What scares me most is how many people here seem to think it is OK or 'not that bad'.
I don't know a designer who hasn't or doesn't draw inspiration from other websites. However, that process goes something like this...
1) Look at website. || 2) Assess what is good about the design || 3) Mock up own version.
What a decent person doesn't do is rip the existing site. HTML + all. Tweak it slightly then publish it.
What Curebit did is indefensible. This is something some 2-bit web designer fob's off to a client paying $200 for a website... the fact Curebit is a start up is not a defense. It is frankly scary that a company can get $1M+ in funding and not realise they cannot just rip other peoples work...
Having seen the shenanigans of a bunch of Bay Area startups, and based on the tone of the responses in this thread, I'd gather that this quote from the article is a bit off base:
> "Your conversion rates or, you know, your credibility and integrity and the ability to have lunch in Silicon Valley ever again."
It would seem that, based on the tone here on HN, that these people will be able to have many, many more lunches in Silicon Valley. Hopefully they won't dine and dash.
In what way is the world a better place when you have to reimplement the design from scratch - as opposed to a world where anyone can copy a design (assuming some credit is given)?
Sounds like the latter world will free up a lot of resources for more useful creative work.
>"It is frankly scary that a company can get $1M+ in funding and not realise they cannot just rip other peoples work..."
And more to come. This is an inevitably when your business model revolves around getting as many start ups money as you can in the hopes that some hit it big. It's inherent when you don't (and can't) vet all the people and ideas; you'll eventually end up with "people of poor moral character" in your system.
And there's no excuse for it. I wonder how it will be dealt with. I bet everyone involved was anti-PIPA.
I thought we'd already concluded that copyright infringement is not stealing. Neither is linking. Fair use is fine. And that ideas can't be stolen.
So, is Curebit wrong because 37Signals is one of us?
I'm not suggesting what Curebit did is right. But I doubt any HN user of any length of time can ignore the similarities with other copyright cases where the community here is opposed to the "37Signals" side.
I'll have to remember this thread next time someone suggest that copyright infringement is okay because copyright infringers have been shown to buy more copyrighted material, or that it helps advertise, or some other argument.
Agreed, it also seems a massive over reaction to what is, after all, a very small startup committing a victimless crime. Naming and shaming should be enough without dragging them through the streets of the web for a public stoning.
Lets say that it is instantaneous and free to copy 37Signal's design, whereas to recreate it from scratch it costs the labor of a designer X units of dollar-time.
For the sake of simplicity lets say that Curebit and 37Signals are competing for customers in a zero sum game.
True, by copying 37Signals, Curebit has taken away some unknown X dollar-time worth of customers away from 37Signals during that 1 hour.
However, even though the customer space of 37Signal's and Curebit's enterprise may be zero-sum, the dollar-time measure of work is non-negative (and not zero-sum). It would make more sense for the industry as a whole to allow the copying of design, because overall it saves on design work time.
What Curebit did appears to be wrong because it appears as though they are outright cheating. However, if you understand that designers gain their chops by reverse-engineering the productions of others, and that this happens routinely in the real world, perhaps it's time to accept copying as a legitimate part of the equation.
In this case, 37Signals was given free rein to track Curebit's customers. Sounds like a good deal to me.
What Curebit did was more like, taking the new Mission Impossible movie by Paramount Pictures, renaming it and changing the credits. Then releasing it as their original production.
Imo it's also because it's no style; copying source code, linking to resources from another site, copying logo's,.. It's like going to an English gentlemen's tea party clothed like a beggar & shitting all over the place. And then replying on twitter "why do you care i shitted all over the place? what's the big deal?"
There's copyright infringement for personal reasons (i.e. I really wanted to watch that movie) and there's commercial plagiarism. It's a completely false equivalency.
