How to Take Down a Cloned Website: Kary Oberbrunner's 24-Hour Case
Kary Oberbrunner spent 6 months trying to remove a cloned Instant IP website. GoDaddy, Namecheap and his IP lawyer all failed. It was down in 24 hours.
Key Takeaways
- Kary Oberbrunner — CEO of Igniting Souls and Instant IP, author of 14 books and publisher of 2,000+ more — had his company’s website cloned on a lookalike domain
- He spent six months going through Namecheap, GoDaddy, hosting providers and registrars, presenting USPTO-filed trademarks as evidence
- The consistent response: “we can’t really help you” — even with registered trademark documentation in hand
- His IP lawyer couldn’t move it either
- The cloned site was removed in under 24 hours after KOHZA built an escalation strategy targeting the infrastructure rather than the registrar
- No payment was required upfront — that results-based arrangement is the model behind the Instant IP Takedown Service, the partnership offering this case led to. KOHZA’s own direct enforcement runs at $300/month flat
- The experience led to an official partnership and the launch of the Instant IP Takedown Service
Six Months of “We Can’t Really Help You”
Here is what intellectual property theft actually feels like from the inside.
Not the dramatic version. The boring, grinding version where you have documentation, you have trademarks filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, you have a cloned website sitting on a domain designed to look like yours — and every single institution you contact tells you, in slightly different words, that this isn’t their problem.
Kary Oberbrunner lived that for six months.
“I went to Namecheap, GoDaddy, I went to web hosting, registrars, and I showed them our intellectual property proof, the trademarks that I had filed. And I got this same dumb line from these people, like, hey, you know, we can’t really help you. Even though I had evidence from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.”
— Kary Oberbrunner, video testimony
Then he called his IP lawyer.
“I even talked to my IP lawyer, and they didn’t offer me much help beyond this.”
Six months. Trademark certificates. A legal representative. A website actively confusing his customers. No resolution.
This article is about what happened next — and more importantly, why the registrar route failed in the first place, because that failure is not unusual. It’s the default outcome for most creators who hit this problem.
Who Kary Oberbrunner Is
The reason this case matters is that Kary is not a casual observer of intellectual property issues. He is about as credible a source on IP enforcement as exists in independent publishing.
| Credential | Detail |
|---|---|
| Current roles | CEO of Igniting Souls and Instant IP |
| Books authored | 14 |
| Books published for other authors | 2,000+ |
| Location | Columbus, Ohio |
| IP posture | Holds USPTO-filed trademarks; founded a company specifically to protect creator IP |
“I take intellectual property very, very seriously.”
This is a man who built a business — Instant IP — around blockchain-verified ownership proof. He had the documentation most creators never bother to create. He had the legal awareness to file trademarks before he needed them.
And it still took six months and an outside enforcement partner to get a cloned website removed.
That’s the actual finding here. Having the right paperwork is not the same as having an enforcement pathway.
What Actually Happened
Someone cloned the Instant IP website.
Not a screenshot. Not a review mentioning them. A functioning duplicate hosted under a similar domain — close enough that real customers were confused about which site was legitimate.
“They basically created a fake website. It was confusing to our customers, it was diluting our brand, and it was really frustrating to me.”
Three distinct damages, running simultaneously:
- Customer confusion — prospects landing on the wrong site, transacting with the wrong party, or abandoning out of uncertainty
- Brand dilution — every confused interaction degrades trust in the real brand
- Traffic theft — a lookalike domain captures search and direct traffic that belongs to the legitimate site
For a company whose product is protecting intellectual property, the clone carried an extra cost: every prospect evaluating Instant IP could stumble onto a fake version of Instant IP first.
Why the Registrar Route Failed
This is the part most articles skip, and it’s the part that matters.
Kary did everything correctly. He identified the registrar. He assembled trademark documentation from the USPTO. He submitted it through official channels. He escalated to a lawyer.
It didn’t work. Here’s why.
Registrars are not arbiters of infringement
Domain registrars like Namecheap and GoDaddy operate under ICANN policy, not copyright or trademark law. Their obligation is narrow: process valid complaints through defined channels and avoid knowingly facilitating abuse.
They are not equipped — and generally not willing — to adjudicate whether one website infringes another. That requires judgment about likelihood of confusion, trademark scope, and ownership. Registrars deliberately avoid making those calls, because every judgment creates liability exposure in both directions.
