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MVI Solutions Copyright Infringement – AGAIN!

Services: Law Firm Website Design . SEO . Internet Marketing . Law Firm Marketing Guide . Content Marketing . PPC

Argh, it’s happened again. As you may remember MVI Solutions previously copied one of our web sites completely. Now they have moved on to copy our own text for our web design services.

You would think that after a company is confronted with evidence of copying, that they would review their web sites more in-depth and clean up any infringement. However, with MVI Solutions this is not the case.

COPYING PAPERSTREET’S TEXT
Want to see the copying in action? Take a look at the text on the following links. Yes, its only text this time, but as the old saying goes – “Content is King.” Our content is important for a variety of reasons. First, our content typically ranks high in the search results, which is probably why it was stolen. Second, our content took time and effort to create the text. Finally, there could be possible duplicate content penalties applied by some search engines (or at least the possibility of potential clients seeing the same text twice).

Our Web Design Text
http://www.paperstreet.com/web-design/

– vs. –

MVI Text
http://www.web-development-design.com/south-florida-web-site-design.html

…and a snazzy screen shot of their infringement for future reference.

PS Website Photo

MVI Solutions is the owner of at least these web sites:

www.mvisolutions.com
www.mediavue.net
www.web-development-design.com (infringing web site)

It’s funny, they even use our common law trademark terms in the text. “Total Design” and “Total Optimization” are what we call our web design and web SEO packages. Our text was online almost three years prior (more on that below). Yet, even after this proof, they still claim that they are not violating any copyright. So let’s analyze their claims.

THE FULL STORY
Once I found the infringing text, I sent them an email requiring them to take down the text. Instead of apologizing, owning up to the infringement, and removing the text, they decided to accuse us of copyright violations and for making up the previous infringement.

Peter Boyd

I remember you claimed that our firm used similar design to a site that you reported was build by you (never proven) nor was your reported copied design live on the Internet at the time of claim.

I also note that the material you claim copy right was not on your site when MVI wrote and placed our content live. So the real question is how did you get a copy right on our material.

Jeff Douglas
MVIsolutions.com

Wow, I guess this is just like the current US administration. Simply deny everything in the face of the facts and accuse the accuser. The only problem is that Mr. Douglas, President of MVI Solutions, simply has his facts wrong and the facts can be proven easily.

SimmonsLawFirm.com Infringement

From our previous email correspondence and documents, we showed to Mr. Douglas that SimmonsLawFirm.com was live well before the infringing web site, yet he still protests. We documented to him with email signatures of the client that pre-dated his design by almost two years. Moreover, thanks to www.archive.org, you can even check the internet archives on this matter and see clearly that our design was prior and their design is identical.

OUR DESIGN – SimmonsLawFirm.com Full Archive of all Dates

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.simmonslawfirm.com

OUR DESIGN – SimmonsLawFirm.com Goes Live – November 25, 2004

http://web.archive.org/web/20041125225417/http://www.simmonslawfirm.com/

– vs. –

INFRINGING DESIGN – Jeffery J. Connors, P.A. Full Archive

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jeffreyjconnorspa.com/

INFRINGING DESIGN – Jeffery J. Connors, P.A. Web Site Goes Live – June 13, 2006

http://web.archive.org/web/20060427032132/http://www.jeffreyjconnorspa.com/

Sorry to pull Jeffery back into this debate, as he has a new design, but ultimately MVI needs to be shown their actions will not be tolerated.

There web site went live almost 19 months after our original web site went live. Since we are a local design agency in Fort Lauderdale too, it’s logical that MVI Solutions simply visited our portfolio, liked the design (we are flattered), and decided to save 40 hours of work by copying our design.

 

CURRENT COPIED TEXT – CONTINUED

In this matter today, we have been using that copyrighted text for at least four years now.

Our Text
http://www.paperstreet.com/web-design/

vs.

MVI Text
http://www.web-development-design.com/south-florida-web-site-design.html

As you will see, the text is identical. Further, they even use our trademarked term “Total Design”. We have branded all of our products as “Total _____.” This is a clear indication that they stole our work, as you did not even bother editing out terms that only applied to our business. Moreover, we have numerous proposals sent to clients that contain our copyrighted text, thereby proving its prior use and creation.

Once again, the archive.org site is our friend. Archive.org has our text in its earliest form as of February 9, 2004

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.paperstreet.com/webdesign.htm. The slightly modified form has been in existence for about the same amount of time.

However, MVI web site did not have the text as of November 18, 2006 – almost three years later. Instead it had the text “Some text here” repeated over and over again. Obviously, some time after then, their team took our text and loaded into the page in an attempt to finalize the site and market their business.

Moving Forward

At first all we wanted was the text removed and an explanation. However, after Mr. Douglas’ response, we now want a formal apology from the company and monetary damages. It’s unacceptable for a company to steal others property. It’s even more galling that a company would not own up to its mistakes, once confronted with clear evidence. Unfortunately, I think this time we are going to have to file a copyright claim to stop MVI’s actions. Lucky for PaperStreet, I am a copyright attorney and we represent about 10+ other intellectual property law firms.

Stay tuned…


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One Response to MVI Solutions Copyright Infringement – AGAIN!

  1. Peter Boyd
    9:37 am on January 28th, 2008

    Hello Edward.

    Yes, those designs look similar, but I do not think it would be enough to claim copyright infringement. The designs overall have different elements as the menus, icons, and color scheme is are different.

    The layout is similar, but its a standard centered menu, white space, two columns, right sidebar layout.

    Thanks for the comment though.

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