From a copyright-law perspective, it's not a slam-dunk that Curebit infringed any protectable aspect of the 37Signals design, as opposed to "stock" elements.[1] West Side Story has a lot in common with Romeo and Juliet, but the latter itself has a lot in common with a long line of still-earlier romantic tragedies.[2]
Some of the reactions here are fascinating. As a group, HNers prize the freedom to copy from others and the ethic of helping others --- but for some, it seems to be "I get to copy from others, but no one else is allowed to copy from me."
EDIT 1: That said, from a purely-practical perspective it's usually better and cheaper to steer clear of controversy (depending on how you think the PR scales will tip). Curebit might have been better off had it not copied what it did, not least because this controversy is sucking up management time that could probably be put to better use.
EDIT 2: Plus, stealing someone else's bandwidth by linking directly to their copies of images, etc., without permission does cross the line, if that's what Curebit did.
EDIT 3: Even copying HTML and CSS might not constitute copyright infringement if there are only a limited number of ways to express the same idea(s). This is even more the case if there's an optimal way to code a given set of ideas.
I am a software developer, I believe strongly in copyright.
I also believe strongly that people should not have their lives ruined, and citizens should not have their freedoms curtailed to protect it on a large scale.
I do believe that businesses who take a relaxed attitude to using copyrighted material that belongs to someone else are displaying a lack of ethics that is worrying and deserve to be taken down pretty hard.
There is a world of difference between some random person downloading a movie for viewing, copying a website for their personal blog etc and a company doing it.
These guys have made a really unfortunate decision here. To be fair, based on their response so far I expect its because they dont have a clue what copyright even means, so its about ignorance rather than malice, and it will soon be rectified.
It's also often a very successful strategy for companies to copy the design of competitors, and differentiate on other things. Zynga copying competitors' games is a great example.
In this case, Curebit was only copying the design of a landing page, so it was probably not worth pissing off DHH even if that landing page was legally usable and worked better. Although it really seems that DHH was more pissed off by Allan's tweets and posts about it than by the design itself.
Is this really such a big deal? We are all only where we are today based on building on the improvements of others.
This isn't exactly like Zynga copying other small studios games, it's just a bit of design rip off, which incidentally, I'm not a designer, but if I see something that I think looks good on another site, I'm happy to copy the css styles for it. I've often thought if I'm just kidding myself, and what I'm doing should be considered totally wrong, but ultimately, it's just some styles. I've still coded everything myself.
While linking directly to assets you are using for your site, is clearly ridicuslously stupid, I don't think we should call the lynch mob out on them just yet. (Thoughts?)
This is clearly an egregious case of design theft, particularly considering the fact that they're actually linking to assets off the Highrise site. But at the risk of opening myself up to an absolute shit hurricane, I'm curious where my site would fall on the Highrise design theft scale: http://www.powerplayforsalesforce.com.
Personally I think it's fine, but it's also obvious that I read 37signals' post a while back re: their a/b testing and thought to myself: Hey, that's a great idea! Instead of doing a long form like everyone else, let's blow up a picture of a guy (me) on the left, put a video in the middle, and put some bullet points to the right with a signup button on bottom. Short and to the point, and incidentally, a technique that's been in use by print advertising since the beginning of print advertising.
So where exactly is the line? (and I'm asking because I'm truly curious if I've crossed it) 3 bullet points about your product is nothing new. The smiling guy you can relate to with a testimonial isn't new. Some screenshots or a product video above the fold isn't new. But I certainly wouldn't give myself a ton of credit for originality in landing page design. I guess I could put the guy on the right and bullet points to the left. I could move the signup bottom. I could have more content in my footer. How do you take the general concept and produce something that doesn't look like something of a rip off?
Personally, I have a lot of respect for what 37Signals has achieved over the years. So while I certainly want to learn from their mistakes and successes, I certainly don't want to be accused of being a scumbag design thief. Any thoughts?
I saw this play out yesterday in the comments and kept thiking "why won't someone stop him from posting?!" It was getting bigger and bigger the more he opened his mouth.
I learned an important lesson a few years ago: sometimes you can't make something better, and trying to make it better only makes it worse.
