8 ms·

Indian Laptop Company Stole Our Entire Site

1 points by msacca 15y ago

I guess the 37 signals fiasco isn't an uncommon occurrence. I was checking our analytics this morning when I noticed we've been getting some strange traffic regarding "Laptop Repair In Cochin." Well I dug around and found a site that copied and pasted our codebase outright, HTML / JS & CSS - then tweaked a couple CSS variables. I built the Wordpress theme from scratch about a year and a half ago and never released it for sale. This laptop repair site doesn't appear to be using Wordpress. Our site was featured on several design galleries at the time (it's in desperate need of an upgrade now, we just don't have the time) which, I'm sure, is how they found it to rip-off. Check it out: Our Site: http://www.tinyfactory.co Their Site: http://www.laptoprepairkerala.com I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and a great reminder that it's time to upgrade our site ;)

dangoldin 15y ago
Why do you think it's a Russian company? Cochin is a city in Kerala, India. In any case, you can definitely have some fun with them by changing some server settings or file names to get their site to just say "This was stolen from www.tinyfactory.co" There was a post of a guy doing something like that on here a while back but I can't dig it up.
- msacca 15y ago
  You're absolutely right - that was just my own ignorance. Thanks for the tip ;) I'm looking into it now
  - dangoldin 15y ago
    Haha no worries. I'm Russian so I'm a bit sensitive =) Not that Russians are completely honorable but it's not always the Russians!
- rbanffy 15y ago
  They have copied the site. Changing the files will accomplish very little unless they are only caching the originals. Anyway, the credits are there: http://www.laptoprepairkerala.com/css/style.css http://www.laptoprepairkerala.com/css/style.css
  - msacca 15y ago
    Yep - at least they were so kind ;) Looks like there's just a couple images linked from our img sub domain - everything else was copied and pasted.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      At least you can have fun with the images ;-)
princeverma 15y ago
Looking at the source code, they are also using your analytics code as it is. how stupid these can be.
- sebphfx 15y ago
  this is crazy! I didn't know people were going that far. They think that everything is to be used freely. I wonder how these "designers" think. Do they know it's wrong?
- msacca 15y ago
  Seriously - we're getting all of their traffic showing up in our analytics account - that's probably the most annoying part.
rbanffy 15y ago
I think the worst part is that their "contact" label doesn't properly line up with the rest of the content. Lame ;-)

1 points by msacca 15y ago

dangoldin 15y ago

Why do you think it's a Russian company? Cochin is a city in Kerala, India. In any case, you can definitely have some fun with them by changing some server settings or file names to get their site to just say "This was stolen from www.tinyfactory.co" There was a post of a guy doing something like that on here a while back but I can't dig it up.

msacca 15y ago
You're absolutely right - that was just my own ignorance. Thanks for the tip ;) I'm looking into it now
- dangoldin 15y ago
  Haha no worries. I'm Russian so I'm a bit sensitive =) Not that Russians are completely honorable but it's not always the Russians!
rbanffy 15y ago
They have copied the site. Changing the files will accomplish very little unless they are only caching the originals. Anyway, the credits are there: http://www.laptoprepairkerala.com/css/style.css http://www.laptoprepairkerala.com/css/style.css
- msacca 15y ago
  Yep - at least they were so kind ;) Looks like there's just a couple images linked from our img sub domain - everything else was copied and pasted.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    At least you can have fun with the images ;-)

princeverma 15y ago

Looking at the source code, they are also using your analytics code as it is. how stupid these can be.

sebphfx 15y ago
this is crazy! I didn't know people were going that far. They think that everything is to be used freely. I wonder how these "designers" think. Do they know it's wrong?
msacca 15y ago
Seriously - we're getting all of their traffic showing up in our analytics account - that's probably the most annoying part.

rbanffy 15y ago

I think the worst part is that their "contact" label doesn't properly line up with the rest of the content. Lame ;-)