"borrowed" design - would you do anything?

[basschick]

i was checking out a new site by a true newbie owner today, and much of the design is clearly taken from another site. there's too many similarities for them not to have copied the design. i know a lot of newbs who have done stuff like this who ended up learning from experience and becoming good community members.

he hasn't asked me opinions or assistance. we've exchanged a total of one email back and forth, and he seems like a very nice guy but it's only one email. it occurs to me his site isn't my business or my problem. but i'm not sure. if the content were stolen, i would email the site it was stolen from, so i'm not sure why this feels different to me.

what - if anything - would you do in this situation? or would you do anything?

[Closer]

If I would be befriended or have a business relationship with the original site owner, I would pass it thru, otherwise I would just let it go.

As you stated, loads of noobs start this way

[AlexManifestMan]

He needs to change it. The owner of the site that copied the Manifest Men design (including our photos) and then filled it will promotional material from other sponsors and rapid share links wouldn't respond until he got an attorney's letter. He now has our design but with other sites photos and rapidshare links. Of course he still has all the same sponsors happy to have him promoting them.

You will be doing him and the owner of the original design a favor if you get him to change it now rather than later.

[RDude]

Yes, I agree with Alex. If anything, if you get along well with this newbie, give him some friendly advice about making it more unique for his own benefit. I've done this myself when I've seen people getting too close to other peoples' designs. I also tell them that if the other site owner gets pissed off, they could get in some trouble over it and it's not a good way to enter the industry. This is just my personal opinion on that though.

If he doesn't change it and you have a good relationship with the original site owner, let the site owner know about it and let them deal with it.

Just my 2 cents worth

[basschick]

i don't have a relationship with the folks at seancody at all, and that's the site that was copied. i've never spoken with them via email or any other way.

[RDude]

Hmmm yeah. That's a tough one Patti. I wish you the best of luck with it. I think I would strongly advise the newbie not to go there if I was in your shoes. That's me though.

[basschick]

ordinarily i would have already written - not sure why i didn't before, but i just sent him what i hope is a very courteous email about this. his site has a unique theme, and looks like good amateur content, so i hope that he takes my email in the spirit it was written.

thanks for your comments, guys, and jeff - you wouldn't fit in my shoes :D

[RDude]

I hope it all works out for you Patti. Yeah, you're probably right about the shoes. lol

[Mickey]

it depends really..

something i am a bit guilty of myself is getting inspired by a design and then making my own design using my own pictures and models but generally the design is my own as its not a copy of any site or design just inspired by it..

Obviously i feel that this is acceptable where as a blatent copy of a design isnt - so how i would react depends on wether it is an "inspired" example or a blatent copy.

[tim]

For whatever this is worth...

This may or may not be of any help in determining that subjective, fine line between "inspired" and "copied" in web design. At least I know that in art, it's perfectly acceptable to look at a picture and recognize "influences" as long as the work ultimately has it's own original spin on things. It's another story to look at a picture and the the first and last thing that comes to mind is another artist's work.

There's probably no art or web design that is completely new and original design in every single possible way for many good and unavoidable reasons. But that's no excuse for plagiarism.

[Gaystoryman]

i was checking out a new site by a true newbie owner today, and much of the design is clearly taken from another site. there's too many similarities for them not to have copied the design. i know a lot of newbs who have done stuff like this who ended up learning from experience and becoming good community members.

he hasn't asked me opinions or assistance. we've exchanged a total of one email back and forth, and he seems like a very nice guy but it's only one email. it occurs to me his site isn't my business or my problem. but i'm not sure. if the content were stolen, i would email the site it was stolen from, so i'm not sure why this feels different to me.

what - if anything - would you do in this situation? or would you do anything?

I don't know what I'd do either. I mean honest mistakes happen, in thinking that if its on the net, its free to copy, use, is still prevelant. So I don't know if sicking the dogs is always the best solution.

