Website Copyright Infringement - form of flattery or serious problem ?

Back in 2007 I wrote about website Copyright infringement  and posed the question "Are unique looking websites necessarily the best way to go ?" and the issue has cropped up yet again recently with another example of copyright infringement.

Weworked our own internal website redesign cost out at twenty thousanddollars which really hurts when you find out that others may be profiting out of it.

There is a virtual catalogue of people on the web making money by copying others intellectual property.  As a company we would never dream of sink to that level.  Sometimes it makes you wonder whether your own ethics of design are too strong ....  We rarely ever use the designs or content of others and if we did we would always purchase or credit the original owner of the content.   

Maybe there are copies of your intellectual property out there. If you'd like advice on how to find out who might be using yours and how you can generate valuable IP and protect it even when it may be the target of theft then feel free to give me a buzz.

Or if you have website copyright infringement stories of your own feel free to share them with a comment below.

UPDATE: Fortunately we received a personal apology from the company concerned, and they claim that the infringement was not authorised by the company.   It is good for us to have this matter resolved.