Copyright abuse - who do I contact?

[ETG]

I need some help, guys.

I tried to find the host of the Alicemodels website.
I opened the source page (right click on the page) and it said they used Wordpress. So I tried to contact them.
I found the page where I report abuse, but they say that website is not hosted by them.
Now I'm stuck.
I tried many other sources, but to no avail.

So.... what do I do, next.........?????

And please, people, let's work together, since we are all victims of these pirates.
If you are a designer, report this copyright infringement.

_______
Erik

[Butelczynski]

As far as I know WTO tried to force China to clamp down on businesses abusing copyrights for last 20 years with zero success.They are copying F-35 as we speak so I don't think this will get anywhere.

[JohnM]

Referring you back to your previous thread ... Aries Paper Models no longer exists......!!!! ... in post #6 GeorgeB posted a Whois link ... https://who.is/whois/modelalice.com ... which regardless of what Rickstef says, clearly shows this to be an Alibaba site. Further down it also gives an email and tel. no. for domain abuse complaints.

As I said before, good luck with trying to take them on ... they are Chinese and bigger than Amazon.

This is the main website for the parent company ... https://www.alibaba.com/ ... It's huge, but if you look around you are highly likely to find links to your stolen models (plus many, many others) and with these references, you may be able to register your complaints to the Alibaba head offices.

AirDave is probably the best guy around here to advise you how to go about framing your complaints.

Best of luck.

[rickstef]

John,

the site is hosted on the alibaba cloud services, which is similar to the Amazon Cloud, so using your logic, any (pirate) site hosted by Amazon is considered to be associated with Amazon?

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by rickstef

John,

the site is hosted on the alibaba cloud services, which is similar to the Amazon Cloud, so using your logic, any (pirate) site hosted by Amazon is considered to be associated with Amazon?

Associated with ... yes. Amazon would be my first port of call in order to complain about a website that they are hosting.

What does slightly mystify me is that on the Whois report modelalice.com shows as STATUS ... Inactive ... but it certainly isn't.

Just done a Whois search myself and it does show them as active.
Abuse link is shown as [email protected]
Abuse phone link +86.95187

[rjm]

I recently ordered some diamond paintings from China. One of them was missing one color and I contacted the seller and his reply was he was put out of business due to a copyright complaint. This can happen for diamond paintings but not for paper models?
The company was AliExpress. "Ali" as in "Ali"ce, "Ali"baba and "Ali"Express. What does "Ali" translate to in Chinese? And the abuse link above has "Ali"yun.com. Just a coincidence I suppose.

[JohnM]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group

Just so you get an idea of who you're taking on, but as RJM has found, it IS possible to get these copyright stealers shut down. It's just not a task I'd like to take on.

[JohnM]

Woohoo! Talk about suspicious happenings ... my router just shut itself down for ten minutes. Alibaba has nefarious connections methinks.

[airdave]

I have filed plenty of DMCA Copyright claims with the hosts of online files demanding they be blocked/removed.
Trying to contact the distributor/seller usually gets me nowhere since they either don't care
or believe they are doing something right.
Persistence pays off...annoy someone long enough, and they give in to stop the harassment.

In this case, these Chinese pirates aren't redistributing pdfs, or digital model files.
So, theres no "host" you can contact to demand the files be blocked or removed.
These guys are selling printed model kits directly.

I notice their kits can be ordered in a variety of scale sizes (regardless of the original model's scale).
lol obviously no experience or thought about whether the models can be built at varying scale.

They might actually believe they are selling a service...a printed product...and not infringing on your rights, since your model was a no-cost, freely available digital file.
But I think they still know it goes against common fairness and decency, and don't care.

These guys already know they are distributing someone else's copyrighted material.
And they are making money.
So, they aren't going to listen unless they are threatened with some sort of legal action.
Something that might cost them money...making the sale of pirated material less than profitable.
In which case they will drop the items from their inventory to avoid any further trouble from you.

I'd start by direct contact with the sellers...ask them nicely to cease and desist.
Don't be surprised if the language barrier makes it difficult for them to understand and respond correctly.

Try a legal threat...even a fake one.
If you know a Lawyer, see if you can get a letter made up, that reads like a legitimate legal threat.
Maybe, if they are stupid enough, they will panic and act in your favour.

Beyond that...hire a lawyer and make a real threat.

Webhosts will not help you, unless you are Law Enforcement demanding help against criminal activity.
If you can find child porn on their website anywhere, you can easily report that to the authorities.
That would probably get them the death penalty in China.

There must be someone you can report a internet website to...but this is a very minor offence that is not going to be at the top of anyone's concerns.

If you see them selling their wares on ebay or amazon, all you have to do is file a claim with ebay or amazon directly
...those companies will respond and act on your behalf.
They don't need the hassle, and they make enough money without these two-bit Chinese pirates.
But there are steps you must follow.

Rather than give you any outdated info, I suggest you contact each of those companies directly, asking them how to proceed.
Once you explain your problem, they will tell you what to do.

[Jadriancz]

Originally Posted by ETG

I need some help, guys.

I tried to find the host of the Alicemodels website.
I opened the source page (right click on the page) and it said they used Wordpress. So I tried to contact them.
I found the page where I report abuse, but they say that website is not hosted by them.
Now I'm stuck.
I tried many other sources, but to no avail.

So.... what do I do, next.........?????

And please, people, let's work together, since we are all victims of these pirates.
If you are a designer, report this copyright infringement.

_______
Erik

It looks like alicemodels.com is a russian registration according to whois.com https://www.whois.com/whois/alicemodels.com registered thru domaincontext.com


If you scroll down you will find the following:
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: @domaincontext.com Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +7 495 6459373Unfortunately, since it is russian I do not believe you will get much satisfaction.