Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

My apologies Vicki for not spell checking my post. I guess that takes away its validity.  Since you speak of business ethics, explain how belittling my company is ethical. Also, how would you propose I check someones work? And, I agree, the buck stops with me. This is why it was removed immediately per your request without even verifying your complaint until after it was removed. As far as the visits to my site.. You obviously have no understanding about tracking software.

Click Count:	12	Start Time: 23:13:58 Idle Time: 16:07:13 End Time: 08:18:30 Total Time: 57:04:32
Country:
IP Address:	76.168.26.0
Host:	cpe-76-168-26-0.socal.res.rr.com
Originating URL:	http://www.startupnation.com/pages/community/forum_posts.asp ?TID=4690

This was a forum member who came to my site from this forum. See IP Address... Vicki, that is the internet protocol address assigned by your internet service provider. This is specific to your computer unless you are using dialup and some dsl providers rotate this number from time to time. It has nothing at all to do with website addresses. Originating url is where the link came from. Just like your web statistics where you found my site... The difference is your tracking service does not show ip address. I know this because that is where you came to my site, it showed me the originating url. I click on the link to see where you came from. I saw all the hit statistics you generated from yahoo mail and several other paid sites you use to advertise, including the link that led to my site. I could post it and spread your business about the web. But that would resolve nothing. The point being this is how you are tracked. The hits I am talking about came specifically from your computer. I resolved the host and verified with your isp that this was you. The ip above shows a specific url from this forum. I can resolve their ip as well. There was nothing self righteous or nasty about my issue with the copyright law. You attempted to scare me into removing the text without first attempting to speak to me like a professional. For someone who prides themselves in their "good standing", you are far from a "good standing" professional. Aside from my several apologies and immediate removal of text in question once it was pointed out to me, I am not sure what else I could have done to prevent you from showing such unprofessional comments in this forum. Please do not attempt to redirect attention for your behavior to me. I resolved your issue immediately and welcome your ideas and plans to test each and every idea that is contracted from freelancers. As a business owner we trust those we contract for work. Society is imperfect and we do succumb to these pitfalls from time to time. Professionals correct the issue and move forward. Others belittle, demean and show unprofessional behaviors even tho their issue has been resolved. As for someone who emailed me that this issue was closed, you again prove that it is not. Please do contact your business attorney and request a legal definition of liable and harassment. You may be surprised at how you are on the line and in some cases may have passed it. I again wish you success in improving your professionalism and with your business. Our intent was to employ fresh work and not to paraphrase work from others. If you wish specific diagnostics as listed above with your ip address, I would be more than happy to email it to you. Hopefully, this is the final time we communicate about this matter. Your last email stated it would be, unfortunately it has not been. I hope it is out of your system. I would love for you to direct your energy to your continued success. The time spent on this issue proves that that energy is needed elsewhere. Have a pleasant day.

Todd
Your Lingerie Party

CookieMonster, I`m going to hang your picture on my office wall someday very soon.

I will put a little sign on the bottom of it that says
"Our Hero, the CookieMonster".



Todd/Ivette/Whoever ....

To complain that she is driving traffic to your site is just absurd. I`m sure your pagerank went up a few points thanks to Vicki.

She asked about your site, and obviously came back to update. She has no control over the forum - she can`t go and delete it. The facts are in evidence - you should have done the right thing in the first place if you were so concerned.

So quite this nonsense and just enjoy your Google boost.

Todd,

You need to stop giving it energy instead of being upset it was posted get over it and move forward as you suggest Vicki does, take the same advice.  don`t give it anymore energy, what your site did is wrong you fixed it but if you gave her the name of the person who sent it to you she might have been more satisfied.  Either way it is over, removed but you do seem to be denying her self expression on how it feels when someone steals our story.  She has the right to complain and give her perspective of the experience whether you approve or not.  The unfortunate fact is that someone gave you material that is not theirs that is the person you need to blame for this "bad publicity" not the person whose work was stolen just b/c she is complaining....she has the right to complain it was HER story and it was STOLEN by someone YOU are proteciting WHY?  if it is YOU than that makes more sense in why you are defending your name otherwise just apologize and stop giving it energy you yourself are giving yourself bad publicity not Vicki but you.

NHG... I never complained about the traffic that is comming to my site. As a matter of fact, I have 3 sales from member that saw my site on this forum and liked what they saw. My complaint was about HER continuous bombarding of my site. Every page she viewed came out of my bandwidth for the month. 578 pages is absurd. And the pure knowledge that after I had removed it that she felt to spend so much time on my site is childish and border line harassment. Your Todd/Ivette/Whoever statement was created by her unprofessionalism. And, as far as the right thing in the first place, what would that have been? I removed the text before even verifying her complaint. NHG if you have read my posting correctly, my concern is not with the immature responses from the forum, it is with the unprofessional original posting of Vicki.


I really appreciate all the feedback coming from the forum members. I do believe you are missing my point.

 As far as energy wasted, I agree, I am over it. I never wasted anymore energy on the issue until I found out about the negative things said in this forum which were not only unfair, but highly unprofessional. SoFloInventor, your point well taken, energy redirected. As far as not giving out the name. The freelancer I contacted is a well meaning web designer that has just entered the field. He immediately admitted to the mistake and gave me a written statement stating such. Why destroy his future with a youthful mistake. If he truly had bad intentions, he will paraphrase again. when this happens, the next victims will not be so nice. Not to mention, the text was only up for a few days prior to vickis email.

As far as cookiemonster, you prove my point eloquently about maturity. Thanks!

