Hongkiat.com Cloned

clone hongkiat.com

I would like to thank Ray of Webappers for bringing this site to my attention. Honestly, the level of plagiarism is extreme. Not only the theme is duplicated, a lot of contents are directly copied over as well. Even some of the original photoshop tutorial files are downloaded, re-upload and shared in rapidshare. That’s stealing and redistribution! I’m not going to mention it’s URL so definitely no link love or anything.

So I did a background search on the website, gather all information including:

Registrar name and contacts
Where the sites was publicly listed
Google AdSense public key and ID of other ad network his used, and of course
Owner’s personal contacts

I sent the owner an email, highlighting the actions I will perform if contents are not taken down.

The is by far, a clone that look closest to hongkiat.com. Here’s a question, what actions will you perform when you noticed your site is duplicated?

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Comments

afham January 25th, 2008

bro..u have a link i wanna see tt blog..
Reply
WeLovePenang January 25th, 2008

Hong kiat: honestly said this really too much….

I had same experience, but it is on the content duplication.

At first, I am very frustrated but later I didn’t feel much…

BUT HAPPY…… Y? Simple: No one will copy rubbish, if they copy, mean the content we wrote is worth copy.

I am totolly agree by sending mail to them to ask them to stop all these….. we shud as this is too much….
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syamsulariff.com January 25th, 2008

huhu..selalunya org copy content je..ini the whole site.. :D hebat..
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Ray January 25th, 2008

One of your readers thought that I am that thief… I have received the following comment…

Fucking thieves, STOP STEALING FROM HONGKIAT!! (to all of you, that´s the original page!!!), Malditos ladrones, dejen de robarle el contenido a Hongkiat!!!, para todos ustedes, solo googogleen, Hongkiat, y esa es la pagina original..
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Ray January 25th, 2008

I have just received an email from him, he misunderstood your post only. It is ok now…
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DS January 25th, 2008

Do not wait.. report to Google team NOW!

@Ray, SO SORRY RAY!!, i´ve already leave my apologies on your page.. pleeeese forgive me… i did´t read very well the note and just rush.. (shoot me for being a fan :P) Sorry again… plese delete the “obvious” comments…

SOOOOOOOOORRY!
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Bengbeng January 26th, 2008

http://via-gra-fan.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-longkang_22.html

i tried writing to them. no response. it is a duplicate mylongkang site.l contents from mylongkang are on his site…he didnt respond to my complaint at all. i am clueless as to what to do..he has no advertisers on the site.

sigh sigh….
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Ray January 26th, 2008

@DR

Do not worry. ;) I understand now. :D
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Ashish Mohta January 26th, 2008

It would be best to find the registrar and mail them or even find the host and mail them. Look for some abuse mail id of the host . I did that with one of the site long back and it was responded properly.

If you cant fine the registrar name try doing a reverse dns lookup might get some idea.
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Eli January 26th, 2008

I would pretty much do the same thing as you’re doing here, email them and ask them to remove it. I wouldn’t want them to keep anything of mine though, after they blatantly stole it to start with. Wouldn’t let them keep my theme either ;)

Best of luck with this, let us know how it goes.
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miijoo January 26th, 2008

that’s give a lot of problem.Fuck who did that.
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righbrainer January 26th, 2008

Wow… that’s just plain lazy.
Hope that site will be closed soon
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Razlan January 26th, 2008

Don’t bother be nice to the site owner. He has done you wrong and you have every right to smack them right in the face. Go on and report and take action.

You are indeed a gentleman. If it was me, I won’t bother emailing them at all.
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Planet Lowyat January 27th, 2008

Send an email to Google Adsense and Registrar. Basically this ‘bugger’ got nothing to write but still want to earn money.
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azrin January 27th, 2008

Well, a blog is so easy to clone, since it’s open source anyway. You report etc, is useless unless it’s been patented and copyrighted.

Remember : By using a Wordpress Blog you agree to the terms and conditions enstated under the GNU applications and means, anyone can CLONE YOUR THEME, but not your CONTENT (meaning POSTS) as that will be a breach of Copyright.

Best regards

azrin @ http://www.kedai.tv

PS: I know because I’m on the DEV team.And yr site is subjected to the Local Laws of Missouri since it’s located there.Also, incorrect WHOIS also can cause yr domain to be placed back to the public domain. Just to let U know.

*NO LEGAL IMPLICATIONS APPLIED*
BTW, He based his theme thru Sapien Byrans’ 1000px theme.
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KTH January 27th, 2008

Hi hongkiat, you are the best tech blog in malaysia, suer got people want to copy you. good job bringing the culprit down!
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Gilbert A January 28th, 2008

I want to use my iphone as a modem to connect to Internet on my laptop as how I do it with my Nokia phones. Can you tell me if there is any way? Thanks
Reply
Friedbeef January 28th, 2008

Hmm…. reports to ad centres - I should have thought of that… :)

I get constant copying of my content too… good tactic
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zaki blogjer January 28th, 2008

This seems to be like how John Cow clone John Chow. But at the end the complement each other and John Cow manage to set it own identity. But John Cow didn’t copy the contents of John Chow.

But in this case. This clone has gone too far.
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BoltClock January 28th, 2008

Wow, that sucks. Hopefully you can get this settled.
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Jayce February 3rd, 2008

Ha… Ha… No one want to clone my site now ko. :P
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ShaShinKi.com June 8th, 2008

Honestly, I doubt there is anything you can do to stop those people from copying your contents. Sue them? Can you actually find their real contacts? Even if you can, can you afford to hire a lawyer to sue them? What if they are not from Malaysia? What are the procedures to get oversea case to court? How much time you are willing to spend to nail this guy down?

I doubt there is a solution to stop those thieves.
Reply