LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI • Hacker News Board

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#321

Post by threedaymonk » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 12:46 AM UTC

colmvp wrote: post #253

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 un…

> I hope you realize that the main audience of layervault and designer news is designers.

That statement disturbs me a bit, because it seems to imply that contrast and readability aren't important to designers, and that designers are grudgingly humouring us normals when they make designs with legible text sizes in readable colour combinations for our ugly utilitarian sites.

I don't think that's true, though. I've been lucky enough to work with some very talented designers with the ability to make things that are both elegant and readable. Anything else is just narcissistic posing, after all.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#322

Post by alexpenny » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 12:59 AM UTC

awolf wrote: post #320

alexpenny wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False analogy. Comparing design work to carbohydrates is a thin argument. Here is the definition of copy.. "A thing made to be similar or identical to another." The worked linked to was not original. It is similar and identical to other designers work.

>A thing made to be similar or identical to another. So... couldn't we argue that LayerVault copied the design of actual clocks ? Using your logic, the inventor of the wall clock would be just as justified sending LayerVault a take-down notice, right?

Layervault didn't design that clock. There is no logic, just the definition. You should look up "common knowledge" and "public domain."

If you recall apple is paying $21m to license the Swiss Railway clock design.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/11/10/apple-reportedly-p...

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#323

Post by jasallen » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 1:02 AM UTC

alexpenny wrote: post #171

swanson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? It's a clock - how many unique ways are there to design it? It's a folded up map with pins in it. He moved the hour/minutes hands, changed the colors and shadows, used different continents in the map.

Here are a thousand other ways to design a clock. http://dribbble.com/search?q=clock+icon

Try adding "flat" to that search criteria, then how many ways do you get?

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#324

Post by jacalata » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 1:28 AM UTC

lowboy wrote: post #296

pifflesnort wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have missed my entire point. Since there's nothing I could write here other than a repeat of what I wrote earlier, I will instead simply refer to my above comment.

I read it. LV is engaging in one act of trolling at the moment, and they have the "personal constitution necessary to engage" in said trolling. No arguments there, and I don't condone what they're doing. But having the constitution to do an act doesn't mean one is a repeated doer of that act. Has LV actively trolled, or tried to censor people's speech in the past? If not, they shouldn't be described as patent trolls,…

And describing someone as an x doesn't always mean they are a repeated doer of the x-act. Eg, dictator: do you think only someone who was a dictator of multiple countries can be legitimately called that? If you say, as you did for murderer, that 'this example is too loaded', then you are recognising that the reaction is different for acts of different impact, and therefore your analogy of 'singer' is irrelevant until you can show that people view 'singing' as something having the same impact of 'sending DMCA takedowns'.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#325

Post by Bluestrike2 » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 2:28 AM UTC

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.

No, they're not.

The DMCA takedown notice must meet each element as specified by law. In particular, the notice must explicitly identify the copyrighted work as well as the material claimed to be infringed.

In their DMCA notice, LV failed to meet the requirements for a valid DMCA takedown notice. By failing to specify their own work, as well as what materials in particular were allegedly infringing, they ensured that their claim was invalid on face.

As a result, LV isn't going after anyone. An invalid takedown notice carries no duty to act on the part of the service provider. It, quite simply, doesn't exist. The really remarkable thing here isn't that LV filed an invalid notice--it happens all the time, particularly when they're automated in other circumstances--but that Github acted on it at all as an invalid takedown notice is not considered by the courts to impart actual knowledge of infringement.

In effect, if it's invalid, the takedown notice doesn't exist.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#326

Post by Bluestrike2 » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 2:31 AM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #297

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, the DMCA notice did not list specific images. Have you found the specific images that were copied?

Sadly, no. I'm mostly going off Allan's comments on the DN thread where he talks about them using their illustrations. And also than they haven't been running around issuing DMCA's to every _other_ flat UI style everything. Clearly, they believe specific assets were copied to the point that a DMCA was appropriate. Pending a full post from LV, I'm giving them the benefit, as I'm certainly not giving the benefit of the…

It doesn't matter. A valid DMCA takedown notice is fully self-contained. There's no follow-up, no sending someone to a blog post, or anything else. If it's not in the takedown, it's not material to the claim.

Refer to Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google if you're curious.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#327

Post by chc » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 3:12 AM UTC

alexpenny wrote: post #316

chc wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using a very weird definition of the word "copy." They are similar in that they depict a similar object from the same angle using a "flat" artistic style, but nobody is going to look at them side by side and mistake one for the other for even a second. This seems a bit like saying the iPhone is a copy of a slice of bread because they are both rectangular with few surface features. If you were asked to copy som…

False analogy. Comparing design work to carbohydrates is a thin argument. Here is the definition of copy.. "A thing made to be similar or identical to another." The worked linked to was not original. It is similar and identical to other designers work.

Can you show the earlier work to which these are identical? If that is the case, I will retract what I said. But I don't think it's the case.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#328

Post by lowboy » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 3:18 AM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #324

lowboy wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. LV is engaging in one act of trolling at the moment, and they have the "personal constitution necessary to engage" in said trolling. No arguments there, and I don't condone what they're doing. But having the constitution to do an act doesn't mean one is a repeated doer of that act. Has LV actively trolled, or tried to censor people's speech in the past? If not, they shouldn't be described as patent trolls,…

And describing someone as an x doesn't always mean they are a repeated doer of the x-act. Eg, dictator: do you think only someone who was a dictator of multiple countries can be legitimately called that? If you say, as you did for murderer, that 'this example is too loaded', then you are recognising that the reaction is different for acts of different impact, and therefore your analogy of 'singer' is irrelevant until…

The dictator doesn't have to be multiple countries, but a dictator for at least a while. Would someone who was a dictator for a day but was otherwise a civil servant for 30 years be called a dictator? I wouldn't say so. You can say he was a dictator for a short time, but not just "a dictator" without that context.

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#329

Post by arjie » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 3:32 AM UTC

lowboy wrote: post #271

electic wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a bad one by professional standards, but yes.

So how would you feel if I described myself as a singer upon meeting someone, having only sang for 3 minutes out of the decades of my life? "Oh, hi, I'm lowboy, and I'm a singer".

If you shag a sheep once...

Re: LayerVault Sends DMCA Takedown Letter re Flat-UI

#330

Post by nonamegiven » Thu, Mar 07, 2013, 3:36 AM UTC

dzlobin wrote: post #92

andyl wrote: post #63

I learned one thing: I will never use LayerVault's service, and discourage anyone I know from using it.

How about you look into the issue rather than making bold comments with no basis. https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309346292902014976 https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309350351054716929

What he says sounds kind of reasonable.

But then when I see the side by sides that have been posted here, even the things that have been taken down, I get a big "fuck off" stuck in my throat.

Similar is not copy. Unless you want the same environment for copyright that we have right now with software patents.