I do not stop anyones freedom of self expression, I clearly stated that in an additional email that I sent to Vicki that has not been posted in this forum. And, I feel she had every right to seek out assistance on an issue she felt she could not resolve her self. Not knowing if we blatantly paraphrased her text or if it was a unknown to us must have been hard. The problem I have isn`t her distress, it is with her lack of professionalism. The immature was in which it was handled. Being in business for the time I have with more issues than anyone here can shake a stick at, I have always handled myself in a professional manner. No matter how angered I was. And while I did not agree with the way in which Vicki handled this, I did let it go. It was resolved and I moved on. Vicki, did not. I was not, however, going to go unheard about this childish and unprofessional manner in which she followed up in this forum. Business is business no matter how it is run. Whether you are an up an coming corporation or a simple e-tailer. We represent the business community. The dreams and aspirations of future business owners. We owe it to our peers and ourselves to conduct or business in a professional manner. I understand it does not always happen. But, I will be heard when this behavior includes me and my business. I say good day to you all and wish you continued success.

Since I love lingerie, I wanted to check out your site.  I am sorry that someone did that to you.  That is a little disheartening.  But your site is way cooler than theirs so I would`nt worry about it.  And by the time people get done reading all of the text that they have next to the outfits they have for sale they will be to tired to even want to put in their order.  So I would`nt worry about it.  Your site is young and spunky and theirs is outdated!

-------------------------

LISA

Regarding the comment:  (I am over it!)   My cousin set me up on a blind date with a guy he worked with.  We were to go to a halloween party about an hour away.  During the drive he told me that he had suspected that his girlfriend was cheating on him so he put a recorder in the couch and turned it on when he was gone and  he found out that his X-fiance had been cheating on him with his best friend.  He went on & on about this.  When we finally came to the exit we were supposed to take we came to a complete stop at a stop sign and  he says to me.  "But I`m over it."  Since everyone wanted to know how my blind date went I told them about the but I`m over it story.  Which was really a sad story because the guy was obviously still upset about it.    Now if any of my friends or family or myself carry on about something that went on years ago or in the present.  We use the "But I`m over it"  line and as the years go by, usually we all get over it.

-------------------------

LISA

Thanks Lisa.  I hope they aren`t too tired to put in their order though, it is my site that has all the "reading".  Although it doesn`t appeal to everyone, some people do like to read.  I`ve tried to give them the option, long and short version.  

Your comments are appreciated, good luck with your business.  Thanks.

Vicki

@onthebeach

I`m confused... the two links you sent look nothing alike, design wise. The home page copy is  similar, but not the same. Have the updated since you first posted?

My first step is what you`ve already done - send a personal email clearly, professionally, and non-emotionally pointing out the issue and asking them for change. More often than not that`ll deal with it.

As someone who has about 350-400 web site designs/projects under his belt, let me offer up a few random points:

1. EVERY year you need update the copyright statement at the bottom of the footer. The http://www.vickisdrawerslingerie.com site, for instance is only marked (c) 2004-2005. This screams "Abandoned Site!" not only to design thieves but to customers as well.

2a. Prepare to constantly adjust, tweak, improve, and change small elements of your site. As much as small biz folks like to believe (hope?) that a web site is a "one time launch" event, it`s far from it. That`s not to say that you could, or more importantly should change major parts of the site regularly, but making small tweaks to copy, product placement, navigation improvements is what helps constantly refine the site.

2b. Copy is VERY easy to change and if done right, it can be a reason customers visit over and over. Make the copy sing. Make it fun and funny. The best thing that can happen is to have your customer visiting weekly or even daily just to see the silly thing you added.

3. In addition to the copyright statement, add a "Terms of Use", and Privacy Policy. The ToU help show potential thieves that you`re more than just a one man show, who seemingly doesn`t understand the law or might not even notice if the design is lifted. People who steal these designs, especially for questionable commerce activities want as little attention as possible brought to them. Therefore, they look for easy marks.... (which a 4 year old copyright statement, again, screams loudly)

4. On the Web, "theft" is basically unstoppable, and the word "theft" is a relative term. If I walked into a store and took a physical item, the social norms have clearly told me that that is unacceptable. But for many people, the social norms of the Web don`t exist, especially n non-commerce contexts. If I grab an image from CNN.com and put it in a blog post, is that theft? Is it acceptable only if I don`t make money off the blog?

Since these questions are yet to be answered socially and/or legally to any satisfaction, I suggest that you take a different route:

* If people are grabbing your images, create an image gallery of similar images and give them a snippet of HTML code to help them do so. The code, of course, also includes a link back to your web site, and the image includes text such as "image provided by XYZ.com"

* Encourage people to pass your content along to others - make permalink URLs easy for people so share, add "send to friend" forms, and specifically add language to your product pages that say things like "Share with a friend!"

* Make it easier to share your content than to retool it.

Lastly (and I do put it last), there`s always the legal option. There`s a great many people who will use an existing web site as the starting point for designing their own site. In the early days of the internet, this was not only common, it was the social norm. Geeks who were learning how to create web pages would take Site A`s design and use it as a template to create something (mostly) unique for themselves. But there absolutely are those designers who are lazy or unscrupulous who simply do "steal", replacing as few elements as possible. In those cases, a cease and desist letter from your attorney may end that issue.

Otherwise, move on. Redesign fresh, tweak an existing design, have fun with the the thievery (like putting up a "people who like a design so much they steal it" sidebar), or simply ignore it and move on creating better content as a way to differentiate.

Remember, this is just your Web site, it`s part of your business. Don`t let it get personal. (Or at least TOO personal! :))

Jake
communityguy.com
antseyeview.com

I`m not a big believer in the "disable right-click" functionality. It`s pointless. Like any sort of DRM, it makes it tougher for legitimate users and doesn`t do much to combat illegitimate users.

Thanks for posting the info about copyscape because I found that my website had been copied. I never thought to look before this discussion.  Not once, but twice, by two different grooming companies! I will be sending letters! Thanks for the helpful info.