Let's hope he/she will take your email the right way, and actually learn from it. :cool:

[archer]

ordinarily i would have already written - not sure why i didn't before, but i just sent him what i hope is a very courteous email about this. his site has a unique theme, and looks like good amateur content, so i hope that he takes my email in the spirit it was written.

thanks for your comments, guys, and jeff - you wouldn't fit in my shoes :D

patti: your on the right track.

be polite and be explicit about the design... after all if he's a noob maybe a 'friend' did the site and is not aware of the problem.

ie it's rude to do that, pisses people off, and that he might have some legal problems if sean cody gets wind of his site.

it never hurts to be courteous.
hell, if you do it right, he might become a customer.

[Simon]

So, where do you draw the line? Content is an obvious no-no. But what about layout? Colour scheme? Navigation? Niche attributes and other API?

[Adam Mason]

I had this happen to me - I think in 2007. A duplicate version of my site with a different colour scheme and different image boarders. Surfers spotted the rip-off... (especially the lack of charity support that we have always promised) and the site folded shortly thereafter. Designs can inspire - but a blatant copy will screw up in the end.

[tim]

I also think Patti did the just the right thing.

Just adding that while some people copy very intentionally, I think lots of times people don't know quite what they are doing, especially real newbies. Excited about making their own site, they (like many people learning anything)look at how people do things to figure out how to do it themselves. They need to be told, respectfully but very clearly, what the facts are. That just what really good teachers do, and as of yet there are no schools or degree programs I'm aware of for becoming a webmaster in the adult biz. How people react after they are told says a lot and is another story.

[fetishlad]

I think you have to be very careful though to accuse someone of copying a design.

What if the "original" site's design was a taken form an already existing template in a design program and the newbie did exactly the same. Who in that case "owns" the design?

[RottenRay]

Fetish Lad writes:

What if the "original" site's design was a taken form an already existing template in a design program and the newbie did exactly the same. Who in that case "owns" the design?

You know, I was thinking the same thing until I read that seancody.com was the "code donor."

There is nearly an infinite number of membership sites which use open-source CMS and freebie templates - so it gets hard to tell the order of the chicken and the egg.

But prolly not so in this case. SC is a very unique layout.


Quick question for Basschick:

Is this a paysite, or a webmaster using the same design to heavily promote seancody.com?

That might change the "okayness" of it - if he's promoting SC, maybe using the same theme and layout is a good thing...


And an amusing thought. The frameset that Badpuppy uses for its image galleries was probably the most-emulated layout ever. You can't swing a cat by its tail without clawing-up some free site which uses the classic "header / narrow left-side thumb frame / large right-side image frame" schema.


Cheers!

[basschick]

not at all. it's a paysite with no sponsors on the tour, and none i noticed in the member area. he says he's going to be changing it, btw.


Quick question for Basschick:

Is this a paysite, or a webmaster using the same design to heavily promote seancody.com?

That might change the "okayness" of it - if he's promoting SC, maybe using the same theme and layout is a good thing...


And an amusing thought. The frameset that Badpuppy uses for its image galleries was probably the most-emulated layout ever. You can't swing a cat by its tail without clawing-up some free site which uses the classic "header / narrow left-side thumb frame / large right-side image frame" schema.


Cheers!

[Jasun]

OK, you're talking about MormonBoyz.com which is the most blatant copy of Sean Cody I've ever seen. I actually called them to see if it was them doing a self-parody.

The logo is a copy, the layout is a copy... even the wording in a lot of descriptions.

I did a thing about it on my own blog.

To be honest, I don't see that site lasting long. He's launching with 5 updates, he's using a weird billing company I've never worked with, he's not got any original ideas... just sounds like some guy who heard "there's money in porn."

[Simon]

It does seem that way but arent they both just Wordpress templates with different graphics inserted? Does that count?

There are certain concepts that are appropriated because they work, adult is notorious for this.

Case in point:

http://www.bella1010.com/?page=home
http://www.twistys.com

Some things are just considered a standard after a while. Take lighting, there are lots of standard 1,2, and 3 light setups with a finite number of diffuser combinations and placements. If a photographer uses one of these are they thereby ripping off someone's lighting because someone else (and probably more people before them going back innumerable years) did it first?

The funny thing that I noticed, esp when I was in fine art studies is that the concept of originality does not really exist and probably never did. If you think of something you think is new, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone has at least thought of it before in a different part of the world and us probably paralleling that same concept in their practice. Even over a hundred years ago there were something like six patents filed at around the same time for a steam driven engine by people all oblivious to each other.

