Infringement Update – When is an internet service provider not an internet service provider?

And so the plot thickens in the pursuit of our copyright infringer, abccopyright.com.

To re-cap; after failing to get a response from them by the Thursday 6pm deadline, I sent a DMCA notice of infringement to their host, Bluehost. Not having heard anything back from them, tonight I decided to call their Abuse Department. Of course, they’re not called that because they exist solely to deal it out or receive it themselves… though I felt like dishing them some towards the end of my chat with their rep.

Before that point however, here’s what I learnt was happening their end about the miscreant we’re pursuing.

Bluehost don’t host abccopyright.

Despite what the text at the bottom of abccopyright’s site says, the Bluehost rep I spoke to was quite clear; the site is not on their servers. Interesting…

So that’s another strike against abccopyright. Now if you’ve missed my previous postings, here’s a review so far of what counts against them (aside from their infringement):

Their only contact email address (not given on their site and only found after doing some digging) doesn’t work
Their site offers no company contact details (which companies must provide)
They identify the wrong provider as their web host
They failed to respond to a message sent via their “contact us” message board style page

What does this say? Says to me they’re very keen to remain incommunicado. Advertise a service and take a client’s money, sure, but just you try talking to them. I’d be concerned about using these people, wouldn’t you? (As an aside, if any reader out there has used abccopyright, I’d be very interested to know what their service is like…)

So if Bluehost don’t host abccopyright, who does? I asked this of the Bluehost Abuse rep, who pointed me to www.whois.net. Using that to run a search for “abccopyright.com” got me this result:

http://www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=abccopyright&tld=com

So abccopyright are actually registered under Protected Domain Services. And after further digging by one of our team later this evening, we’ve found out that the address for Protected Domain Services is also the same as for Domainsite.com, which according to betterwhois.com is the registrar, the referral URL and the whois server for abccopyright.com! Result!

So the pursuit is not ended. An email will be winging its way to the Domainsite support team shortly…

And what was it that got me so annoyed at Bluehost, or rather their Abuse rep?

His attitude. An “It’s nowt to do with us” air. In fact, worse than that. He didn’t think their legal team would be overly concerned Bluehost’s name was being used in vain by an IP thief. The guy even thought they Bluehost wouldn’t mind, as it’s free publicity for them! Can you believe that attitude?!

Sure, the IP theft may not be their problem after all, but were I in Bluehost’s situation, I don’t think I’d like to know a thieving website was hiding themselves behind my company’s coat-tails. What especially galled me was the fact this was coming from a guy in the Abuse Department, who should at least be more sympathetic about our situation and concerned about the possible sullying by association of Bluehost’s good name.

So the truism that “evil prospers when good people do nothing” is once again proven. Thanks a lot, Bluehost rep-man. Oh – and only after my call with them did I get an email response; a one-line sentence saying what I’d already been told. Great.

I’ll keep you posted.

www.dulynoted.co.uk

Got copyrighted work? Register it now at duly registered^TM

DISCLAIMER NOTICE

—————————————————————————————-

This article may contain the personal views of its author which are not the views of the duly noted^® Ltd. unless specifically stated. Please note that duly noted^® is not responsible for the content of external internet sites mentioned in its newsletters, its blogs or its websites.

Share and Enjoy: