They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but recently we’ve been thinking sometimes it more resembles theft. Like in the case of a certain European website that has taken what looks like a copy of TSA and are passing it off as their own design, complete with most of our images, our stylesheets and – yes – our content, but all under a different name. They’ve even overwritten our watermarks!
Recently this was confined to a foreign language ‘version’ of the site in question but over the last couple of days they’ve opened up their ‘English language’ site too. So, we had to step in and clear something up because it’s likely that at some point down the road you’ll come across it: TheSixthAxis does not license out its design, styling and content, to anyone. If you see something that looks like TSA but isn’t, walk away.
We value our writers and community more than most, it seems, so it’s a real shame when this sort of thing happens. We’ve tried to stay friendly and professional on the matter but sadly that doesn’t seem to work – if anyone has any experience in this field and is happy to do a bit of pro bono legal work we’d love to hear from you. We have approached the site in question many times and despite initially admitting the source of their design as TSA (and linking to us with credit) they have stopped responding and removed the credit links so we are currently in the process of gathering the appropriate information to take legal action. Again, apologies for interrupting your daily TSA feed but we just had to get this out there.
Both of these images are of the site in question. No, your eyes do not deceive you, the copy really is that similar to our design. They even update their design as we change ours. We’re not unreasonable, we love what we do and we like to see other sites spring up and keep the scene fresh. If anyone wants help from TSA with design questions or content then we’ll always try to help out when we can (as we have with various sites). We don’t wish any harm on the site responsible for this, we just want the matter cleared up with minimal fuss. Peace.
kevatron400
I presume they have a different logo going on in place of TSAs?
psyco
Scum. they carnt do it by themselves so they have to steel other peoples ideas and hard work. I hope this gets sorted quick. As they don’t deserve to take the credit for tsa’s hard work. Cheating scum. Get as much info about them as you can and name and shame them.
3shirts
Wow, there is no mistaking the similarities there!
If I had stumbled into that site, my first thought would have been “hmm, this looks very familiar”.
It’s one thing to steal content but to actually rip off the whole layout etc is incredible!
mikeck
Well it goes to show just how much people want to be like TSA, it’s annoying for you guys as you work so hard on this site, but also as you say quite flattering that somebody will try and pass it off as their own.
3shirts
One thing they can’t copy is the TSA community… I might try that site after all :)
cc_star
Just wait till you meet their version of 3shirts
3shirts
I bet he is a right prick
Jas-n
He’s called 3shorts :D
haz360
Wow, that’s crazy. Looks just like TSA…
You guys obviously work really hard on both the design of the site and the content which is presented within (one of the many reasons I visit TSA numerous times a day) so I imagine it’s quite frustrating when things like this happen.
Hopefully you’ll get it sorted out as quickly and efficiently as possible.
bunimomike
Hi Peter.
I’ve been to the actual site so I’m just contacting a couple of friends to see what can be done. One of them dealt with one of our clients when competitors were ripping off his content and selling it as their own. Not quite the same but the law will probably be very similar. Shall report back.
Bilbo_bobbins
they might aswell be stealing money from you in my opinion. I’ve been on it too and it’s a disgrace.
bunimomike
Email sent over, Peter. Any probs, give me a shout.
MrSpeedyGonzales
Is it just me or does the writing look like it’s Turkish or something simular to that
Bilbo_bobbins
yes it is. all you need to do is type in the title of the page and the site comes up
Joe
SCUM!
I’ll see them in court.
Nauraph
Sad..