How to protect your own design theme from being copy?

Oh snap, what a clear case of them ripping you off. Anyone look at the source code? Your site is all over it. If you view the copy site with CSS turned off, your recent comments, email information, archives, even Flickr all show up.

Aren’t there sites you can put this type of thing on?

Why not put up a post on your blog explaining that other folk are using your theme?. Claim the credit, call yourself a Web 2.0 designer and charge big bucks. :). There is no way theme rip offs can be prevented. You just have to see it as a compliment and try and benefit from it. If you make fun of them they might at least edit things a bit. ??

I would just put a bold copyright notice on your site, and after a week or so make sure the other people stealing know it’s there and ask them to change to something else.

My own opinion:
Beside of hand-made graphics, photos and content is all of my work free for anybody. Why not?
Nothing of my code is really made by me. I learned from other source codes. Took a bit from here, a bit from there and read innumerable hours what other CSS/HTML-gurus wrote. At bottom line I “designed” all my layouts myself, but without the help from hundreds of people on the Net I couldn′t code any line.

So be gentle.

You can write to the offending site’s ISP, point out specifically what images are copyright, and request that they take down the site.

Your design is yours and you own the copyright. If someone copies your design wholesale without your permission they are breaking the law. ISPs don’t want to be a party to this and they are generally very cooperative.

You can also file a DMCA complaint with Google and ask for that site to be removed from their index.

But before all this you may wish to write to the offender, tell them that they are breaching copyright, and give them an opportunity to remove the offending material before you take further action.

Better yet, send them a bill!

I would try and send them a polite email and tell them you would appreciate them not using your theme unless they comply with what would make you happy.

Perfectly honest, sometimes people don’t realize what they are doing isn’t politically correct. I would make them aware of your concerns and politely ask them to do what you want. Fighting can always come later.

Trent

Take a look at https://copyscape.com – they have a lot of good info.

Most web designers live by the following rule:
If you don’t want something copied, don’t put it on the web!
DB~

Fallacious, specious reasoning. Would you feel that way if someone stole your custom art?

well, i have similar experience that some body copied my layouts (design) but change something a little bit but NO CREDITS return to where it comes from, it sucks!

in this case, I think for a CREDIT in return will be better than nothing.

you didn’t tell that your source is FREE to use and he didn’t ask before he use it, therefore he is already not a gentle one.

i think if you found it, in the first place, you could email and tell him you found something in his site which is ORIGINALLY created from you and ask for CREDIT link or take them OFFLINE if he doesn’t want to give any credit. If he modified something, he should still give a link back from where it originally comes from and he could say it was Modified by him.

that’s what i think more reasonable cause once you publish something on web, you can’t really hold 100% control of the ownership since it is a hard issue at this moment.

am I having a deja vu’ moment?

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/108209

It would be nice to see a proactive movement that encouraged ppl to learn how to accomplish “similar” things rather than handing them the keys to the castles, so to speak.

I really take offense to ppl that suggest that someone ought to feel complimented when their work is stolen. Am I to feel complimented when someone breaks into my house and removes my belongings as well? Or my truck? After all, they couldnt ever manage to buy their own stuff, why NOT take mine and I’ll just feel complimented while I slave away at work to make money and buy more stuff. (WTF?)

Because something is on the web doesnt make it free game.

To answer the OP: I would do all of the above, contact them, their host, and blog about it, I would also suggest pirated-sites.com

https://pirated-sites.com/vanilla/

They eat these sorts of things for breakfast.

Whatever the outcome, I wish you the best of luck.

“Because something is on the web doesnt make it free game.”

No it doesn’t, but unfortunately those who ‘grew-up‘ on the net seem to think that everything on it is free for the taking. I think it comes down to a lack of respect for other peoples things. That’s why we encrypt our source code. Images can always be protected with server scripts and also Digimarced services.