Stop, regroup with others and get a proper plan together.
One thing I see coming up over and over in these comments is that people get upset that this is called "stealing". The logic goes that stealing deprives the original owner, and since 37signals hasn't been deprived of the code and images that were copied (the hosting is a separate issue), this doesn't constitute theft.
While that may be a good argument that file-sharing is not "stealing" (though may still be unethical), I'm not sure it's an accurate assessment in the arena of design.
Part of the purpose of design is branding and establishing a unique visual identity in the marketplace. By copying these designs, curebit hasn't deprived 37signals of the actual code and images, but they have deprived them of some degree of unique visual identity. And to that extent, isn't this stealing?
But Javascript that has been hand-coded to offer uniqueness in identity and function, is largely considered fair game. Front-end specialists use view-source as a learning technique.
I think many of these arguments lean in the direction of the interests of the person making the statement. For example, I have been impacted by file-sharing sites so I feel nothing but satisfaction when they're taken down. I'd imagine the forums where movie creatives spend their time are generally filled with high-conviction arguments about 'downloading=stealing'. The startup industry hit the roof when a few colour combinations and png's are taken, but feels nothing for old-media industries whose bedrock is being eroded.
There's a lot of 'grey' in there, no obvious answers. Personally I don't torrent, but I have friends that do. I'll view-source but make it hard to steal my own source. Unique visual identity? Same as anything else - better have a lawyer advise you before you upload it for the world to see, and enough firepower to protect it.
Wow, talk about lazy. I'm ok with taking the layout, changing the images and using the same basic styles. At least change some of the fonts. I mean, How many sans serif fonts are out there that would've worked? Thousands.
They lost me when they started copying the HTML VERBATIM. Apparently they don't have capable developers either. The layout in question is not that complicated, and I'm struck on why they decided to do what they did. Even in A/B testing you could've mocked this thing up in a few hours and had it ready to go.
I'm sorry, but am I the only one wondering about the ... tone of dhh's response? I mean, "fucking scumbags", is he like 14? He has every right to be upset, but the choice of words are in no way helpful. just saying..
Exactly, This doesn't make him look very good. Beside the rude language, this isn't something grown-ups need to settle publicly via twitter. Very immature.
Are you offended by the tone? What would you call a person who steals your ideas (no value), steals your work ($$$), steals your bandwidth (~$), passes it all off as their own and then brags about raising money, a venture which was probably aided in no small from the theft? And when caught redhanded, further insults you by offering you credit for your work?
What would you call that person? I call those people scumbags.
This is an honest question, I'd be curious to hear how you might differentiate this from music and movie sharing? I hope that people won't just down-vote me without responding. I am truly curious because I myself have mixed feelings about all of these issues as both a content creator as well as a consumer. It's hard for me to understand why certain types of art must be free for all, but others are defended vigorously.
I've seen this happen several times before where someone uses photos, design or article text without permission, gets busted and winds up on the tech forums. The tech community generally tends to get pretty noisy about how despicable they find it.
It strikes me as interesting because one of the piracy arguments is that it's not stealing because the original author didn't lose anything. In this case (well aside from the hot-linking bandwidth) the original authors didn't lose anything.
If all intellectual property should be free, shouldn't this be perfectly fine to use art and graphics and such as well? Why is it ok for 37signals to have any claim of ownership over these things when musicians who do so are criticized for not understanding.
Is the difference the way the material is being used? It because curbit is using this in a corporate setting? People who are in favor of file sharing, does that not apply to design and software? Does it only apply to individual, personal use? What about sites who host music and have banner ads, are they ok? What if I use a song in my YouTube video, is that the same thing? How about some photos for a YouTube slide show?
I am not sure if people here acknowledge stealing/pirating movies/music as an acceptable act. What we want is for the movies that we genuinely purchase (be it as a DVD or a direct download), to be more accessible and available on different platforms. Or we want services that make these resources free and yet make a profit to the creators (youtube/pandora).
