# Theres nothing I hate more then someone who steals!



## thelittleredladybug (Aug 8, 2011)

Ugh, theres nothing I hate more then putting tons of hard work into something just to have someone steal it! 
I love my customers dearly and appreciate everyone of them who alert me to the craziness of my competitors (I sell cage sets).
One thing my customers know is how easily i suggest other cage set vendors if Im unable to complete an order because of a long waiting list, perhaps they have a better selection, and the most common, the ones who make toys (I do not). 
But the thing that gets me the most is when a customer comes to make letting me know one of my competitors STEALS word for word my privacy policy, FAQ section AND my "About my cage sets" section.

FuzzyLovers.com Not only did you steal one of my products name (word for word) a few months back but you also copied and pasted my websites information, I see you have the creativity to sew but not speak the truth about YOUR products....what else are you lying about!?









Ugh...sorry all, this is the second time that I know of that someone has done this, I just needed to vent!


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

You have rights. Contact a copyright lawyer. They often do free consults.


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## RattasticRatstache (Nov 26, 2013)

Cagedbirdsinging is right!!!


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2013)

Oh no!! I had this problem years ago when I ran a website for a musical friend. People who were making websites for him would just rip everything off word for word and pass it off as your own. I know its not the same because this is a source of income for you but I know how you feel.

You should contact them via telephone or e-mail and explain to them you know they have copied your stuff and see if you can resolve something. If they become defensive about it and are unwilling to cooperate then tell them you will be contacting a lawyer. It would be better to contact them via e-mail so you have hard copies to take, if need be, to a lawyer. Its not okay for them to be taking your work and passing it off as their own. 

Good luck and I hope it can be resolved quickly and without lawyers.


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## thelittleredladybug (Aug 8, 2011)

Thanks everyone, I may have to take legal action! I contacted the owner on the 8th and nothing has changed since. I planning to take legal action within the next week if I continue to not see any change. I can not believe how they deliberately stole my content and still have not changed it. 
Thankfully my website and documents on my computer prove when I wrote the content and it will show well over 2 years ago, this company has only been around since early this year.


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## thelittleredladybug (Aug 8, 2011)

And yet CageSets.com is now stealing my content to! When will this stop!?


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## ratsaremylife (Nov 5, 2013)

They obviously like your material a lot! A copy cat is an admirer. Or maybe they are just to lazy so they just found a suitable one and copied! People can be really annoying. I will not buy from them until they stop. (Never purchased from you but considerin when I have more money)


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## thelittleredladybug (Aug 8, 2011)

lol I thought the same thing RatsAreMyLife! I guess I have some good stuff! I just wish it didn't take me hours and hours to perfect it. 

Im a very creative person and love to share my creations with people, just not those who steal! EK! lol


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## Guest (Dec 11, 2013)

People are lazy bums. They have no problem ripping off someone else's hard work and passing it off as their own. As long as it makes a profit for them they couldn't care less. But if someone steals their content they actually thought up on their own its a different story. If you don't get any responses from either one or they refuse to take it down take legal action. You have to protect your business.


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## Jaguar (Nov 15, 2009)

This unfortunately happens a lot in the creative community... I just recently had a friend's entire wedding photography website and portfolio stolen. We're talking at least a few thousand dollars each booking based off a stolen portfolio. Didn't take long for the customers to find out when they got their pictures back and they weren't nearly the same quality... I assume this will happen here as well.


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## aliceinwonderland (Dec 17, 2013)

Any update on this? It's sad that people think they can steal another person's work.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm a published author and I've seem my content ripped off on line and I've never got a cent of my 10% internet royalties... I even got a thank you letter from a non-profit group who reprinted one of my articles without my permission... 

Oddly, you get used to it... if I expect to be paid, I sign a contract for the print material and usually pretty much expect that anything that hits the internet is going to be stolen and the 10% royalty is only a way to fill the page on the contract.

Just put a link on your web page to the copy cat web sites so everyone can see that your competition supports your expertise so much they are reprinting it for lack of quality in their own knowledge and products. 

An interstate copyright case can cost you a fortune. I know someone with a 30 year multi-million dollar company that bankrupted themselves... the competing product survived the challenge and eventually lost it's trend appeal and is history along with my friends home and business...

Never take on a fight that isn't financially worth winning.

Best luck at whatever you do.


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## Voltage (May 15, 2013)

As an artist I have a similar issue with people stealing my artwork and people even pretending to be me. Just because my art is online a lot of people think they are entitled to use it on their websites, as their profile pictures and whatever they see fit. A few people have even claimed to be me and have roleplayed as my characters on facebook. I don't think anyone has tried to make money off my art yet but some people have paid for artwork of my characters claiming them to be their own.
One time someone messages me thanking me for my character and telling me they were going to keep him for themselves. I was in complete shock and confusion. And then another person decided they were going to claim my boyfriend and started drawing themselves with him telling everyone he was theirs not mine.
I've had a lot of interesting stuff happen to me in the art community

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Voltage,

I have a friend who is a geologist, but his hobby is collecting rare fish from Africa.... He is also a brilliant photographer both of fish and African scenery. His photos were being stolen as fast as he could post them. He even found one posted on the official tourist site of an African nation.

First he stopped posting any photos online, but then he decided he would repost mainly those that had already been stolen and a few he was willing to part with. He embeds his copyright into each photo where it is hard to crop out. It's a crappy compromise because his photos are rather spectacular and his name and copyright in bright orange are distracting. 

I'm guessing a good photoshop artist could remove his copyright information and more or less fix the photos but that requires extra work and expertise and internet thieves are lazy.

There is one thing to remember.... The Grateful Dead actually allowed folks to record their concerts... At every show, once the lights went down hundreds of towers of micro stereo microphones went up. And the sound board operators even let friends jack into the master board Aux out. Dead shows were awash with people recording the shows with hand held tape recorders right up to commercial equipment... There are millions of bootleg Dead recordings out there... and the band sold out every show... over 200 per year for over 30 years and they became legend.... (and amazingly wealthy) Of course, my friend owned a T-shirt shop and he had a few unauthorized Grateful Dead decals in his store and the Dead organization actually showed up in person... They were quite polite and told him that they were happy to forgive him for the T-shirts he had already sold and they would be happy to supply him with authorized decals and shirts at a fair price and explained that if he felt the unreasonable need not to comply, they would sue him into the stone age. They told him he could destroy his inventory, or donate the shirts to charity or give them to friends, they didn't take any away, but he was not allowed to sell them. And that very evening, he gave away his inventory of decals to everyone he knew, just to get them out of his store and his possession. The Dead owned a top copyright law firm who's main purpose in life was to protect their art work and logos. You could have the music for free, but they were getting paid for the name, artwork and products, they were very polite about it but they had the top notch staff and huge dollars to back up their position. Not to mention millions of dead heads that would go from place to place and report unauthorized T-shirts etc.

Believe me, the grateful dead was willing to pee away millions to protect their name and images, but unlike anyone else... they could afford it. So the Dead used free music to promote the band, and tough enforcement to protect their income... it's rather one of the best uses of both copyright violation and enforcement in American history.

I also forgot to mention, web pages can be made that don't allow the cutting and pasting of text out. This way if someone wants to steal your words they need to re-type them and makes it harder to copy a quality image. The page takes longer to load, but everything that makes it harder to steal makes it easier for the thief to rob someone else... Just a thought.

Rat Daddy copyright 2013


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