Submit page. Better yet, head over to the forums.