I believe that something I have already paid for should not be constrained to a device/platform and so will find ways to make it more shareable between devices/platform. I differ with the draconian laws used by the movie industry.
The thin line that separates the two things you are trying to compare is: In the case of movie/video sharing we are a customer (hopefully) of a service that is sold (music/movie) whereas in the case of copying a website, neither is the website selling their design nor is it in public domain for use.
I think it is ok to be inspired and create a "similar" design, but to plagiarize, is probably as pathtetic as it can get.
I don't see a huge difference between this and music/movie piracy. I feel it's down to the financial/commercial nature of the infringement and also the scale. I think this is fairly consistent with the legal viewpoint, if the copyright owner was suing for damages what could they reasonably claim?
It's one thing for somebody to copy a DVD for a few friends or family members, worse if they put it on BitTorrent, and worse still if they start selling bootleg copies.
I don't think there would be such a big outcry over this if it was a personal website getting a few hundred hits a month, or even if it was a moderately successful non-commercial project. Curebit had already received funding from Y-combinator and I assume their team were working on it full time, so in my opinion that's rather different to somebody cutting a few corners on a weekend project.
There's a difference between downloading music (albeit illegally) and taking someone else's work and trying to pass it off as your own. When I download a Duran Duran album, I don't post it on my website and claim that I made the album and attempt to sell it as my own (as much as I wish I was Simon LeBon).
This isn't an issue of piracy -- it's an issue of plagiarism, which is quite different in my opinion.
Curebit shouldn't have used assets off the 37Signals site, but I don't think this is a huge deal. If you write an article talking about how to do a/b tests (like 37Signals did), and talk about how great your results were from adding people instead of text to the landing page, then you have to expect that some people will use that information to influence their design decisions.
The whole point of technical blogging is to help other people solve a problem the author has already solved. In this case, it was how to improve conversions on landing pages. If you put that content out there, don't be surprised when people use that content to help them solve a problem. You loose the right to whine and complain about someone using that information as soon as you blog about it. In return, you get more credibility (people treat you as a thought leader) and more page views.
At what point does inspiration become imitation? Clearly Curebit stepped over the line in this case, but it's undeniable that lots of startups draw design inspiration from other companies.
But at what point does this become unacceptable? For example, if Curebit merely used the same design, except hosting the assets on their own server, would that be okay? What if they just copied the layout but used their own styles, images, and fonts? Or if they just copied the button?
"have spoken to Curebit founder Allan Grant, he has taken down the pages with Highrise assets. he's also now drafting a public response. needless to say, he is re-thinking recent behavior.
although i'm sure DHH will not forget the transgression, but hope he may allow them opportunity to show
they can learn from their mistakes & change."
I'm astounded how many people here are defending this... Leaving all other aspects aside, why should I trust a company that doesn't even have enough pride to spend 5 minutes whipping up their own fucking button images?
And that they have over a million dollars in funding just makes this even more sad...
Seems to be some logical inconsistencies in the startup community over what is and is not ok to copy. Usually, like anything, it comes back to whatever is self-serving to the person doing the talking.
Investors speak out against patents on methods of doing business because their well-funded current or future portfolio companies could "build on" the ideas and use the cash lead to make a ton of money.
Digital media distribution platforms want online content to be freely distributed off of or outside of the publishers' sites that paid for the content to be produced.
This is all still pretty new and the rules of law and of decency are still being determined (and, in the case of the latter, are different for each individual).
I think the more productive outcome of this line-crossing is this exact discussion to help shape those rules.
It's a bit like stealing another standup's jokes, or biting another rapper's lyrics. Not illegal, probably not immoral, but it will certainly make you look like a dick.
This happens more often than you think. Curebit just happened to get caught because the developer probably just copied and pasted the original HTML. And the fact that they copied from a ridiculously high profile site.
I remember when Leaky (YC S11) launched, its design was quite obviously taken from Square, but they put the notice: "All design credit goes to Square. We based our design on their home page until we can hire a designer of our own." http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/08/yc-backed-leaky-is-hipmunk-...
