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.
X201
Tell their advertisers that it reflects badly upon them to be associated with a rip off like this.
BIGAL-1992
Sounds like piracy if you ask me.
Parker
Was pretty easy to find the website, not sure if I can post the URL, so I won’t, but use your imagination and it’s pretty easy to find.
A quick “Who is” search on the domain shows exactly why they ripped your layout (Who is shows a screenshot of the website), this is their old layout:
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You can see why they would want to change the layout, lmao.
BIGAL-1992
Mate, I can see the name of the website on the screengrab. Might want to get one of the mods or nofi to remove the screen.
Parker
Oh damn, I didn’t think of that >.<
I'll try get someone's attention via Twitter..
BIGAL-1992
The screen’s gone. You can breath now.
gideon1451
Nice sneaky way of putting in the URL there.
I totally get why they nicked TSA’s simple, clean theme though.
Parker
Thanks to whoever removed the screenshot.
sanmartinez
It’s a shame people have to copy others to get some hits. But then again TSA is not just any site, it’s the best gaming site around
sanmartinez
still doesn’t give anybody the right to copy this
solidsteven
this isn’t site this a m&s site lol i go get my hat and leave
gideon1451
I noticed that TSA changed it’s page name [like the tab name] to TheSixthAxis.com earlier, is that in response to this? As their page title is similar to TSA’s old one?
BIGAL-1992
I’ve actually looked at the offending page in question, and then font for the page name is completely different to any design for thesixthaxis logo. Then web page design however….well it’s an exact copy, as you can see in the screengrab.
DeathByNumbers
can someone pm me the address? as we could all start bombarding them with emails etc to try and force their hosts to close them down..
gideon1451
The offending web page is incredibly similar. Theirs looks tall though, & somehow visually displeasing. Perhaps because of the treachery.
gideon1451
@DeathByNumbers, that’s exactly what we don’t want to be honest. Swift legal action seems the best way of doing.
Besides, I still haven’t the foggiest how to PM on this site, aha.
DeathByNumbers
fair enough, lol, I was just curious that’s all.
shifty360
Surely u have a copyright on the web layout???? It is an original design and not part of a companys?? It might not be lawful but there’s nothing u can do if there is a slight difference in the HTML code
BIGAL-1992
I believe nofi is the one that holds the copyright for this.
Topgearsam
thats terrible but u gotta admit they picked an awesome website to copy
seedaripper1973
Bloody nora, i’m thick as pig shit, and cant figure out the offending site?? me want looky looky!! any ideas on how i may find it, lads/ladies?
Parker
I Googled one of the headlines on TSA, the latest GT5 one, to be specific. That should get you on the right tracks :P
seedaripper1973
Nope, just comes up as thesixthaxis?? As i say, thick as pigshit, anyone care to PM me (providing you can figure out how to do it, and more importantly if i can figure out how to read the sod?) Ta!
Pemberton_
Son of a…
While legal action is pursued I would highly recommend contacting the host and domain registrar in due course.
And of course if legal avenues don’t succeed, it would be more than a pleasure to take ‘action’ for you! ;)
Pemberton_
I have their datacentre details if needed.
Pemberton_
Also strongly recommend filing a DMCA request with them, their host and of course, Google.
Radboud
Looks like they changed there layout to an older one of TSA just about now….
Tuffcub
Still using all our graphics tho.
BIGAL-1992
And it’s the same graphics that belong to TSA.