So they route you to a dispute process. Dispute processes are slow. And when a complaint doesn’t fit neatly into the form, the default answer is we can’t really help you. This is exactly why we built our comparison framework — to show where traditional channels fail and what actually works.
Trademark and copyright run through different pipes
Kary had trademarks. Most takedown infrastructure is built for copyright.
This distinction is where most creators lose months:
| Copyright (DMCA) | Trademark | |
|---|---|---|
| Protects | Original creative work | Brand identifiers, names, marks |
| Statute | 17 U.S.C. § 512 | Lanham Act |
| Standard process | DMCA notice-and-takedown | No equivalent fast path |
| Platform obligation | Must respond to preserve safe harbor | Varies; often discretionary |
| Typical speed | 24–72 hours on compliant platforms | Weeks to months |
The DMCA gives platforms a legal reason to act fast: ignore a valid notice and you lose safe harbor protection. Trademark has no equivalent statutory lever. A registrar receiving a trademark complaint is under far less pressure to act quickly, and often no obligation to act at all.
Kary was holding strong trademark evidence and walking it into channels built for copyright complaints. The evidence was right. The channel was wrong.
A cloned website spans multiple independent parties
This is the structural problem. A single fraudulent site is not one entity you can complain to. It’s a stack:
- Registrar — sells the domain
- Registry — operates the top-level domain
- Hosting provider — runs the server
- Upstream/datacenter — provides the host’s network capacity
- CDN — may sit in front caching content
- Payment processor — may be collecting money
- Ad network — may be monetizing traffic
Each one has its own abuse process, its own response standards, and its own definition of what evidence it will accept. Registrars point you to hosts. Hosts point you to registrars. Both tell you to get a court order.
Six months of this is not incompetence on Kary’s part. It’s what the process is designed to produce when nobody owns the escalation.
What Changed
KOHZA reached out to Kary directly. The initial conversation was actually about something else — a pirated course of his circulating online.
“They asked me about a pirated course of mine that was out there. And, you know, while I was frustrated with that, I was way more frustrated with the fake website. And so what I did is I said, look, what can we do?”
He redirected the engagement to the cloned site. KOHZA built a strategy against it.
“And they put together a great strategy, and no joke, within 24 hours, that website was down. And it shocked me. I didn’t know people could move this fast.”
The difference was targeting
The strategic distinction is not effort or credentials. Kary had both.
It’s which layer of the stack you apply pressure to, and how many layers you apply it to at once.
A registrar complaint is a single request to a single party who has strong incentives to decline it. An infrastructure escalation identifies every party in the chain who has a reason to act — and presents each of them with a complaint framed for the policy they actually enforce, rather than the policy you wish they enforced.
Hosts respond to abuse of their acceptable-use terms. Upstream providers respond to complaints about customers generating liability. Payment processors respond to fraud indicators. These are different levers than trademark law, and they move faster because they don’t require anyone to make a legal judgment about your marks.
Important honesty note: Kary’s account confirms the outcome — a strategy was built and the site went down within 24 hours. He doesn’t describe the specific technical steps, and we’re not going to invent them for narrative purposes. What the case demonstrates is that correct targeting beat correct paperwork.
⚡ Quick reality check: Kary had trademark certificates, an IP lawyer, and six months of correct procedure — and the clone stayed up. Correct paperwork isn’t an enforcement pathway. If something is impersonating you or your brand right now, find out whether the case is winnable before spending another month on forms: run the free 30-second piracy scan or get a free assessment. If a case isn’t winnable, we tell you at the assessment — before you pay anything.
The payment structure
“The cool thing was that they didn’t ask me to pay anything up front. They said, look, we’ll get you results. And when they got the results, then I paid happily, because I was losing a ton of money with the brand confusion and customer confusion.”
Worth being precise about scope here, because it matters if you’re evaluating your own options:
The results-based arrangement Kary describes is the model behind the Instant IP Takedown Service — the partnership offering launched after this case. Per the official announcement, that service “operates on a performance-based model, where users only pay if the takedown is successful.”
KOHZA’s direct enforcement service runs at $300/month flat — unlimited takedowns, monitoring and escalation, no per-leak fees. See pricing. Both routes reached the same place in Kary’s case: the site came down before he paid anything meaningful.