If it is, why? Because it has been "contextualised" in another site? Please note that I did not copy the file, nor I distributed it, I just made a reference to it. You did use it, you did download it, your browser on your computer did all the composition.
If hot-linking an is an infringement, then also distributing a bittorrent file is, the mechanism is very similar, just with one more level of indirection. And it is common option (mine as well) that the distribution of a bittorrent file does not constitute any kind of infringement by itself.
"The court held that Google's framing and hyperlinking as part of an image search engine constituted a fair use of Perfect 10's images because the use was highly transformative"
I just did a quick search and couldn't find any court cases directly on point. Three possible arguments come to mind:
Alternative 1: By making your file available via the Web, you implicitly consented to having anyone download it who wants to do so, even via hot-linking, therefore there's no infringement.
Alternative 2: It's established custom that the implicit consent applies only to people who are downloading the whole page, not individual images --- therefore you didn't implicitly consent to hot-linking, therefore whoever downloads your content that way is an infringer, therefore the hot-linker is liable for contributory infringement or perhaps inducement of infringement.
Alternative 3: The person who created a page including hot-linked images, etc., has thereby created an unauthorized, and therefore infringing, derivative work [1]. (This assumes the hot-linked content is copyrightable.)
They even copied the pricing page verbatim, I have personally incorporated some 37signals design elements in my own websites but nothing to this extent. 37signals is a bit hypocritical in my opinion because they brag about their design practices and then whine when someone copies it, either you're an open company sharing your inner-workings with the world or you're not, they can't have it both ways.
Wow, they even copied a lot of the CSS ids/class names.
> 37signals is a bit hypocritical
There's a difference between leveraging the lessons learned/data gathered from a particular design and copying the design itself nearly verbatim. A big one.
[+] [-] VonLipwig|14 years ago|reply
I don't know a designer who hasn't or doesn't draw inspiration from other websites. However, that process goes something like this...
1) Look at website. || 2) Assess what is good about the design || 3) Mock up own version.
What a decent person doesn't do is rip the existing site. HTML + all. Tweak it slightly then publish it.
What Curebit did is indefensible. This is something some 2-bit web designer fob's off to a client paying $200 for a website... the fact Curebit is a start up is not a defense. It is frankly scary that a company can get $1M+ in funding and not realise they cannot just rip other peoples work...
[+] [-] potatolicious|14 years ago|reply
Having seen the shenanigans of a bunch of Bay Area startups, and based on the tone of the responses in this thread, I'd gather that this quote from the article is a bit off base:
> "Your conversion rates or, you know, your credibility and integrity and the ability to have lunch in Silicon Valley ever again."
It would seem that, based on the tone here on HN, that these people will be able to have many, many more lunches in Silicon Valley. Hopefully they won't dine and dash.
[+] [-] Peaker|14 years ago|reply
Sounds like the latter world will free up a lot of resources for more useful creative work.
[+] [-] tatsuke95|14 years ago|reply
And more to come. This is an inevitably when your business model revolves around getting as many start ups money as you can in the hopes that some hit it big. It's inherent when you don't (and can't) vet all the people and ideas; you'll eventually end up with "people of poor moral character" in your system.
And there's no excuse for it. I wonder how it will be dealt with. I bet everyone involved was anti-PIPA.
[+] [-] jasonlotito|14 years ago|reply
So, is Curebit wrong because 37Signals is one of us?
I'm not suggesting what Curebit did is right. But I doubt any HN user of any length of time can ignore the similarities with other copyright cases where the community here is opposed to the "37Signals" side.
I'll have to remember this thread next time someone suggest that copyright infringement is okay because copyright infringers have been shown to buy more copyrighted material, or that it helps advertise, or some other argument.
[+] [-] betageek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaekwon|14 years ago|reply
Lets say that it is instantaneous and free to copy 37Signal's design, whereas to recreate it from scratch it costs the labor of a designer X units of dollar-time.
