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Stealing Is a Skill

ben-mini.com

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Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#101

Post by zuzululu »

and this is why artists get up in arms about AI is because they know they are guilty of stealing and that all of their work is largely just inspirations upon inspirations and now they have to compete with AI

It reminds me of this old country song:

    No idea's original, there's nothing new under the sun
    It's never what you do, but how it's done
    What you base your happiness around? Material, women, and large paper
    That means you inferior, not major
    No idea's original, there's nothing new under the sun
    It's never what you do, but how it's done
    What you base your happiness around? Material, women, and large paper
    That means you inferior, not major

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#102

Post by agilek »

Is the state of the webdesign really in a point where people bluntly copy others work for commercial purposes and celebrate these acts on their blogs? I think the line is pretty clear here. I remember the old Dan Mall's article on this topic which is much more inspirational (and "correct"): https://medium.com/@danielmall/stealing-your-way-to-original...

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#103

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

agilek wrote: post #102

Is the state of the webdesign really in a point where people bluntly copy others work for commercial purposes and celebrate these acts on their blogs? I think the line is pretty clear here. I remember the old Dan Mall's article on this topic which is much more inspirational (and "correct"): https://medium.com/@danielmall/stealing-your-way-to-original...

Do you not believe that the design of the "stolen" landing page was not itself 97% stolen from marketing landing pages that came before it?

It's unusual seeing the process stated so bluntly, but for something as cookie-cutter as a company homepage this has been how web designers have done things for decades. Or, at the very least, it's how the craft is learned.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#104

Post by lofaszvanitt »

agilek wrote: post #102

Is the state of the webdesign really in a point where people bluntly copy others work for commercial purposes and celebrate these acts on their blogs? I think the line is pretty clear here. I remember the old Dan Mall's article on this topic which is much more inspirational (and "correct"): https://medium.com/@danielmall/stealing-your-way-to-original...

A breakneck race toward absolute decline.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#105

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

adamddev1 wrote: post #93
dghlsakjg wrote: post #17

Copywork is an exercise where writers just copy verbatim another writers work. If you haven’t done it, it is an extraordinary way to see how the greats work. It also tends to improve your own writing skills - at least as long as you are copying from your betters. This seems like the web design version of this.

Jazz musicians also copy each other's solos for learning and practice purposes, but they would never actually perform more than a couple well placed quotes or licks from another player.

I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages. Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#106

Post by lofaszvanitt »

Lots of people who pretend to be ostriches. :DDD And the really, really sad thing is that they can't even steal proper things, they steal the shit. Just like when yters and tiktokkers copy every stupid thing from each other, without thinking about it for 3 seconds. Total decline.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#107

Post by georgemcbay »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #105
adamddev1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jazz musicians also copy each other's solos for learning and practice purposes, but they would never actually perform more than a couple well placed quotes or licks from another player.

I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages. Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

> Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

No, but OTOH I'd be a little bit surprised and confused if someone who designed microwave oven controls wrote a self-important blog post about how skillfully they copied another's design.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#108

Post by naet »

There's a popular quote: "good artists copy, great artists steal". I've always interpreted "steal" in that context as taking a technique or an inspiration from something, but making it fully your own in your execution (in contrast to direct copying, where you have just made a reproduction).

Given that interpretation, taking someone else's website and changing 3% of it feels more like copying than stealing, even more so when you see the side by side comparison image and it looks completely the same. I love to take inspiration from all over the place, but I like to think I transform it more into my own vision than the author here. I think making a direct copy of something can sometimes be a good learning exercise in the right context, but I would follow it up with your own novel work that maybe uses some concepts you learned from that copying exercise.

As an aside: the current Mintlify marketing site, not the one copied in the article, reads to me as heavily inspired by Stripe's marketing website. Not as direct a copy as the article here though.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#109

Post by simonw »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #103
agilek wrote: post #102

Is the state of the webdesign really in a point where people bluntly copy others work for commercial purposes and celebrate these acts on their blogs? I think the line is pretty clear here. I remember the old Dan Mall's article on this topic which is much more inspirational (and "correct"): https://medium.com/@danielmall/stealing-your-way-to-original...

Do you not believe that the design of the "stolen" landing page was not itself 97% stolen from marketing landing pages that came before it? It's unusual seeing the process stated so bluntly, but for something as cookie-cutter as a company homepage this has been how web designers have done things for decades. Or, at the very least, it's how the craft is learned.

I don't think it was.

I think the Mintlify designers viewed dozens if not hundreds of examples, then thought very carefully about exactly what they needed to express for their page and how best to express it. Then they built their page step by step, sweating over every detail.

Then Kibu came along, lifted the entire thing, changed "3%" of it and called it their own.

What Kibu did is gross.

Re: Stealing Is a Skill

#110

Post by adamddev1 »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #105
adamddev1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jazz musicians also copy each other's solos for learning and practice purposes, but they would never actually perform more than a couple well placed quotes or licks from another player.

I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages. Should we be surprised or shocked when different brands of microwave ovens have very similar controls?

> "I think there's a big difference between jazz and corporate landing pages."

Hard agree. I had to laugh at that sentence. I realized it wasn't really a fair analogy but also just kind of going off the copywriting example above. It's interesting how helpful this kind of thing is for different disciplines.

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