Site stealing a design.
 

my friend designed a site, and his domain expired... then someone bought the domain and when they got the site up on the same domain, they used his layout and all his content. what can he do to get this site shut down? i tried a traceroute and a whois to find out what server they used, but i had no luck.

nothing
he probably used googles cache

however if he doesnt have a license for the content u can fuck him there

but then how can he steal the content because google doesnt cache the images. they wouldnt resolve

We had the same problem.. I argued to their host as someone suggested, not sure what came of it..

http://www.boshionline.com

compare to my site.. They've changed it a bit, I wonder if our URL is still in their source in like 20 places? hehe..

I suggest you just run your business and ignore their bitchness.

its because he still has the site up on another domain in a sub directory. he just had the domain forwarding i think.

Contact his sponsors.

I'm guessing he doesn't have money set aside for his legal defense fund... in which case he can do nothing.

Make up a letter that says you are going to call their host and their sponsors if they don't remove your shit. If they fear losing their sponsors, and all the money they've made with those sponsors, then they will likely consider what you're saying. It doesn't mean they will remove it, but they will certainly think twice about it.

I'm assuming you're talking about actual content that can be copyrighted, not just a design, which is not necessarily protectable.

I'm not saying the guy is right for using the design but I'd also think that if it would bother you in any way you should never have let it expire in the first place. Personally if a domain was crap enough that I didn't renew it then they'd be welcome to using Googles cached pages for the design. It obviously made me nothing.