For the sake of simplicity lets say that Curebit and 37Signals are competing for customers in a zero sum game.
True, by copying 37Signals, Curebit has taken away some unknown X dollar-time worth of customers away from 37Signals during that 1 hour.
However, even though the customer space of 37Signal's and Curebit's enterprise may be zero-sum, the dollar-time measure of work is non-negative (and not zero-sum). It would make more sense for the industry as a whole to allow the copying of design, because overall it saves on design work time.
What Curebit did appears to be wrong because it appears as though they are outright cheating. However, if you understand that designers gain their chops by reverse-engineering the productions of others, and that this happens routinely in the real world, perhaps it's time to accept copying as a legitimate part of the equation.
In this case, 37Signals was given free rein to track Curebit's customers. Sounds like a good deal to me.
[+] [-] clark-kent|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jvandenbroeck|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nl|14 years ago|reply
Opposition to SOPA etc does not necessarily mean people don't believe in copyright. There is a very broad range of views on that particular question.
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dctoedt|14 years ago|reply
Some of the reactions here are fascinating. As a group, HNers prize the freedom to copy from others and the ethic of helping others --- but for some, it seems to be "I get to copy from others, but no one else is allowed to copy from me."
EDIT 1: That said, from a purely-practical perspective it's usually better and cheaper to steer clear of controversy (depending on how you think the PR scales will tip). Curebit might have been better off had it not copied what it did, not least because this controversy is sucking up management time that could probably be put to better use.
EDIT 2: Plus, stealing someone else's bandwidth by linking directly to their copies of images, etc., without permission does cross the line, if that's what Curebit did.
EDIT 3: Even copying HTML and CSS might not constitute copyright infringement if there are only a limited number of ways to express the same idea(s). This is even more the case if there's an optimal way to code a given set of ideas.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sc%C3%A8nes_%C3%A0_faire
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet
[+] [-] bandushrew|14 years ago|reply
I also believe strongly that people should not have their lives ruined, and citizens should not have their freedoms curtailed to protect it on a large scale.
I do believe that businesses who take a relaxed attitude to using copyrighted material that belongs to someone else are displaying a lack of ethics that is worrying and deserve to be taken down pretty hard.
There is a world of difference between some random person downloading a movie for viewing, copying a website for their personal blog etc and a company doing it.
These guys have made a really unfortunate decision here. To be fair, based on their response so far I expect its because they dont have a clue what copyright even means, so its about ignorance rather than malice, and it will soon be rectified.
[+] [-] RockyMcNuts|14 years ago|reply
It's legal to be an a-hole, but I usually try not to be one.
[+] [-] jphackworth|14 years ago|reply
In this case, Curebit was only copying the design of a landing page, so it was probably not worth pissing off DHH even if that landing page was legally usable and worked better. Although it really seems that DHH was more pissed off by Allan's tweets and posts about it than by the design itself.
[+] [-] luckyisgood|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisacky|14 years ago|reply
This isn't exactly like Zynga copying other small studios games, it's just a bit of design rip off, which incidentally, I'm not a designer, but if I see something that I think looks good on another site, I'm happy to copy the css styles for it. I've often thought if I'm just kidding myself, and what I'm doing should be considered totally wrong, but ultimately, it's just some styles. I've still coded everything myself.
While linking directly to assets you are using for your site, is clearly ridicuslously stupid, I don't think we should call the lynch mob out on them just yet. (Thoughts?)
[+] [-] dave_sullivan|14 years ago|reply
Personally I think it's fine, but it's also obvious that I read 37signals' post a while back re: their a/b testing and thought to myself: Hey, that's a great idea! Instead of doing a long form like everyone else, let's blow up a picture of a guy (me) on the left, put a video in the middle, and put some bullet points to the right with a signup button on bottom. Short and to the point, and incidentally, a technique that's been in use by print advertising since the beginning of print advertising.
