How To Punish A Client? when he steal your work...

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

**** up his site. if he has a guestbook, enter silly stuff and publicity. subscribe his emailaddress in every mailing list on the earth. try if you can still access his database, he might have forgotten to change the password.

or try sql injection. you know all the names of the tables, so it might just work.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I forgot about that!! thanks man...

[m3ch4 0]

Why not phone up his internet service provider and inform that that they are hosting a site that was gotten through ill gains and that you will be taking legal action against your previous client because he cheated you for your services and that you are exploring the option of suing your previous client's service provider and seeking compensation based on teh amount of time that the stolen site has been online and for how ever long it remains online. (suing the net service provider would be a bluff, it's not worth the cost of suing anyone relaly =P)If this scares your client's isp enough into taking their site down, you win, and can then contact your previous client and tell them to pay up. =) might not work, but worth a shot.Best advice would be to MasterComputers: "I have had this happen before, no contracts because I trusted the person. When this happened, I thought fine, I used the exact site template on another one of my customers site and then made my customer speak to him saying that his template is copyrighted to him and that he is using stolen work and that he would press legal matters.""He quickly took down his site and that was the last of that."Try this, it is completely legal...as long as you have some documentation that you produced the site and your previous client hasn't slapped his own "copyright" on it =/

[nachtgeist03 0]

Just on a side note ~ did you remember to comment in a few lines with your name in it, or add some same-color text to the files indicating you made it? Simplistic, yes. But just a thought...

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

Just on a side note ~ did you remember to comment in a few lines with your name in it, or add some same-color text to the files indicating you made it? Simplistic, yes. But just a thought...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

good idea, but I didn't do that.. now it's too late..

[warbird1405241485 0]

First of all: that contract thing wasn't very professional, but that not your fault and it doesn't matter anywhere because he already cheated you.

Second of all: ALWAYS SIGN A CONTRACT

Third and last of all: HACK him, if you damage his computer, no problem. It was his own fault :B.

[mike_ch 0]

I am always afraid of this kind of clients.So first, when i start to design a new website, i just show a picture (jpg file).Then later, i always show the website on one of my webspace. If the website is very simple (no php no sql or whatever), it can be stolen pretty easily, so i protect it with some tools like "Encrypt HTML", and i add some special stuff on my flash animation.They still can stole it, but it will be pretty boring for them to modify it.Another idea, if you have some flash animations on your website, it can be good to add some special hidden features...like for example, after 1month, it will show something totally different. A new message or new animation or even it will open another website...we can make lots of fun with flash :DSo i think, next time, try to protect your work...it can be pretty useful i think (especially with this kind of clients)

[iGuest 3]

tell him what you can do to him becoz you shud have some way to contact him through your site, tell him and ask him to be professional and pay your money, or just give me my contents back, thats nopt fair that he is using as well as no paying.....

[ninjamunky 0]

There is supposedly a legal document that says that anything created by someone on the computer is automatically © copyrighted to them. Therefore, if he uses it without your permission, technically you could threaten a law suit.

[ninjamunky 0]

Sorry for the double post, but here is a nice site that explains it, and there's probably many more out there, and probably some better:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Then you have those classic photos floating around on the web... recycled and distributed so many times you don't know who made it!I only dream of one day making a graphic that is funny enough that it suddenly starts appearing all over the place... Then I can sue EVERYBODY MUHUHAHHAHAHAHAH!

[Solus 0]

What you should also do, which I've seen is common practice is when asking if the client likes the layout, show the layout on your webspace as a .jpg. That way he can't make a site out of it.Secondly, when testing on his webserver, put a watermark on ALL major graphics on the site. Just a 50% transparent watermark that covers the entire contents (Perhaps containing a link to your website or your own name and a date). This way, if in the future someone steals your work, they are stuck with graphics that show it is a test template and that it is infact your creation.If they then try to edit the graphics and remove the watermark, the site will look rather hideous. Just another tip. Don't put the watermark on a big open space of the same colour as that's easy to photochop out.Once your client pays, simply hide a single layer on photoshop or whatever graphics editing program you may have used and upload the graphics over the watermark versions. You won't even have to change any HTML if you keep the filenames the same and it should help prevent this from happening in the future.One final tip. You could simply e-mail yourself to use as an effective timestamp, since it would pass through your ISP and get the time from them and not your computer clock which can easily be forged.

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

Thanks for the tips, I'll keep them in my mind for future clients that try to steal my work!

[saga 0]

if you dont want to settle things in court, hack the site and if you can, delete the files... that should make him/her regret what he/she did to you.... but for me court cost much than hacking the site and its more fun...

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

if you dont want to settle things in court, hack the site and if you can, delete the files... that should make him/her regret what he/she did to you....

but for me court cost much than hacking the site and its more fun...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

well yea, that was my first idea, and I started with hacking, but later I realized, that there is no point of doing that, because, here in my country there are very strict laws about internet abuse, so if they findout that Im hacking it, I could easily have cert police on my neck. so anyway I learned my lesson from this.

[mike_ch 0]

u can just replace some files...especially flash files. Add some very annoying bugs in their flash anims. Encrypt all the html file (there are some tools for that), so even if their web still works, it will be very boring for them to modify it later