In the age of the internet we are now aware of this as you can just dial in your concept and see how many 'stolen' versions of it are popping up. I dont really think that its that remarkable myself TBH.





OK, you're talking about MormonBoyz.com which is the most blatant copy of Sean Cody I've ever seen. I actually called them to see if it was them doing a self-parody.

The logo is a copy, the layout is a copy... even the wording in a lot of descriptions.

I did a thing about it on my own blog.

To be honest, I don't see that site lasting long. He's launching with 5 updates, he's using a weird billing company I've never worked with, he's not got any original ideas... just sounds like some guy who heard "there's money in porn."

[AlexManifestMan]

Saying that someone who uses a model montage in their header is "borrowing" a design is a bit off base Simon. THIS is a "borrowed" design:

http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL647/2471297/22830415/385778012.jpg



It does seem that way but arent they both just Wordpress templates with different graphics inserted? Does that count?

There are certain concepts that are appropriated because they work, adult is notorious for this.

Case in point:

http://www.bella1010.com/?page=home
http://www.twistys.com

Some things are just considered a standard after a while. Take lighting, there are lots of standard 1,2, and 3 light setups with a finite number of diffuser combinations and placements. If a photographer uses one of these are they thereby ripping off someone's lighting because someone else (and probably more people before them going back innumerable years) did it first?

The funny thing that I noticed, esp when I was in fine art studies is that the concept of originality does not really exist and probably never did. If you think of something you think is new, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone has at least thought of it before in a different part of the world and us probably paralleling that same concept in their practice. Even over a hundred years ago there were something like six patents filed at around the same time for a steam driven engine by people all oblivious to each other.

In the age of the internet we are now aware of this as you can just dial in your concept and see how many 'stolen' versions of it are popping up. I dont really think that its that remarkable myself TBH.

[Simon]

Saying that someone who uses a model montage in their header is "borrowing" a design is a bit off base Simon. THIS is a "borrowed" design:

http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL647/2471297/22830415/385778012.jpg

Oh dont get me wrong, I wasnt pointing any fingers - it was merely the first micro example that I could think of. Im sure that we werent the first to roll with that concept either.

It actually illustrates the point further in that I look at your example, and I think 'they used a similar template and a neutral colour scheme' but with different graphics. Looking at the colour scheme, one could argue that both of those are examples of borrowing from something like this:

http://junglejuiceplus.com/english/usrimage/junglejuiceplus-30ml-6bottle.jpg

What I was trying to illustrate was that so many things have been done, that aside from sight variations that somewhere out there someone else must be doing something pretty close. Its just probability. Now, if someone did that AND had a similar name like manifestedman then i would call that a copy. But you cant take a common colour arrangement and a layout that is likely in use all over the place, and call it plagiarism without some overt behavior that illustrates more than just a similarity.

[AlexManifestMan]

The primary thing I was trying to point out is that the 'borrowed' design I attached is using our color scheme (down to the type colors), our layout AND our photographs. That makes it beyond borrowed. The fact that they use our photos (and are not an affiliate) makes it pretty clear that the site design is stolen and not inspired.

Perception is reality and in no way was that borrowed. But if you believe that our bella1010 header reads as similar to the one on Twisty's then we will change it. I don't want that to be seen in that way at all.

[Simon]

The primary thing I was trying to point out is that the 'borrowed' design I attached is using our color scheme (down to the type colors), our layout AND our photographs. That makes it beyond borrowed. The fact that they use our photos (and are not an affiliate) makes it pretty clear that the site design is stolen and not inspired.

Perception is reality and in no way was that borrowed. But if you believe that our bella1010 header reads as similar to the one on Twisty's then we will change it. I don't want that to be seen in that way at all.

Oh god no! dont change it. Like I said it was merely an example that was not meant to centre you out. I would have posted like 3 other instances of that style of montage on even more sites if I would have only had more time at that moment :)

I didnt see that the dude was also using same pics - yeah thats a copy for sure

[AlexManifestMan]

It is changed. Not in a million years would I want anyone to believe that we were doing anything less than what is right.

No worries.