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YC and 500 Startups company Curebit caught stealing from 37 Signals

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

#91

Post by jasonlotito »

gizmo wrote: post #80
betageek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are (a) copying other people's work, (b) passing it off as their own, (c) doing so for profit, and (d) unable to see why this is wrong. This isn't a gray area at all.

An honest question (and thank you for not using the term stealing!=)), but you listed 4 reasons. Just curious about where it crosses the line for you. If someone does A, is it still a grey area? Is it because of B? C? D?

Personally, I see it as A. B, C, and D merely exasperate the situation, but without A, B, C, and D aren't an issue.

Of course, the follow up is if it's because of B, C, and D that it isn't in a grey area?

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

#92

Post by stickfigure »

betageek wrote: post #77
jasonlotito wrote: post #73

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 t…

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.

I don't know if there's more context to the quotes in the article, but DHH comes off as an annoying dick.

My startup uses CSS we bought off of themeforest.net.[1] Using it certainly doesn't require more design skill than copying 37signals. Is it original? I really don't give a damn, and neither do my customers.

[1] ...and subsequently had to reimplement nearly from scratch, because people with great design sense seem to be incapable of creating solid, structured CSS. Thank zeus for Twitter Bootstrap.[2]

[2] Even less original than "stealing" someone else's design.

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

#93

Post by sachingulaya »

A lot of people here are only referring to them ripping off 37signals' design. They ripped more than that.

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.

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

#94

Post by drm237 »

ronaldj wrote: post #75
nirvana wrote: post #60

This incident strikes me as a glaring example of how broken web design is. A simple page like that should be easier and faster to create from scratch using a WYSIWYG tool, and then publish to a web platform that support it.... than copying the source and then editing it in a text editor. I know in the past such WYSIWYG tools were too rigid and thus we have a generation of designers that work in text.... but it just s…

As someone that writes HTML for a living I couldn't imagine using a WYSIWYG editor. A lot of markup, especially the new semantic HTML5 stuff is pretty subjective. Different organizations/teams have different markup patterns/views on this stuff. A WYSIWYG editor would have to be pretty customizable to fit in different organizations I think. You can use Firebug/Web Inspector to adjust your layouts in real-time without…

  > As someone that writes HTML for a living I couldn't imagine using a WYSIWYG editor.
You can't imaging using any existing WYSIWYG editor. I would argue that using Firebug to make changes, see them in real time, and have the code auto-saved is just begging for a good WYSIWYG editor. Image if a WYSIWYG editor could create decent markup and css and provide perfect cross-browser support for all relatively modern browsers. You still couldn't imagine using it?

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

#96

Post by estacado »

nirvana wrote: post #60

This incident strikes me as a glaring example of how broken web design is. A simple page like that should be easier and faster to create from scratch using a WYSIWYG tool, and then publish to a web platform that support it.... than copying the source and then editing it in a text editor. I know in the past such WYSIWYG tools were too rigid and thus we have a generation of designers that work in text.... but it just s…

I think Adobe is working on something like this. Though Dreamweaver leaves much to be desired, I think what their working on is something completely different. Plus, the announcement that they're committed to HTML5 is more or less a hint of this. My guess is that it's something like Adobe Flash Builder, but instead of Flash, it outputs HTML5.

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

#97

Post by Tichy »

nirvana wrote: post #60

This incident strikes me as a glaring example of how broken web design is. A simple page like that should be easier and faster to create from scratch using a WYSIWYG tool, and then publish to a web platform that support it.... than copying the source and then editing it in a text editor. I know in the past such WYSIWYG tools were too rigid and thus we have a generation of designers that work in text.... but it just s…

I am not a Photoshop wiz, but isn't it a lot easier to change a pixel offset by 2 pixels in text than in photoshop?

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

#98

Post by getsat »

stickfigure wrote: post #92
betageek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know if there's more context to the quotes in the article, but DHH comes off as an annoying dick. My startup uses CSS we bought off of themeforest.net.[1] Using it certainly doesn't require more design skill than copying 37signals. Is it original? I really don't give a damn, and neither do my customers. [1] ...and subsequently had to reimplement nearly from scratch, because people with great design sense seem…

> we bought

There's the difference. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3523402

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

#99

Post by ryanbraganza »

aresant wrote: post #23

When 37Signals wrote a blog post showing this design style outrageously improved conversions they must have expected that lots of folks would copycat. Is DHH as pissed off at Elance for the blatant copy? https://www.elance.com/ There's a difference between eLance's "inspiration" and actually referencing hosted images & code that CureBit did, but it's not a night and day difference. Murky territory with us all copying…

He's not pissed off at elance https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/163363094834319360

Also interesting: https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/163190258593304576

I think this cooled down a lot quicker if Grant had made a better reply. DHH didn't start out by calling them scumbags. (See his twitter feed)

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

#100

Post by Peaker »

VonLipwig wrote: post #72

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…

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.

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