The authors of this blog also run a software company called ZeroTurnaround. We monitor the mentions of the company name and its products with different tools. I personally use Google Alerts (you get an email when the interwebz mentions your monitored word).
One day we stumbled upon a page that had stolen our website design. It was not a question if they had borrowed ideas from us but they had literally stolen everything. The html, css, images and even had our logo up! Our website is zeroturnaround.com and their, jbrute.info (the one which stole the design).
My first reaction was that I’ll just drop them an email, make sure that they’re aware that it is a crime (is it?) and order them to take it down and problem solved. We have no interest of suing anybody. Maybe they were just playing around. Here is a picture how it looked at that time.
The plan was easy but getting contact information was not. At least they had taken down our contact information from the footer. Not finding even an email (then again, smart move, too many stories of criminals accidently leaving their card at the scene of the crime) from the webpage I turned to DNS whois. Whois records show
Domain ID:D32012015-LRMS
Domain Name:JBRUTE.INFO
Created On:24-Mar-2010 20:00:01 UTC
Last Updated On:24-Mar-2010 20:15:33 UTC
Expiration Date:24-Mar-2011 20:00:01 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. (R171-LRMS)
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:CR44517482
Registrant Name:Conor Ryan
Registrant Organization:Warlock 999 Development
Registrant Street1:One Vernon Drive
Registrant City:Vernon
Registrant State/Province:New Jersey
Registrant Postal Code:07976
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.5555555555
Registrant *************@warlock999.info
All emails sent to warlock.info or jbrute.info bounce. Googling the name and address does not bring much up. It’s like a dead end. I’ve also contacted the registrar and hosting, still waiting for replies. They’ve updated their website design today, removed the video, our logo and put up some text.
What are my options to deal with something like this? Proving that the design belongs to us should be easy (the html is too similar). How should I go about documenting this? I did make a screenshot when I first stumbled upon, but you could always say that I’m good in Photoshop.
Are there other options to contact a domain name owner besides information from website and WHOIS?