What Came Out of It
Kary didn’t just resolve a problem. He restructured how he handles IP enforcement.
“So if you’re thinking about hiring them, I highly recommend them. I’m now bringing other clients to them that, again, we publish their books. And these days, with AI out there and many other strategies, copycats, deepfakes, you need somebody you trust.”
Two concrete outcomes:
1. Referral relationship. Kary now directs authors from his publishing business to KOHZA — 2,000+ published authors dealing with pirated EPUBs and PDFs, cloned book sites, and fake social accounts selling their work.
2. Official partnership and product launch. Instant IP launched its Takedown Service on April 10, 2026, with KOHZA as the enforcement partner. Learn more about the InstantIP × KOHZA partnership. From the announcement:
“Intellectual Property theft isn’t just frustrating—it’s damaging,” said Kary Oberbrunner, founder of Instant IP. “I’ve personally experienced everything from pirated books to full website impersonation. What shocked me most was how slow and ineffective traditional takedown processes can be. That’s why we built a better solution.”
The service covers three infringement categories: pirated content, false websites, and fake social accounts.
The positioning shifted from protection to protection-plus-enforcement:
“That experience changed everything. We realized protection alone isn’t enough. You need enforcement—and you need it fast.”
Sources:
- Instant IP Launches Rapid Takedown Service to Combat IP Theft, Deepfakes and Copycat Websites — PRLog, April 10, 2026
- Kary Oberbrunner — LinkedIn
If Your Website Gets Cloned: The Order That Works
Kary’s six months weren’t wasted — they mapped exactly which routes fail. Here’s the sequence that avoids them.
Step 1: Preserve evidence before you contact anyone
Sites get taken down, modified, or moved during enforcement. Document first:
- Full-page screenshots of the clone, including URL bar
- WHOIS record for the infringing domain
- Archive the page via the Wayback Machine
- Record any customer confusion — emails, support tickets, screenshots of messages
- Note your own trademark registration numbers and copyright registrations
Do this before your first complaint. You will not get a second chance at the original state.
Step 2: Identify the whole stack, not just the registrar
Run the domain through WHOIS, then resolve where it actually points. You need:
- Registrar (from WHOIS)
- Hosting provider (from IP resolution)
- Upstream provider / ASN (from IP registry data)
- CDN (from response headers, if present)
- Payment processor (from the clone’s checkout flow)
Kary went to registrars. The registrar was the wrong first target.
Step 3: File with the host before the registrar
Hosting providers enforce acceptable-use policies that are usually broader and faster than registrar trademark processes. A cloned site designed to deceive users typically violates AUP provisions covering fraud and impersonation — which don’t require anyone to adjudicate your trademark rights.
Frame the complaint around deception and fraud, not trademark law, and it lands in a queue that actually moves.
Step 4: Escalate upstream in parallel, not in sequence
Don’t wait for step 3 to fail before starting step 4. File with the upstream provider and datacenter simultaneously. When one party in the chain starts receiving complaints about a customer from multiple directions, the cost of ignoring them rises quickly.
Sequential escalation is what produces six-month timelines. Parallel escalation is what produces 24-hour ones.
Step 5: Hit the money layer
If the clone is collecting payments or running ads, report it to the payment processor and ad network. These parties have independent fraud obligations and often act faster than any infrastructure provider — because processing payments for a deceptive site creates direct liability for them.
This layer is skipped almost universally, and it’s frequently the most effective.
Step 6: Consider the DMCA angle if any content is copied
A cloned site almost always copies something — text, images, logos, layout assets, code. That copying is a copyright matter, and copyright has the fast statutory lever that trademark lacks.
A valid DMCA notice creates an obligation the host must honor to preserve safe harbor. Where a trademark complaint gets discretionary review, a copyright notice gets processed.
See our host-level DMCA takedown guide for the mechanics.
The Bigger Pattern
Kary’s own framing of why this problem is getting worse:
“These days, with AI out there and many other strategies, copycats, deepfakes, you need somebody you trust.”
