You said:

I’ve been freelancing long enough to know clients can be difficult, but this one genuinely broke new ground for me.
Client Location: USA
About a year ago, I took on a web project that quickly turned into what I can only describe as a slow-motion nightmare.

This wasn’t a theme tweak or some quick landing page.
I built the frontend, the backend, and redesigned things multiple times as the client kept changing their mind about what they wanted.

From the very beginning, the project followed the same pattern.

I’d finish a chunk of work and ask for assets, copy, images, access, feedback — whatever I needed next.

Then… nothing.

Weeks.
Sometimes months.

They kept delaying and changing their minds.

Eventually, they’d pop back up out of nowhere and suddenly want everything changed immediately.

Rinse and repeat for over a year.

I stayed professional through all of it.

Fast forward to the end.

The site was done and live on their domain.

I was hosting the frontend on my own Netlify account, pointing it to their domain until final payment cleared and with good faith.

That’s when things went sideways.

I sent the invoice for the remaining balance (and yeah, it’s a large amount) when they got investment.

Suddenly, the story became that the project “took too long” and that I’d been “inactive.”

According to them, that meant they shouldn’t have to pay the full amount we agreed on.

Important detail.

We have a signed contract.

It clearly says that I retain full ownership of all code and IP until final payment is made.

So when they refused to pay…

They stole the site.

Whole front end codes.

I’m not exaggerating.

They literally used View Source / Inspect Element and copied the frontend code a-z.

My name and professional email are still sitting in the Team/Credits section of the live site they’re now using commercially.

They are actively running a stolen website that publicly credits me as the creator while refusing to pay me for it.

When I realized what they’d done, I emailed them demanding they either pay the invoice or take the site down immediately.

The response I got was unreal.

The client straight-up admitted in writing in email that he copied the code.

No denial.
No excuses.

He basically said there’s “nothing I can do about it to shut the website down.”

So now I’m sitting here with:

A contract stating I own the code
GitHub commits showing I wrote everything months before they deployed it
File history backups
A live website still crediting me
An email confession admitting the theft, plus threats

I feel like this should be as close to a slam dunk as it gets.

Yet his confidence is making me second-guess whether there’s some angle I’m missing.

Right now, I’m drafting a DMCA takedown to Google / Firebase to get the site pulled.

Aside from the DMCA, is there anything else I should be doing?

I’m tired.

But I’m not letting someone walk off with a year of my work for free.