Call to action :: Designers Strike Back

[mkeefe]

Basically it starts like this, a company in California has not only ripped 1 site but 2... They have been informed of the rip and could care less.
They disabled commenting on the site to "hide" the fact they ripped it, but you be the judge.


Ripped Site 1
http://www.joyent.com/

Ripped Site 2
http://www.corkd.com/

Ripper (crappy hybrid of 1 and 2)
http://www.falknerwinery.com/

Other sites talking about it:
http://www.airbagindustries.com/archives/airbag/scab.php
http://hivelogic.com/articles/2006/09/29/look_familiar

btw Dan Cederholm of Simplebits is the original designer of Corkd and I feel bad for him.

UPDATE: Ray was unaware of this and is very understanding, I will keep you updated.

Matt

[Edited on 10/4/2006 by mkeefe]

[rAyVoLvEz]

it is just too much! esp the wine bottle rip!

[rob_247]

don't mean to rock the boat, but as a novice can someone explain to me why the site is a rip?

Presumably you talk about colour scheme and the wine bottle on the home page? Surely for a winery website the colour scheme is a pretty obvious choice, as is having a bottle on the homepage?

I understand that the layout is a bit of a steal from joyent, but does that matter?

Just trying to get a better understanding. Hope i havent upset anyone. :)

rob

[rAyVoLvEz]

its alright robbie.. actually for my own eyes, i feel tat a lot of sites looks this way.. i jus find it normal, not exactly a rip i wld call.. the color scheme may be a right choice, but it seems tat the color scheme is same across all three..

and yeah.. for the wine bottle, they literally copied it from cork'd and jus changed the label.. the wine bottle u seein now has been edited, the highlights within bottle is gone.. so yah..

personally, i prefer originality.. i mean, when i do a site, the site has to look like its mine, it belongs to me, it shld say "rayvolvez" or it will be my style..

[rob_247]

ahh i see. annoyingly i actually prefer the falkner site!

i've seen worse theft i think. but still, very frustrating for the ORIGINAL designer.

[rAyVoLvEz]

yah.. but its somewhat unavoidable.. but it hurts still..

[mkeefe]

I know the original designer so it is a bit more personal.

Also I am in talks with the host and the owner was unaware he bought a stolen work, so he is very sad to hear it.

I will keep you updated!

Matt

[fotodog]

Theres inspiration and then there's a rip.

I just had a friend who paid a guy to do a site for them and the "designer" stole the code from an existing site and just put in her images and text. The way that we could tell was that the code was commented out by the author and the ripper didn't even bother to take it out.

Stealing code (line by line) and images is wrong.

To be inspired by a site is ok. I see stuff that I'd like to emulate, but I'm going to program it myself.

[scottperezfox]

Has anyone compared the code? The sites look different enough to me where I wouldn't raise any flags. Yes, the colours are similar (wine red and tan, not exactly Tiffany blue), but I have seen more blatant rips.

[Cappy]

Nothing new under the sun. This has been hashed out time and again.
Lets take a logical look at it (mathmatically speaking)

X= designers; Y= websites;
2= Availble software for site specific design(DW/Flash- GL/Flash)
2X=Y
Think about the numbers that brings about. There are bound to be natural similarities. Disregarding those, the unnatural ones(those acutally ripped) are too hard to bring to trial and prosecute with any kind of legitimate litigation that is going to do any good.

If you get ripped and it bothers you that much, then you have an option and that option is to re-design and then bad mouth the ripper (making sure not to leave any chance for slander.) If you are going to go the route of trash-talking the ripper, that is.
I know it isn't right, and Matt, it would make me majorily pissed, too. On the other hand, you could look at it as a compliment.
If you have the money, time and a good lawyer, fight 'em and go from there. Other-wise, all you have left is to move on. Rattling cages is only a waste of time and Congress (In the US), will be too busy and too slow to make any kind of difference that would bring any kind of gratification.

Whatever you do, be careful! Your business and its' name are on the line. Leaving it alone, while not taking the higher moral ground, may be the safer route.

[Cappy]

Edit options are not available anymore, unless you are in the upper esclion. My reason for adding another post; need to be more careful next time:

Above, my equation is seriously flawed, but I believe the point made that there are a lot of designers coming from the same school of thought, using the same software, coding to a "few" different browsers, leading me to believe that it would not be that unusual for websites with similar design characteristics to appear.
However.......................

[rAyVoLvEz]

i wld hv to agree with cappy on this.. i see rips everywhere too.. i mean, how can sites look totally uniquely different? its the same for layout works too.. magazines by 10 designers, can actually look somewhat similar, esp if they are the same genre? same for websites, but of cos, i would appreciate originality..

the only major thing i cant stand with the rip, is the ripped wine bottle! tat is lowdown.. but design wise, i would say, even if its similar to joyent and cork'd, it isnt exactly a full and thorough rip, at least, i wld not say its cut'n'paste, it is more like a reference..

move on i think.. tats is really a wise piece of advice from cappy, because, we jus hv to take it as part n parcel of web design i guess. who doesnt copy in this world? in some ways or another, we copy too, i mean, when we are babies, our actions are actually our emulations of our siblings or parents too?

i hope i dun sound contradicting for wad i have said.. yes it hurts, yes its painful, but we just have to live with it or re-design..

[robf2l]

I don't see a rip at all. I'm looking at the wine bottle and it is even different. Better actually. Sorry but if your gonna call something a rip then at least find something that is. I'm mean come on! This isn't even close.....The color scheme maybe? but if that is the case then we are all thieves when we look at the color wheel and chose complementary colors.....RIP?....I don't think so!

Rob

[mkeefe]

[quote]Originally posted by robf2l
I don't see a rip at all. I'm looking at the wine bottle and it is even different. Better actually. Sorry but if your gonna call something a rip then at least find something that is. I'm mean come on! This isn't even close.....The color scheme maybe? but if that is the case then we are all thieves when we look at the color wheel and chose complementary colors.....RIP?....I don't think so!

Rob [Z/quote]

First I would think that you would read the beginning and my update, but ok... The site is an element rip (not all have to be blatant). Also the site has been changed around quite some bit and the wine bottle also has been updated.

The original rip that I was referring to had similar graphical elements and an exact replica of the wine bottle.

Matt

[Hermie]

It's good to inform the owner of the site that he bought a riped site. But the first thing (next time) is to make a copy of the site, by prints, or just copying the code. That way everybody can see the differents.... before the ripper makes changes to the site.

The ripper should never do any site "building" (i mean ripping) again!

[kiwicolin]

I never saw the original, so what I see now I wouldn't call a rip. Do you have any pix of the original rip?

[rAyVoLvEz]

the original rip image i believed :

http://www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

[rAyVoLvEz]

oops.

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/2550/rippedvo1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

this was posted in flickr by joyent..

[rAyVoLvEz]

the wine bottle ripped

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/772/ripped2tk5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Hermie]

i would say YES IT'S A RIP