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LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

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Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#251

Post by juiceandjuice »

SmeelBe wrote: post #215
ender7 wrote: post #201

For the lazy, here's a summary of the claims that LV/DN is making: Some icons appear to be heavily inspired by LV. Here are three icons (circled) from Flat-UI: http://i.imgur.com/xDDULcG.png You can see that the gears and news icons do bear some similarity to LV's versions: http://dribbble.com/shots/800428-LayerVault-icon-set-for-del... and http://imgur.com/rli5IVU (the latter via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…

Google and Pantone - http://cl.ly/NO8C

Josef Müller-Brockmann (from the 60s): http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2716/4415331726_e98dd8f7c1.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2790/4414564409_974b828fbc.jpg

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#252

Post by usea »

Karunamon wrote: post #246
lucisferre wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. One single misguided DMCA notice does not make one a copyright troll .

One who trolls with copyright is a copyright troll. This is not a difficult concept.

Making a mistake is not the same thing as trolling. Trolling is being willfully wrong, usually to gain some benefit (eliciting a pleasurable response, financial gain).

Showing that they were incorrect does not show they are a troll.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#253

Post by colmvp »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #96

Someone please lend LayerVault some contrast. http://i.imgur.com/jfSuxcK.png http://i.imgur.com/cMO4lxA.png http://i.imgur.com/JnaZdN7.png I cannot believe a "top notch" design house can get this so wrong. Edit: Designer News seems to suffer from the same affliction. https://news.layervault.com/ A lot of sites that are HN these days seem to lack contrast, what's up with that?

I hope you realize that the main audience of layervault and designer news is designers. Their site (which I've seen many times before) looks fine on my screen. And I would be willing to wager a bet that the majority of their core audience would have decent/pretty good screens.

I'm all about usability but I'm also lenient when the audience isn't as wide as what Amazon or eBay have to cater to.

I think it's a little unnerving that you'd put 'top notch.' None of those examples are break it for me as a designer and a potential customer. Overall the style and feel of the site is significantly memorable and it's a site that I've come back to time and time again.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#254

Post by nwh »

lgsilver wrote: post #240
mrmaddog wrote: post #87

And here's a reply from Allan: https://news.layervault.com/stories/1992-layervault-whats-up... Looks like the pitchforks are out over on HN. It was pretty straightforward. Our reaction was "Cool, a flat UI theme" to "Wait, this looks familiar" to "Wait, are those our illustrations?". I contacted the designmodo people over email, because that's the right way to handle this. The owner was being stubborn at first and re…

Who are LayerVault's lawyers? Seems like bad legal advice to me...

I doubt they sought any. Presumably any half decent lawyer would tell them that there's absolutely no breach of copyright.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#255

Post by etchalon »

mkmkmmmmm wrote: post #224
etchalon wrote: post #214

I'm not a massive fan of the most of the responses in this thread. Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault. The similarities aren't minor, in either style, tone, or techniques. The three icons DesignModo removed were the most obvious offenders. And by obvious, I mean, "Yeah, you completely ripped those". So DesignModo has absolutely no right, in any sense,…

It's becaused they misused the DMCA to force removal of content that, while inspired by them, they actually don't own the copyright of. Vis., they are using the DMCA illegally to remove legal content.

I'm not sure how they "misued" the DMCA. The law has specific mechanisms for notifying a hosted service of material which violates your copyright. If LV believes the work violates their copyright, they're well within their rights to request it be taken down.

You might like the draconian nature of the laws mechanisms but it's not a "misuse". It's just "I don't like it when people use it."

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#256

Post by pifflesnort »

etchalon wrote: post #250
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confused about what we are most upset about. You don't even mention the DMCA once in your comment. The DMCA, and abuse of it, is something that gets HN's dander up. As far as we can tell, LV perjured themselves, either intentionally or through ignorance of what copyright actually means. The result is that legal material will have been taken off the internet for 10 days, with no repercussions, despite…

Reading through the comments, I do see a few mentions of the DMCA, but there's plenty of "they don't own turquoise!" type comments as well. If you're upset they used the DMCA (a legal tool made specifically for this type of situation), I guess that's fair, if slightly myopic.

I don't think you understand the DMCA. It is NOT a legal tool for this type of situation.

The DMCA ("Digitam Millenium COPYRIGHT Act") provides the take-down mechanism as a means to take down copyright infringing content, and in exchange gives the hosts of that content a safe-harbor[1].

So when people say "they don't own turquoise", those people are correct. LayerVault does not and can not hold a copyright on turquoise, or on their style of icon, and thus does not have the right to issue a copyright DMCA take-down notice for content made in the same style as their own.

[1] If a host follows the DMCA take-down process, in theory they're safe from being sued for unwittingly and unintentionally hosting copyrighted content. in practice, those suites tend to happen anyway, with the claim that the infringement was knowing -- see also youtube, megavideo).

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#257

Post by lowboy »

pifflesnort wrote: post #239
lucisferre wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is highly likely they will file another notice for another Flat UI design that in the future Or, alternatively, they might realize what a mistake taking this approach was and never do it again. That's what I think is "highly likely" here.

I think trolling once still makes you a troll. It takes a certain sense of naive entitlement to issue a DMCA take-down notice without understanding the legal requirements or the very specific meaning of doing so.

I sang in a choir in grade 5 once. Would you consider me a singer?

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#258

Post by beatboxrevival »

etchalon wrote: post #214

I'm not a massive fan of the most of the responses in this thread. Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault. The similarities aren't minor, in either style, tone, or techniques. The three icons DesignModo removed were the most obvious offenders. And by obvious, I mean, "Yeah, you completely ripped those". So DesignModo has absolutely no right, in any sense,…

With LayerVault I saw similarities to Always With Honor, Bobby McKenna, or hundreds of other artists doing the exact same visual style with UI design. All artists and designers copy, distort, rehash, re-contextualize. We have championed this process and those artists for hundreds of years.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#259

Post by etchalon »

pifflesnort wrote: post #256
etchalon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through the comments, I do see a few mentions of the DMCA, but there's plenty of "they don't own turquoise!" type comments as well. If you're upset they used the DMCA (a legal tool made specifically for this type of situation), I guess that's fair, if slightly myopic.

I don't think you understand the DMCA. It is NOT a legal tool for this type of situation. The DMCA ("Digitam Millenium COPYRIGHT Act") provides the take-down mechanism as a means to take down copyright infringing content, and in exchange gives the hosts of that content a safe-harbor[1]. So when people say "they don't own turquoise", those people are correct. LayerVault does not and can not hold a copyright on turquoi…

And LV isn't going after them for turquoise, but for specific illustrations, which are copyrightable.

You're jumbling what LV actually did with the simplification of what they did.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#260

Post by pifflesnort »

etchalon wrote: post #259
pifflesnort wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand the DMCA. It is NOT a legal tool for this type of situation. The DMCA ("Digitam Millenium COPYRIGHT Act") provides the take-down mechanism as a means to take down copyright infringing content, and in exchange gives the hosts of that content a safe-harbor[1]. So when people say "they don't own turquoise", those people are correct. LayerVault does not and can not hold a copyright on turquoi…

And LV isn't going after them for turquoise, but for specific illustrations, which are copyrightable. You're jumbling what LV actually did with the simplification of what they did.

> And LV isn't going after them for turquoise, but for specific illustrations, which are copyrightable.

No. The illustrations were not direct copies.

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