The PRLog announcement identifies the same shift — AI-generated content has driven a surge in IP violations across four categories:
- Entire websites cloned to confuse customers
- Fake social media accounts impersonating creators
- Pirated courses and digital products distributed without consent
- Deepfakes leveraging name, image, and likeness
Cloning a convincing website used to take a competent developer a week. It now takes minutes. The cost of creating a fraudulent site has collapsed. The cost of removing one through traditional channels has not.
That asymmetry is the actual problem. And it’s why six months of correct procedure produced nothing while 24 hours of correct targeting produced everything.
⚡ Quick reality check: Cloning your site or reselling your course now takes minutes. Removing it through registrar channels still takes months. That gap only closes when you escalate across the hosting stack in parallel — which is what KOHZA does across 52+ networks, usually within 24 hours. See what’s currently live against your brand or open a case.
“Your ideas have value. And in today’s world, protecting them isn’t optional—it’s essential.”
— Kary Oberbrunner
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a domain registrar take down a cloned website?
Rarely on their own initiative. Registrars operate under ICANN policy, not copyright or trademark law, and generally avoid adjudicating whether one site infringes another. They’ll process complaints through defined channels, but the default response to trademark disputes is to route you toward the hosting provider or a formal dispute process — which is why this route took six months without resolution.
Why did trademark evidence fail when it was clearly valid?
Trademark and copyright run through different enforcement pipes. The DMCA gives platforms a statutory reason to act fast: ignore a valid notice and lose safe harbor protection. Trademark claims under the Lanham Act have no equivalent fast path, so registrars face far less pressure to act. The evidence was sound; the channel it was submitted through had no obligation to move quickly.
How was the cloned site removed in 24 hours?
By targeting the hosting infrastructure and applying pressure across multiple layers in parallel rather than filing sequentially with registrars. Hosts enforce acceptable-use policies covering fraud and impersonation, which don’t require anyone to adjudicate trademark rights. Kary’s testimony confirms the outcome and timeline; the specific technical steps aren’t part of his account.
Should I go to the host or the registrar first?
The host. Hosting providers enforce acceptable-use policies that are typically broader and faster than registrar trademark processes, and a site built to deceive users usually violates AUP provisions on fraud and impersonation. Contact the registrar too, but don’t treat it as your primary lever — it’s the slowest layer in the stack.
Do I need a lawyer to remove a cloned website?
Not for removal. Kary had an IP lawyer and the site stayed up for months. Legal representation becomes valuable when you want damages, need to identify an anonymous operator through subpoena, or want a permanent injunction. For getting the site down, infrastructure escalation moves faster than litigation — and litigation typically takes 12–24 months regardless.
What should I do first if I discover my site has been cloned?
Preserve evidence before contacting anyone: full-page screenshots including the URL bar, WHOIS records, Wayback Machine archive, and documentation of any customer confusion. Sites change or disappear during enforcement and you won’t get a second look at the original state. Then map the full infrastructure stack — registrar, host, upstream provider, CDN, payment processor.
Is the results-based payment model available to everyone?
Kary’s no-upfront-cost arrangement reflects the Instant IP Takedown Service, the partnership offering launched in April 2026, which operates on a performance-based model where users pay only if the takedown succeeds. KOHZA’s direct enforcement service runs at $300/month flat — see the pricing page for current terms.
Does this work for fake social media accounts too?
Yes, through different channels. Platform impersonation reports on Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn operate outside the hosting stack entirely and have their own review processes. The Instant IP Takedown Service covers three categories: pirated content, false websites, and fake social accounts. Our impersonation account guide covers the platform-specific mechanics. For broader brand protection across all vectors, see our brand impersonation case study.
Ready to Remove Your Cloned Website?
If someone is impersonating your brand with a fake website, every hour it stays up costs you customers and credibility. KOHZA removes cloned websites by targeting the infrastructure — not just filing complaints with unresponsive registrars.
→ Check if your site has been cloned — free 30-second scan across 52+ networks → Get a free assessment — we’ll map the full infrastructure stack and tell you exactly how to get it down
Most cloned sites are removed within 24 hours. No upfront payment required.
Related Reading
- How to Remove a Pirated Course from Telegram — infrastructure-level enforcement for course creators
- Brand Impersonation Takedown Case Study — how we neutralized fake accounts across platforms
- Host-Level DMCA Takedowns — why targeting hosts beats targeting registrars
- Fake Instagram & TikTok Impersonator Accounts — platform-specific removal guides
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