Stealing is bad.
May 10, 2000 3:25 PM Subscribe
Stealing is bad. These folks seem to think it's okay to rip off another site's design and pass it off as their own work-- right down to the identical manifesto! They even have the balls to post a copyright notice. Unbelievable.
Registrant:
Future Communications Group, LTD (FUTURECOMGROUP-DOM)
605 Sherwood Ct
Romeoville, IL 60446
Domain Name: FUTURECOMGROUP.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Kaufman, Greg J (CJC56) gkaufman@FUTURECOMGROUP.COM
Future Communications Group, Ltd.
1807 S. Washington Street
Suite 106
Naperville, IL 60565
815-886-8988 (FAX) 815-886-8987
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Hostmaster (HO1320-ORG) hostmaster@9NETAVE.COM
9NETAVE
110 Meadowlands Pkwy
Secaucus, NJ 07094 US
000-000-0000 Fax- 000-000-0000
Record last updated on 10-Apr-2000.
Record expires on 06-Apr-2002.
Record created on 06-Apr-1998.
Database last updated on 10-May-2000 06:53:29 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS2.9NETAVE.COM 216.156.2.2
NS3.9NETAVE.COM 216.156.2.3
///////////////
now kids, be nice to the DNS servers, I'm sure they host a lot of records for legitimate domains that are being good neighbors.
posted by katchomko at 4:05 PM on May 10, 2000
I'm not associated w/ the original company... the link is being passed around at my workplace as an example to remind everyone to watermark their images and such.
The top-level domain of FutureComGroup does not appear to have any hyperlinks to the FutureCom/Design site. The whole thing seems very fishy and weird.
posted by wiremommy at 4:24 PM on May 10, 2000
The top-level domain of FutureComGroup does not appear to have any hyperlinks to the FutureCom/Design site. The whole thing seems very fishy and weird.
posted by wiremommy at 4:24 PM on May 10, 2000
This site-theft seems almost TOO blatant to be real. Maybe they're the same company or something. I don't know, but this is EXTREMELY strange. Who could consciously steal an ENTIRE SITE from a well-known design house?
posted by Succa at 4:51 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by Succa at 4:51 PM on May 10, 2000
9netave is well known for not giving a sh*t what their customers do. Do a usenet search on deja.com for them in news.admin.net-abuse.*
It could be, though, that the author of the original site, left his job, got a new one, and decided that, since he wrote it, he'd just recycle it for the new client. Who'd know?
Still sleazy.
posted by flestrin at 5:39 PM on May 10, 2000
It could be, though, that the author of the original site, left his job, got a new one, and decided that, since he wrote it, he'd just recycle it for the new client. Who'd know?
Still sleazy.
posted by flestrin at 5:39 PM on May 10, 2000
There needs to be a hall of shame, that people who do this can be named and listed for future reference. Casual mention on various blogs doesn't seem to be deterrent enough. It would be great if someone doing a search on a soi-disant designer's name or company would find a highly-placed google link to a page explaining just how fookin' original they are.
posted by dhartung at 6:19 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by dhartung at 6:19 PM on May 10, 2000
Hey, 9netave is now owned by Concentric. Just to let you know...and please don't bomb those DNS servers.
posted by Electric Elf at 6:31 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by Electric Elf at 6:31 PM on May 10, 2000
They must have taken it down. It's dead.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 7:34 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by Dean_Paxton at 7:34 PM on May 10, 2000
wow, this isn't the first time i've seen this. someone ripped of my friend dante's website a while back also. literally, word for word... even comments in the code left intact. needless to say it disappeared just about as quickly as THIS ripoff did. amazing. Makes me glad for my shitty design skills, hehehe - at least that means no one will nab it.
posted by cadence at 8:06 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by cadence at 8:06 PM on May 10, 2000
Now the link seems to go nowhere. Have the fools smartened up?
posted by sixfoot6 at 8:55 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by sixfoot6 at 8:55 PM on May 10, 2000
Here's some more of "their work"....Trading Places is a complete rip off of Rare Medium. Rare has been informed. Somebody should be pissin' their pants right now.
posted by bvanveen at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2000
posted by bvanveen at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2000
wow. total rip-off. the other site is down. this isn't. Shame, wonder what are some of the actions these companies will make? if any? whatll happen? I wonder why people have to do that.
posted by tiaka at 7:07 AM on May 11, 2000
posted by tiaka at 7:07 AM on May 11, 2000
I like the way that the Trading places site didn't even bother to steal neatly- look at how poorly they erased rare medium's "home" graphic in the upper left corner.
posted by dogwelder at 8:35 AM on May 11, 2000
posted by dogwelder at 8:35 AM on May 11, 2000
Is it worth noting that MF strikes again?
The title link is 404 as of now.
posted by baylink at 10:21 AM on May 11, 2000
The title link is 404 as of now.
posted by baylink at 10:21 AM on May 11, 2000
^_^
BTW, we had a theory here at my workplace... maybe the FutureCom/Design site was only shown to FutureComGroup clients who wanted to see an example of "their" designs, and was not otherwise made available to the public. Maybe that's how they thought they could get away with it.
