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I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

andresmax.com

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Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#221

Post by sequoia »

guilloiguaran wrote: post #204
sequoia wrote: post #173

OP is going overboard with the accusations. http://www.capta360.com http://www.creativegerms.com/about http://pearlwebstudio.com ^None of these people are "copying" him, at least visually. OP did not invent links with vertical scroll or the vertical parallax effect. OP: Clearly some of the sites outright ripped off your design, but stop trash talking sites with designs you merely think are "similar" to yours.

http://www.creativegerms.com/about and http://pearlwebstudio.com are copying the text messages

You're right. OP should make this clear in the post which complains about people stealing the design. I didn't read the copy.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#222

Post by coopdog »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #210
robomartin wrote: post #99

I think you might just be taking the wrong approach. Shaming them is a bad idea, at least as a first move. Seek-out and contact the owners of these businesses. Point out what you have discovered. There's an outside possibility that they have no clue that their web designers have done this. They might actually feel rather embarrassed to learn so. If I couldn't code my own sites and had to rely on designers who took th…

It is interesting to see how the community reacts when someone steals their work. There are some good suggestions (e.g. the parent here) like contacting the owners of the offending sites politely. Quite a few of the other comments seem pretty malicious in nature. Like serving up javascript which behaves mischievously. It doesn't seem to matter to these people if the site owners were victims of bad and lazy designers.…

I think the difference is that they're making a direct profit from copying, rather than just sharing knowledge.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#223

Post by jacquesm »

A design company that rips off the design of another design company! That's a new one.

/sarcasm off

Ok, it really is shameless. Especially the one that even hosts the javascript on your server (that opens up some interesting possibilities). But it really is flattery, the good bit is that you can now show them in your portfolio.

On another note, this design, while nice isn't all that original. I've seen it in other places too and maybe they ripped you off as well but for sure it's been around for a while.

Fun anecdote: I once sued company that had ripped off our script for doing plug-in-free video streaming. In court their defence to the claim they ripped us off was they had not ripped it from us but from one of our licensees.

It was a very short session.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#224

Post by Bjartr »

anatari wrote: post #217
ricardobeat wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You are going to - break your CSS by making it dependent on javascript - use inefficient compression, easily reversible, to "obfuscate" javascript - both of these slowing your page loading time That's like the worst of DRM badly emulated in a browser. You do realize that the script which checks the URL can also be modified by the copycat? Minifying CSS+HTML+JS as usual already gets you the most benefits, while…

What? You are going to add a lock to your door that is going to - break your door by making it dependent on a key - use a easily reversible locking mechanism - slow the time it takes to enter your home You do realize that any locksmith can open your lock in less than a minute? Closing your door already gives you most of the benefits. Only half kidding, but I get tired of people dismissing clever tricks because it's n…

> Stealing is usually a function of reward/effort.

Except that for digital media it's a Smart Cow Problem[1], the effort is only there for the first person who wants to circumvent it, then it becomes trivial for everyone.

However, I'd suggest that the reason some on HN react strongly to these suggestions is that they rely upon security through obscurity, which can be dangerous by providing a false sense of security when none exists. While this probably isn't as big a deal when it comes to your HTML and CSS, security is a case of err'ing on the side of caution.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_cow_problem

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#225

Post by abraxasz »

robomartin wrote: post #99

I think you might just be taking the wrong approach. Shaming them is a bad idea, at least as a first move. Seek-out and contact the owners of these businesses. Point out what you have discovered. There's an outside possibility that they have no clue that their web designers have done this. They might actually feel rather embarrassed to learn so. If I couldn't code my own sites and had to rely on designers who took th…

I'm not against your general point. But take this website:

http://dapaticalglobal.com/

This is a case of a design company that basically ripped off the design of another design company. They used almost exactly the same sub-title on the first page. As for the bottom page, it is the same, word for word. I mean, they didn't even bother changing it. What do you think the OP should do? Call it's competitors and tell them that they should pay a small fee for ripping them off?

Again, I agree with your general statement, but I think that all of the companies involved in design, marketing (or any other creative business) that copied this design deserve being called on.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#226

Post by jpswade »

"Imitation Is The Best Form Of Flattery"

"Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal"

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

You have recognised that people want to utilise your designs, but you've establish how to leverage that.

Imagine if instead you "called them out", you released it design as open source.

This would be great publicity and it would give you the opportunity to come up with something even better.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#227

Post by cscurmudgeon »

coopdog wrote: post #222
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting to see how the community reacts when someone steals their work. There are some good suggestions (e.g. the parent here) like contacting the owners of the offending sites politely. Quite a few of the other comments seem pretty malicious in nature. Like serving up javascript which behaves mischievously. It doesn't seem to matter to these people if the site owners were victims of bad and lazy designers.…

I think the difference is that they're making a direct profit from copying, rather than just sharing knowledge.

I understand that there is a difference. What I have difficulty understanding is the semi-vitriolic hate.

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#228

Post by caseysoftware »

incongruity wrote: post #195
neya wrote: post #190

Hi all, I'm a designer and I have been under a similar situation - I have been, many, many times as a designer, asked to design something exactly like what my client has showed me, which most of the times was, another site. I haven't accepted a single offer from such clients, but I know how exactly they all work. Here's how it works: 1) The client keeps stalking a particular site he likes, which is usually a competit…

This also makes it very difficult to maintain for your client and a pain in the arse for any other designer or coder who has to deal with your work. IMHO, unless your client is completely aware and onboard with this and has access to the original, un-adulterated version, you're doing a disservice to them. (I say this as a designer and coder with degrees and 10+ years of experience to back up my opinion)

Making this as a deployment step should be pretty straightforward.

On the plus side, this might also discourage the random client from just uploading updates via FTP..

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#229

Post by jsmeaton »

im3w1l wrote: post #193
readme wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if we have execute of JS on all those clients, why not REDIRECT them to your site? Free traffic. All relevant.

When people press store / buy, have a 25% probability of redirecting to your store. In all other cases, do nothing. This could stay hidden a lot longer.

This is a wonderful idea!

Re: I’m Tired Of Companies Ripping off our site, So I’m Calling Them Out

#230

Post by Raz0rblade »

mijustin wrote: post #136
robomartin wrote: post #99

I think you might just be taking the wrong approach. Shaming them is a bad idea, at least as a first move. Seek-out and contact the owners of these businesses. Point out what you have discovered. There's an outside possibility that they have no clue that their web designers have done this. They might actually feel rather embarrassed to learn so. If I couldn't code my own sites and had to rely on designers who took th…

Wow. I don't agree with this response at all. "Allow them to use the design for a small fee"? The original site design was the product of careful branding, long hours of coding, and probably countless revisions: the point of all this work is to create something that uniquely represents the company. Responding to piracy by "homogenizing" an original design isn't the answer. The rest of the business world is definitely…

Get a life and get used to it. Overall its just a design, you think its great, and at least a few agreed on it and copied it.

There is no copyright on web pages. Web pages are there to be seen and thus their source to be copied. By even watching your page its in my cache now. I could copy it and use it.

If you where a little bit smarter some .js code might have protected for easy copying, but you didnt do that, who to blame ? you perhaps?

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