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Fraudulent website

Alan Carter

Alan Carter

Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
37
Likes
4
Location
Lisle, IL
Website
www.alancarterstudio.com
A couple of days ago I got an email from another woodturner telling me about a fake website using pages from my site. The site has parts of several pages lifted directly from my site with the name changed from Alan Carter to Shaw.

They have an address, phone no., and email address on the home page.
They claim it's a "Nigerian scam", which I don't believe for a second. I've notified several agencies including the FBI, Paypal, Ill. Attorney General and others and have also emailed the site demanding that that they remove the site immediately. Next step is an intellectual rights attorney, I guess.

My website is www.alancarterstudio.com and their's is shawstud.com. A quick look will show what I'm talking about.

I don't know if anyone else has been victomized like this, but it's very distrubing. Any suggestions on further steps I can take would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.
 
Alan - really sorry to hear that. This is why I always recommend a watermark on photos on websites. Makes it harder to do stuff like this. There are also somethings you can do on your hosting to make it harder to do an exact copy of your pages.

I would contact the hosting service and domain registration service next - ask them to take his site offline.
Appears to be hosted by Yahoo
OrgAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Network Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300
OrgAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO857-ARIN


I show this info on the domain:

Domain Name.......... shawstud.com
Creation Date........ 2010-07-02
Registration Date.... 2010-07-02
Expiry Date.......... 2011-07-02
Organisation Name.... Steven Dodge
Organisation Address. PO Box 61359
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Sunnyvale
Organisation Address. 94088
Organisation Address. CA

Admin Email.......... contact@myprivateregistration.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.5105952002

MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE - is the domain name registar - try them as well
 
The first legal step is to send them (and hosting service, if known) a website takedown notice (officially, DMCA Takedown Notice) and advise them that failure to comply immediately will result in severe civil penalties. They have violated Federal law with respect to copyright infringement. The hosting service will not want to be a part of this so they will usually give the guy the boot for willfully failing to comply with the terms of his contract. If he does immediately respond and state that he will comply with your directions and then does actually follow up, you can either let the matter drop there or still sue for copyright infringement depending on what damage you perceive has been done.

You might be able to determine his hosting service by entering the following from the command prompt (i.e., the DOS window): "tracert XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, where the X's are the digits in the IP address. If you do not know the IP address, you can enter the URL (www.yourwebsite.com, for example). From just a quick look, it appears that Yahoo.com is his hosting service. Your own hosting service or even ISP might also be able to help in determining the identity of his hosting service.
 
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Wipedout said:
Alan - really sorry to hear that. This is why I always recommend a watermark on photos on websites. Makes it harder to do stuff like this. There are also somethings you can do on your hosting to make it harder to do an exact copy of your pages.

I would contact the hosting service and domain registration service next - ask them to take his site offline.
Appears to be hosted by Yahoo
OrgAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Network Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300
OrgAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com
OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO857-ARIN


I show this info on the domain:

Domain Name.......... shawstud.com
Creation Date........ 2010-07-02
Registration Date.... 2010-07-02
Expiry Date.......... 2011-07-02
Organisation Name.... Steven Dodge
Organisation Address. PO Box 61359
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Sunnyvale
Organisation Address. 94088
Organisation Address. CA

Admin Email.......... contact@myprivateregistration.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.5105952002

MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE - is the domain name registar - try them as well
Click to expand...

Missed your post on the first go round, sorry.

Copy the files and directory structure of the thief's site -- not that he can get rid of them since the files will still be on the host's server even if he does delete them. Then send the letters. Contact an attorney who is knowledgeable in this area. The letter is straightforward so it should not be a difficult or expensive thing to do. You might considering contacting his hosting service first with all of the details. They can verify dates on file uploads for both your site and his and shut him down quickly.
 
Bill Boehme said:
Whatever you do, do not help out the stupid thief by showing him the trail of incriminating evidence that he has left. Good grief.
Click to expand...

Well Bill - I wasnt to worried about that since they would have a copy of the file but ...

I have removed the post but since you quoted me its in yours as well
 
Alan,

I have tried your link in the post, typing in your address in the address bar and tried using the google link and none of them worked. Don't know if this is a result of the thief or if something else is wrong. Just an FYI.

Dale
 
Bill Boehme said:
That was easy!

If you need more information about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, here are a couple links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act

http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice.html
Click to expand...

And it wasnt just a case of copying his website - the guy was trying to sell Alan's work. All the work for sale was Alan's - he was trying to fraud people into sending him money for work he didnt have and wouldnt ship
 
Your turnings on etsy

I noticed several of your turnings on etsy this morning. If this is also the work of the (*&^(*^ (expletive included) you may wish to look at the etsy site.
 
Alan,
I hope you can get to the bottom of this soon. The thought of someone using someone's beautiful work to swindle people out of their money makes me extremely mad.
Good Luck,
Jack
 
The fraudulent site is off the internet! I had emailed the copyright department of Yahoo with all the info and they took it down.

Thanks to all who reponded with advice and encouragement. It was a big help.
 
I was wondering whether it might be reportable to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov)? If not exactly an ideal fit to their definition of phishing/spoofing, there ought to be a category added IMO.

There aren't words strong enough to properly describe what I think of such criminals on the Internet. Glad you got that one taken down, although now wondering who'll be next?
 
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