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YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

venturebeat.com

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Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#2

Post by benjlang »

From David Mcclure

"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."

Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#5

Post by yangez »

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?

Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#6

Post by chrisacky »

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?)

Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#7

Post by waitwhat »

mindcrime wrote: post #4

We’re willing to file this story under “lean startup wankery,” folks. WTF? How does "lean startup" factor into this? That seems like an odd little digression there at the end of the article.

"No matter how many corners you cut and no matter how small your team is, you still have to spend time and money on development and design."

The implication is that a slightly less lean startup would have had more design resources and wouldn't have done something so stupid.

Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#8

Post by chrisacky »

yangez wrote: post #5

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,…

I have similar thoughts. Some of the sites I've designed, look like the illegitimate love child of a collection of popular sites.

Re: YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

#9

Post by loschorts »

jtchang wrote: post #3

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-...
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