Then again, the Trading Places site seems to prove that these thieves are blatant and stupid enough to think they can get away with this sort of thing even on a public site.
I notice that while yesterday, the Trading Places site had a link to the FutureComGroup site (which was coded incorrectly so that it didn't actually go to the FCG site!!!), the link is now gone from the Trading Places front page.
posted by wiremommy at 10:53 AM on May 11, 2000
BTW, we had a theory here at my workplace... maybe the FutureCom/Design site was only shown to FutureComGroup clients who wanted to see an example of "their" designs, and was not otherwise made available to the public. Maybe that's how they thought they could get away with it.
Then again, the Trading Places site seems to prove that these thieves are blatant and stupid enough to think they can get away with this sort of thing even on a public site.
I notice that while yesterday, the Trading Places site had a link to the FutureComGroup site (which was coded incorrectly so that it didn't actually go to the FCG site!!!), the link is now gone from the Trading Places front page.
posted by wiremommy at 10:53 AM on May 11, 2000
And now we have a new Trading Places "design". This guy is too much.
posted by bvanveen at 12:13 PM on May 11, 2000
posted by bvanveen at 12:13 PM on May 11, 2000
I had a student turn in a page like that once -- the entire page was stolen from a well-known snowboarding equipment manufacturer's site, and all he did to change it was to put his name on the page and smear the graphic in PhotoShop so you couldn't read the original company's name.
It took me about a tenth of a second to know the work wasn't his, and only three minutes to find the original source of the page on the Web.
I was actually easy on the guy -- I was just going to give him an F for that assignment. But my supervisor said that he would be given an F for the entire course and maybe get kicked out of school for that little shenanigan. So his advisor called him in and let him know that he was caught, and I never saw him again.
What sucks is that I feel like crap when I have to fail people for plagiarism, even though it's their own damn fault.
posted by litlnemo at 3:58 PM on May 11, 2000
It took me about a tenth of a second to know the work wasn't his, and only three minutes to find the original source of the page on the Web.
I was actually easy on the guy -- I was just going to give him an F for that assignment. But my supervisor said that he would be given an F for the entire course and maybe get kicked out of school for that little shenanigan. So his advisor called him in and let him know that he was caught, and I never saw him again.
What sucks is that I feel like crap when I have to fail people for plagiarism, even though it's their own damn fault.
posted by litlnemo at 3:58 PM on May 11, 2000
I remember about 3-4 years ago when someone ripped off Lance Arthur's entire web design section Design-O-Rama at Glassdog.com. Lance then drafted this "copyright policy" which basically tore the offenders a new anus.
People like that kill me.
posted by furled at 4:23 PM on May 11, 2000
People like that kill me.
posted by furled at 4:23 PM on May 11, 2000
> Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
> Kaufman, Greg J (CJC56) gkaufman@FUTURECOMGROUP.COM
> Future Communications Group, Ltd.
> 1807 S. Washington Street
> Suite 106
> Naperville, IL 60565
Oy, I used to live 6 or 8 blocks from there. And it's still only a ten minute drive for me, now. Wiremommy, you should have let me and the roomies know. We could've driven over there, found Mr. Kaufman, asked to speak to their "designer," and said, "Hi. On behalf of the Internet, we'd like you to stop it. Now. Please."
posted by jason at 5:16 PM on May 11, 2000
> Kaufman, Greg J (CJC56) gkaufman@FUTURECOMGROUP.COM
> Future Communications Group, Ltd.
> 1807 S. Washington Street
> Suite 106
> Naperville, IL 60565
Oy, I used to live 6 or 8 blocks from there. And it's still only a ten minute drive for me, now. Wiremommy, you should have let me and the roomies know. We could've driven over there, found Mr. Kaufman, asked to speak to their "designer," and said, "Hi. On behalf of the Internet, we'd like you to stop it. Now. Please."
posted by jason at 5:16 PM on May 11, 2000
I wondered if that was close to you when I saw it, Jason!
Incidentally, I got an email from the good folks at Plumb Design. They said they spoke with the thieves and "got them to take it down", thus the 404s and the hastily-altered front page of Trading Places. I imagine all this attention via MF must have helped too!
posted by wiremommy at 5:35 PM on May 11, 2000
Incidentally, I got an email from the good folks at Plumb Design. They said they spoke with the thieves and "got them to take it down", thus the 404s and the hastily-altered front page of Trading Places. I imagine all this attention via MF must have helped too!
posted by wiremommy at 5:35 PM on May 11, 2000
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are you associated with the original company, wiremommy? or have you contacted them?
it's outrageous.
there's lots of outrage these days.
(is it that the web is more outrageous than other life, or is it just that every part is everywhere, and we can all talk to each other and word passes along more quickly?
rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 3:35 PM on May 10, 2000