Let me tell you a story. This morning I was happily checking my new referrer logs when I came across a link to somebody’s personal page. I thought maybe they had linked to me so I fired up my browser to check it out. The site was the usual crappy Angelfire teenager personal page, but the design looked a bit familiar. In fact, it looked exactly like my friend Brigita’s site. EXACTLY. This person had copied her entire design, right down to claiming Brigita’s personality test statistics as her own. She even kept Brigita’s StorTroopers and relabelled them as herself and her boyfriend. Needless to say, this pissed me off. Not only was she ripping off my friend, but the StorTroopers were being hosted at my site – as a favor for Brigita – and thus my own precious bandwidth was being sucked away. (And y’all know how I get about that.) So I calmly sent this little fiend a letter, explaining that we were on to her and I’d appreciate it if she’d kill the image from my site. I didn’t get any answer, so I went back to the site tonight to see if she’d complied. What I saw was not pretty. See for yourself.
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Am I being a bitch here? I really don’t think so. You’ll note that there’s no mention of the bandwidth issue… basically because there’s no excuse. As for her defense of “copying” – I wish I’d taken a screenshot so you could compare the sites. There’s a difference between viewing somebody’s source code (and maybe grabbing a few of their ideas) and co-opting somebody’s entire look & feel. Hell, I incorporate elements from practically every website I read here at web-goddess. I’m a big fan of that. I’m not a big fan of simply saving somebody elses HTML (images and all!) and calling it your own. I feel bad that this girl feels her “work” has been wasted, but given the disregard she showed for Brigita’s property, it’s her own fault. What do you think? Leave me your comments.
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5 responses
oh SHEESH. i would have been sorta fine with the whole copying thing, but to then pitch a net fit and call you nasties? what a freakin bee otch.
hey–is something up with your e-mail address? all my messages are bouncing. and i changed my blogger template so feel free to change the name on your end!
ps–i don’t have a ‘puter at home just yet–i’m at the local library.
ONWARD!
Yeah. Teenagers piss me off. 🙂
Anyhoo, thanks for the headsup on the mail situation. I didn’t realize that I’d have to re-setup a default e-mail account at my new host… It’s hopefully workin’ now.
Also – I don’t think your BlogVoices comments are working anymore! I left a comment on your last post a while ago, and the number never shows up… Basically, THANK YOU for the book! 🙂
you know–i did notice that BV was acting up a bit. when the cat’s away, i guess. i’m glad to hear it’s not just the fact that these ‘puters at the RI ‘brare aren’t BV compatible, but NOW i have to figure out what’s going wrong with the code. oh joy, oh rapture. but back to my original point (and i DO have one), i actually did see your thank you–and you’re most welcome! i figured one good turn deserved another. i was kicking myself when i realized that J. and i should have brought the trivial pursuit cards with us on the X-country drive–i found out way too late that i absolutely HATE 20 questions!!
🙂
oh–re: BV, i checked out the site and it looks like chrish has removed the comment count functionality because it was seriously slowing down the system. i am still planning on getting my own gaddang domain and when i do i’ll help myself to your home cooked comments program! 🙂
(have i mentioned yet how glad i am to have you back in the fold?)
Awww, thanks! It was hell not being able to blog for an extended period of time. Ooh, hurry up with that domain of yours! I’m just now posting instructions on how to set up a website poll like mine. 🙂