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As far as media storms go, it's a doozy. Canberra website the RiotACT has egg on its face after trying to ride on the coat-tails of successful independent website HerCanberra. The RiotACT - which is owned by local investors Michael McGoogan and Tim White - copped an avalanche of backlash on social media this week after registering a "HerCapital" URL and launching a "HerCapital" Facebook page. The RiotACT also took more than 60 photographs from the HerCanberra page and used them on the HerCapital site. Social media users quickly saw through HerCapital and how similar it was to HerCanberra, an entirely separate business. HerCapital also aped HerCanberra by declaring it was a site for and about Canberra women. The RiotACT's actions were blasted as "unCanberran", "absolutely appalling" and "outrageous". "I bet they copied everyone else's homework in high school too," one person wrote, of the RiotACT. HerCanberra was launched in 2011 by Amanda Whitley who has grown her enterprise from the ground up, even being named ACT Woman of the Year in 2016 for her efforts. Ms Whitley said she understood the HerCapital URL was registered this month, just hours after she declined an offer from the RiotACT for HerCanberra to engage in a business relationship with it. "We were in discussions about ways we might cooperate and engage commercially and we decided that we didn't want to formalise any kind of arrangement," she said. Ms Whitely said it was too soon to say if HerCanberra would be taking any legal action but it was looking closely at intellectual property laws. "We're doing our research on what our options are," she said. "I'd obviously prefer to work things out peacefully." Mr McGoogan apologised to Ms Whitley for using the HerCanberra photographs and took them off the HerCapital site. He blamed an overly "ambitious" graphic designer for RiotACT for launching the HerCapital Facebook site on Thursday when everyone else at RiotACT was at the staff Christmas party. Mr McGoogan denied he had signed off on the HerCapital page. "Our graphic designer took a bit of liberty in terms of pushing that out, it wasn't meant to be public at all," he said. He added:"As soon as we got back to our desk and saw what was going on, it was removed". But Mr McGoogan has failed to see anything wrong with using HerCapital or acknowledge its similarities to HerCanberra. He refused to say when HerCapital was registered. He claimed HerCapital was among branding acquired by the RiotACT when it bought Capital magazine. "Capital magazine existed before HerCanberra," he said. "HerCapital is literally one of dozens of brands which swing off Capital magazine." When it was suggested that HerCanberra existed before HerCapital, Mr McGoogan declined to comment. He also refused to address the claims that the RiotACT created HerCapital after HerCanberra refused to enter into a business partnership with it. "I'm not in a position to discuss that," he said. Mr McGoogan said he couldn't say if the RiotACT created HerCapital or bought it. "I don't know the answer to that," he said. When asked when HerCapital was created, Mr McGoogan claimed he had nothing to do with it. "I am unaware of the answer to that," he said. Mr McGoogan said he didn't accept that HerCapital was trying to ride off the success of HerCanberra. "It is literally just a holding page for a brand we own," he said. He also couldn't say if the RiotACT would continue to use HerCapital in the future. "I don't know what the answer to that question is but at this stage I think the issue has been blown out of proportion, right?," he said. Ms Whitley said she was shocked to see the HerCapital branding. "The first I knew of any of this was [on Thursday] when a Facebook friend sent me a screenshot of the Facebook account and said, 'Is this in any way associated with HerCanberra?' "I said, 'No, it's not'. I checked it out and I guess a couple of things struck me. One was the font was very similar to Capital magazine which was recently acquired by the RiotACT. "And that the Facebook cover photo was made out of 64 of our photographs, including our HerCanberra Active branding, which was interesting. "We did a 'who is?' search and found it was registered to the RiotACT and that they had registered hercapital.com.au as a URL shortly after we'd advised we didn't want to formalise any cooperative arrangements." Ms Whitley said she had a "very real concern" that people would by mistake think HerCapital was a HerCanberra initiative. "That was certainly borne out by some of the comments on social media including 'Oh, I saw this today and I liked it because I thought it was yours'. "That's obviously disappointing." Ms Whitley said Mr McGoogan emailed on Friday morning to apologise and confirm the RiotACT had removed the offending images. "I responded that for me the real issue was IP [intellectual property] infringement with the name and that I would probably think very carefully about proceeding with the use of HerCapital," she said. Ms Whitley said she was buoyed by the support she had received. "It's actually turned out to be an incredibly positive thing," she said. "I've been amazed to see support from other media organisations., business people, MLAs. "I think people know this has been a really hard slog in building a business and they see that that's just not on in terms of what some people have termed a 'blatant rip-off of the HerCanberra brand'." HerCanberra director Jamie Wilson said it was wrong for anyone to take the intellectual property "built off hard work, sweat and tears" by Ms Whitley. "Obviously Canberra is a small city and competition is healthy but I guess you should play friendly as well," Mr Wilson said.

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