So where exactly is the line? (and I'm asking because I'm truly curious if I've crossed it) 3 bullet points about your product is nothing new. The smiling guy you can relate to with a testimonial isn't new. Some screenshots or a product video above the fold isn't new. But I certainly wouldn't give myself a ton of credit for originality in landing page design. I guess I could put the guy on the right and bullet points to the left. I could move the signup bottom. I could have more content in my footer. How do you take the general concept and produce something that doesn't look like something of a rip off?
Personally, I have a lot of respect for what 37Signals has achieved over the years. So while I certainly want to learn from their mistakes and successes, I certainly don't want to be accused of being a scumbag design thief. Any thoughts?
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|14 years ago|reply
I learned an important lesson a few years ago: sometimes you can't make something better, and trying to make it better only makes it worse.
Stop, regroup with others and get a proper plan together.
[+] [-] inovica|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|14 years ago|reply
While that may be a good argument that file-sharing is not "stealing" (though may still be unethical), I'm not sure it's an accurate assessment in the arena of design.
Part of the purpose of design is branding and establishing a unique visual identity in the marketplace. By copying these designs, curebit hasn't deprived 37signals of the actual code and images, but they have deprived them of some degree of unique visual identity. And to that extent, isn't this stealing?
[+] [-] richardw|14 years ago|reply
I think many of these arguments lean in the direction of the interests of the person making the statement. For example, I have been impacted by file-sharing sites so I feel nothing but satisfaction when they're taken down. I'd imagine the forums where movie creatives spend their time are generally filled with high-conviction arguments about 'downloading=stealing'. The startup industry hit the roof when a few colour combinations and png's are taken, but feels nothing for old-media industries whose bedrock is being eroded.
There's a lot of 'grey' in there, no obvious answers. Personally I don't torrent, but I have friends that do. I'll view-source but make it hard to steal my own source. Unique visual identity? Same as anything else - better have a lawyer advise you before you upload it for the world to see, and enough firepower to protect it.
[+] [-] darksaga|14 years ago|reply
They lost me when they started copying the HTML VERBATIM. Apparently they don't have capable developers either. The layout in question is not that complicated, and I'm struck on why they decided to do what they did. Even in A/B testing you could've mocked this thing up in a few hours and had it ready to go.
Inexcusable.
[+] [-] shareme|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derwildemomo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceol|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingsidharth|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thirdsun|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimantas|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsavimbi|14 years ago|reply
What would you call that person? I call those people scumbags.
[+] [-] jakejake|14 years ago|reply
I've seen this happen several times before where someone uses photos, design or article text without permission, gets busted and winds up on the tech forums. The tech community generally tends to get pretty noisy about how despicable they find it.
It strikes me as interesting because one of the piracy arguments is that it's not stealing because the original author didn't lose anything. In this case (well aside from the hot-linking bandwidth) the original authors didn't lose anything.
If all intellectual property should be free, shouldn't this be perfectly fine to use art and graphics and such as well? Why is it ok for 37signals to have any claim of ownership over these things when musicians who do so are criticized for not understanding.
Is the difference the way the material is being used? It because curbit is using this in a corporate setting? People who are in favor of file sharing, does that not apply to design and software? Does it only apply to individual, personal use? What about sites who host music and have banner ads, are they ok? What if I use a song in my YouTube video, is that the same thing? How about some photos for a YouTube slide show?
Thanks for any thoughts!
[+] [-] shad0wfax|14 years ago|reply
The thin line that separates the two things you are trying to compare is: In the case of movie/video sharing we are a customer (hopefully) of a service that is sold (music/movie) whereas in the case of copying a website, neither is the website selling their design nor is it in public domain for use.
I think it is ok to be inspired and create a "similar" design, but to plagiarize, is probably as pathtetic as it can get.
[+] [-] nick_dm|14 years ago|reply
It's one thing for somebody to copy a DVD for a few friends or family members, worse if they put it on BitTorrent, and worse still if they start selling bootleg copies.
