it says on the album that the songs were written by skid row and theres no bon jovi names on their writing credits, but theyre in the thank-you credits, and its often rumoured they wrote some of their songs cos 18 and life sounds a bit like a jovi song...
i always thought that this "rip-off" thing was some deal that bon jovi would help make skid row famous, on the condition that they got a certain amount of commission money, or something like that.