Ourthang is Mostly My “Thang”

August 19, 2007 | General

I was browsing around, doing some general stats checking and notice that Technorati was showing several incoming links from the site Ourthang.com. I always like to see who is linking to me and what they are saying, so I clicked through the site.

I quickly found the reason there were so many incoming links from this site, It Was a Total Rip Off of Average Joe Blogger! And this guy isn’t just stealing my design, he is actually using my code. The entire sidebar is my code. Everything from my RSS links, advertisements and categories to even using my MyBlogLog widget.

See for yourself… (click to enlarge)

Have you ever had someone so blatantly steal your stuff?

I’m not sure what this guys intension’s are with this ‘Ourthang’ site, so I’m not sure what kind of action, if any, to take. What do you think I should do? Does this guy even realize what he is doing?

Update: It looks like this guy has probably seen me calling him out and decided to revert back to the default theme code.

No related posts

If you enjoyed reading Average Joe Blogger why not subscribe to my RSS Feed or get it delivered directly to your email inbox.

7 Responses to “Ourthang is Mostly My “Thang””

Angela | August 19th, 2007 at 9:26 am

What an idiot! That hasn’t happened to me yet *knocks on wood*. I don’t think my stuff is worth copying but I’m all for someone learning by viewing my source. That’s how I learned. But I always had the sense to make sure not to directly link stuff.
BeachBum | August 19th, 2007 at 10:41 am

Only once that I currently know of. I did a weeks worth of posts with 10+ ads each and they moved on to steal from someone else. When I tried to report them there was so much red tape I figured bombarding my posts with ads was the only way to get rid of them.

Put some code in your RSS footer this helps identify people stealing your content.

Good luck shutting them down.

BeachBum
Nathan Snipes | August 19th, 2007 at 10:42 am

I’m all for someone learning from my code, it’s how I learned as well.

I just don’t know what this guy is trying to do. It’s not like he just copied the idea (John Cow vs. John Chow), he actually took the code. Which means he’s displaying links to my RSS feed, my categories, my top commenters, my Adsense, etc.

Not that I wouldn’t take any extra income he wants to send me, I just don’t get how it benefits him.
Nathan Snipes | August 19th, 2007 at 10:45 am

Beach Bum: That’s just the thing, he’s not stealing my “content”.
Ourthang | August 19th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

Sorry dude. It may appear that I am ripping your code, however, this site is just a test site that I thought was private.

I am using the same theme as you and was playing around with your code trying to figure out how you created two side-bars instead of one that comes standard. If you look at my posts you will see that they are test posts and make little if no sense.

Whenever I try to ad a second sidebar, the entire content area left justifies in IE so I was, admittedly looking at your code to see how you did it.

I am not however, stealing your design… Just trying to learn how to tweak the CSS on the internet center theme.
Nathan Snipes | August 19th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

Ourthang: Thanks for clarifying that.

Your sidebars are likely justifying left, under your main content, because your column widths aren’t adding up. Make sure that the widths of your main content area and sidebars aren’t more than your container width.
mahdi yusuf | August 19th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

the best form of flatter is imitation!