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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

#31

Post by slig »

veyron wrote: post #25
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…

Copying the design doesn't necessarily deserve "scumbag" treatment. Some brusque words, sure, but certainly not the escalation of DHH. What Curebit did DEFINITELY qualifies as scumbag. There's some unknown tangible cost for 37signals (in the form of bandwidth, hosting assets for a competitor's site). There are small claims court cases considering similar situations nearly every day.

What about their logo? https://twitter.com/#!/dhh/status/163298220322209792

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

#32

Post by jsavimbi »

chrisacky wrote: post #6

Is this really such a big deal? We are all only where we are today based on building on the improvements of others. This isn't exactly like Zynga copying other small studios games, it's just a bit of design rip off, which incidentally, I'm not a designer, but if I see something that I think looks good on another site, I'm happy to copy the css styles for it. I've often thought if I'm just kidding myself, and what I'm…

> it's just a bit of design rip off

I'm surprised that some people don't even understand what is being discussed here. Hint: it's not the hot-linking, it's not the borrowing of html, css or anything else. It's the brazen theft of someone else's work that @allangrant has engaged in and his apparent inability to see why this is an incorrect attitude. Not being a designer is not an excuse for being an apologist, either.

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

#33

Post by shareme »

darksaga wrote: post #30

Wow, talk about lazy. I'm ok with taking the layout, changing the images and using the same basic styles. At least change some of the fonts. I mean, How many sans serif fonts are out there that would've worked? Thousands. They lost me when they started copying the HTML VERBATIM. Apparently they don't have capable developers either. The layout in question is not that complicated, and I'm struck on why they decided to…

Its called Too Much Money with Angles with too little time chasing wanabes

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

#34

Post by jphackworth »

yangez wrote: post #5

At what point does inspiration become imitation? Clearly Curebit stepped over the line in this case, but it's undeniable that lots of startups draw design inspiration from other companies. But at what point does this become unacceptable? For example, if Curebit merely used the same design, except hosting the assets on their own server, would that be okay? What if they just copied the layout but used their own styles,…

At what point does this become unacceptable?

Look at what Zynga did with FarmVille. At first, it was exactly like FarmTown. Same appearance, same menu layout, same gameplay. They weren't actually serving assets from FarmTown's servers, but besides that, the design was exactly the same.

Was this illegal? Probably not - design like this generally can't be copyrighted.

Was this successful? Yes - this sort of strategy led Zynga to be worth billions of dollars.

Was this ethical? I think intelligent people will differ.

Either way, DHH certainly uses his audience to attack people who come too close to the design of 37signals. A similar thing happened when Google launched Huddle, and DHH complained it was too similar to Campfire. In the end, Google rebranded it as a PR move and nobody cared any more.

Whether it's ethical or not, it certainly seems like a tactical PR mistake for a startup to annoy DHH this much.

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

#35

Post by int3rnaut »

yangez wrote: post #5

At what point does inspiration become imitation? Clearly Curebit stepped over the line in this case, but it's undeniable that lots of startups draw design inspiration from other companies. But at what point does this become unacceptable? For example, if Curebit merely used the same design, except hosting the assets on their own server, would that be okay? What if they just copied the layout but used their own styles,…

From a purely artistic standpoint, imitation is a large piece of the modern creation process, if only because of it's increased use in modernism/postmodernism. Everyone's influenced by someone or something, it's just the way things work.

In terms of what is acceptable, I tend to lean towards the notion that it's fine for someone to be inspired, or imitate as long as they've added their own artistic flare/soul to the piece and it's not just a forgery. As in they've only imitated a part of the piece, and not it's entirety. The issue with this whole process though is, art is subjective.

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

#36

Post by SoftwareMaven »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #20
yangez wrote: post #5

At what point does inspiration become imitation? Clearly Curebit stepped over the line in this case, but it's undeniable that lots of startups draw design inspiration from other companies. But at what point does this become unacceptable? For example, if Curebit merely used the same design, except hosting the assets on their own server, would that be okay? What if they just copied the layout but used their own styles,…

I'm sure that line is subjective, though one could argue linking to assets from someone else's servers is akin to theft (stealing bandwidth and money). But I think the bigger story here is how Curebit handled their reaction to DHH. This could have all been avoided if Allan replied with a more humble stance. Personally, I think DHH's initial reaction was on the strong side. If Allan had realized that, he wouldn't have…

When you are clearly in the wrong, a pissing match will never end well for you. Apologize sincerely, fix it, maybe offer some form of remediation, and let it blow over. You will never be able to make yourself look better if you try to make excuses or attack the grieved party.

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

#38

Post by RockyMcNuts »

dctoedt wrote: post #28

From a copyright-law perspective, it's not a slam-dunk that Curebit infringed any protectable aspect of the 37Signals design, as opposed to "stock" elements.[1] West Side Story has a lot in common with Romeo and Juliet , but the latter itself has a lot in common with a long line of still-earlier romantic tragedies.[2] Some of the reactions here are fascinating. As a group, HNers prize the freedom to copy from others…

Just because something's legal doesn't make it appropriate or professional behavior.

It's legal to be an a-hole, but I usually try not to be one.

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

#39

Post by luckyisgood »

dctoedt wrote: post #28

From a copyright-law perspective, it's not a slam-dunk that Curebit infringed any protectable aspect of the 37Signals design, as opposed to "stock" elements.[1] West Side Story has a lot in common with Romeo and Juliet , but the latter itself has a lot in common with a long line of still-earlier romantic tragedies.[2] Some of the reactions here are fascinating. As a group, HNers prize the freedom to copy from others…

West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet share the same _idea_, not the same image file.

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

#40

Post by minus1 »

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…

I believe there is a clear legal difference here.

These things are over the line (and illegal):

  Using images without permission

  Using code without permission

  Referencing images and code from another site without permission
Gray area:

  Designing a site from scratch to roughly copy another site's design
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