I don't think there would be such a big outcry over this if it was a personal website getting a few hundred hits a month, or even if it was a moderately successful non-commercial project. Curebit had already received funding from Y-combinator and I assume their team were working on it full time, so in my opinion that's rather different to somebody cutting a few corners on a weekend project.
[+] [-] stevenp|14 years ago|reply
This isn't an issue of piracy -- it's an issue of plagiarism, which is quite different in my opinion.
[+] [-] viscanti|14 years ago|reply
The whole point of technical blogging is to help other people solve a problem the author has already solved. In this case, it was how to improve conversions on landing pages. If you put that content out there, don't be surprised when people use that content to help them solve a problem. You loose the right to whine and complain about someone using that information as soon as you blog about it. In return, you get more credibility (people treat you as a thought leader) and more page views.
[+] [-] sachingulaya|14 years ago|reply
http://yfrog.com/oejp7cp Curebit vs. Kinoma
Sharebooster's logo is stolen directly from LaunchBit: http://yfrog.com/odx67yoj
No one can defend the theft of a logo.
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|14 years ago|reply
But this definitely looks bad, particularly in light of the 37signals dustup.
EDIT: Looks that way for the rocket ship at least: http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-5418738/stock-vector-retr...
[+] [-] yangez|14 years ago|reply
But at what point does this become unacceptable? For example, if Curebit merely used the same design, except hosting the assets on their own server, would that be okay? What if they just copied the layout but used their own styles, images, and fonts? Or if they just copied the button?
[+] [-] benjlang|14 years ago|reply
"have spoken to Curebit founder Allan Grant, he has taken down the pages with Highrise assets. he's also now drafting a public response. needless to say, he is re-thinking recent behavior.
although i'm sure DHH will not forget the transgression, but hope he may allow them opportunity to show they can learn from their mistakes & change."
[+] [-] schrototo|14 years ago|reply
And that they have over a million dollars in funding just makes this even more sad...
[+] [-] drostan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JonnieCache|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtchang|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loschorts|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gioele|14 years ago|reply
Let me explain better: the file at `http://example.com/background.jpeg` is a wonderful image and indeed it is used on `http://example.com/index.html`. I run another site, example.net. I have my own `http://example.net/index.html` page and I decide to add a `<img src="http://example.com/background.jpeg alt="A wonderful landscape">` to it. Is this an infringement?
If it is, why? Because it has been "contextualised" in another site? Please note that I did not copy the file, nor I distributed it, I just made a reference to it. You did use it, you did download it, your browser on your computer did all the composition.
If hot-linking an is an infringement, then also distributing a bittorrent file is, the mechanism is very similar, just with one more level of indirection. And it is common option (mine as well) that the distribution of a bittorrent file does not constitute any kind of infringement by itself.
Do you know how US copyright law deals with this?
[+] [-] walexander|14 years ago|reply
"The court held that Google's framing and hyperlinking as part of an image search engine constituted a fair use of Perfect 10's images because the use was highly transformative"
[+] [-] dctoedt|14 years ago|reply
Alternative 1: By making your file available via the Web, you implicitly consented to having anyone download it who wants to do so, even via hot-linking, therefore there's no infringement.
Alternative 2: It's established custom that the implicit consent applies only to people who are downloading the whole page, not individual images --- therefore you didn't implicitly consent to hot-linking, therefore whoever downloads your content that way is an infringer, therefore the hot-linker is liable for contributory infringement or perhaps inducement of infringement.
Alternative 3: The person who created a page including hot-linked images, etc., has thereby created an unauthorized, and therefore infringing, derivative work [1]. (This assumes the hot-linked content is copyrightable.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work#Definition
[+] [-] kristenlee|14 years ago|reply
http://www.curebit.com/pricing
[+] [-] getsat|14 years ago|reply
> 37signals is a bit hypocritical
There's a difference between leveraging the lessons learned/data gathered from a particular design and copying the design itself nearly verbatim. A big one.