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And here's a reply from Allan: https://news.layervault.com/stories/1992-layervault-whats-up-with-the-dmca https://news.layervault.com/stories/1992-layervault-wh

And here's a reply from Allan: https://news.layervault.com/stories/1992-layervault-whats-up-with-the-dmca https://news.layervault.com/stories/1992-layervault-whats-up... Looks like the pitchforks are out over on HN. It was pretty straightforward. Our reaction was "Cool, a flat UI theme" to "Wait, this looks familiar" to "Wait, are those our illustrations?". I contacted the designmodo people over email, because that's the right way to handle this. The owner was being stubborn at first and refused to admit wrongdoing. At that point, I submitted the DMCA request. Eventually, he removed the most blatant icons which (in my eyes) is an admission of guilt. They even managed to kinda lift the old DN icon :) http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH If you have some intimiate knowledge of LayerVault's UI (which their designer apparently does), the similarities are a bit more than striking. That's not a huge issue until you release everything together - the icons, the colors, the UI elements, whatever. We give a lot of our stuff away for free. We put a lot of our projects on cosmos.layervault.com, we write about interesting concepts we've come up with and include the code on our blog, whatever. This isn't about thinking we own "Flat Design" or being mad that there's some other design out there with a similar aesthetic.

beseku 14y ago
The 'old DN icon' ... http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346
- tptacek 14y ago
  Huh? Not the same.
  - beseku 14y ago
    Now I don't know what icon is in the Flat UI pack, but to cite the DMCA's icon as being 'kinda lifted' from theirs[1] when it is so similar to a number of CC-licenced icons on The Noun Project seems like a poor argument in my eyes. [1] http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH
    - tptacek 14y ago
      If the Flat UI icon is as different from the Noun Project icon as DN's is, Alan at LayerVault will be equally wrong. They just aren't the same icon. The visual metaphor all these icons rely on is decades old. It's the details that matter.
      - beseku 14y ago
        I think you are hitting the nail on the head - with styles/aesthetic arguments like this, when is it a copy? Adding a leaf of paper into the icon? Colouring it in? Adding a line of faux text below the faux image? Which came first? Which was the origin? My only point was that when you are getting hammered by people and the evidence you provide is that, it looks poorly thought out.
        tptacek 14y ago
        What evidence? What am I missing? Does someone have a link to the Flat UI icon he's referring to? The impression I got from his message is, Flat UI included a verbatim copy of the DN icon.
        beseku 14y ago
        "... they even managed to kinda lift the old DN icon ..." I think you misunderstand. I'm not arguing as to whether the Flat UI guys copied them or not, but like the larger argument, the icon he is putting forward as copied work is itself conceptually very similar to other existing icon work(s). As a designer I would be more than a little miffed if that design appeared if I had created the Noun Project's version and not openly licensed it. If that is the case, it somewhat undermines the claim that the assets are fully owned by them or even that ownership can be so quickly claimed.
        hkolek 14y ago
        Similarity is completely irrelevant. If we independently arrive at the same original work then that is not copyright violation. That's not what copyright is about. We then each hold the copyright of our respective works, even if they're completely identical (in practice it will probably be hard to proof that you didn't just copy the other work if they're really identical). IANAL, but that's what I was told by a law student.
  - TillE 14y ago
    Yeah, that's a pretty strange claim. Same concept, but completely different details. There might be some ground for trademark infringement if the original icon was important, but no way is that a copyright issue.
  - justjimmy 14y ago
    That's the point… 'He kinda copied it, so we slapped him with DMCA. We kinda copied a free icon, but it's okay.'
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Did he "kinda" copy it, or is it a copy? The two icons we're comparing here are not copies. They are markedly dissimilar.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - justjimmy 14y ago
        Well, LV said 'They even managed to kinda lift the old DN icon :)' Don't know if 'kinda' is being used to soften the accusation or it's not a straight up copy - I can't see the icon they are talking about. http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/ http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/ Edit: Found them and slapped them together for side by side comparison http://imgur.com/rli5IVU http://imgur.com/rli5IVU
        tptacek 14y ago
        They've been posted upthread, and they aren't copies.
  - meerita 14y ago
    What he's claiming is not the perfect copy of the shape, but the style. It's a clear "copy" too, very very similar. In the end, if you change a pixel from that you can make a "not the same" icon, don't you think? We can discuss on how many differences but it will end on nothing. I can express that, 2 o 3 differences are not enough to claim "different" and you can claim than 1 will not be enough too. To me, they're clearly wrong. But if the guy copied the art and pasted it, that's another story.
  - integraton 14y ago
    Designer News icon: http://imgur.com/a/H3zlP http://imgur.com/a/H3zlP Noun Project: http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 Flat-UI's newspaper icon: http://i.imgur.com/9TKbKNl.png http://i.imgur.com/9TKbKNl.png If anything, the Designer News icon is much more similar to the Noun Project's. All of these icons are similar to innumerable newspaper icons, including several at the Noun Project alone.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I agree.
- Guillaume86 14y ago
  If it's the best example he found to justify the takedown notice, it was really not a smart move...
jgj 14y ago
A really good way to coerce the pitchforks back into their sheds is to provide proof, especially when your DMCA is vague and posted on a ridiculously public platform. Allan has done neither, and still hasn't done so in his tweets or this post over on his bubbly walled garden. A few simple side-by-side screenshots would have sufficed and put the court of public opinion squarely on his side. He may be completely in the right but his approach left him open to the "pitchforks" he's so dismissively bemoaning.
- cjensen 14y ago
  DMCA takedowns are basically form letters. There is no place to put the full explanation. Second, it was Git Hub that posted it publicly, not the DMCA issuer. Yes, a full explanation would be nice too.
  - Bluestrike2 14y ago
    Though much is boilerplate, it's also irrelevant. Here, we have a DMCA takedown notice that lacks two of the necessary elements: specific identification of the copyrighted work infringed as well as the infringing material. It doesn't take much to meet these elements, which together would have also allayed public concerns. Barring that, however, it's not a valid notice. As a result, Github has no duty to act as the courts have explicitly affirmed.
- Pyramids 14y ago
  Not to mention, he even says himself that it was " ... the similarities are a bit more than striking. That's not a huge issue until you release everything together - the icons, the colors, the UI elements, whatever." DMCA notices are to enforce against copyright infringement only, not as a tool for organizations to abuse in order to remove content which they think is "too similar", if this was the case, businesses would simply send their competition DMCA notices for being "too similar." He also stated that because DesignModo "removed some icons" which LayerVault thought were the most blatantly infringing somehow implies guilt, as opposed to just someone trying to handle a dispute in a friendly manner. I'm not a designer, and I haven't heard of LayerVault until now, however unless some very damning evidence is presented, I feel like every statement he's making is essentially digging a deeper grave. EDIT: Having looked at the examples of the claimed infringement which are now surfacing, this is even further evidence that this is misuse of the DMCA. At most, this would be a civil / trademark dispute.
shiven 14y ago
Sounds like a non-reply reply lacking specific/concrete examples of what was infringed that they needed to issue a DMCA takedown. LayerVault needs to illustrate their case with clear-cut examples or else they are coming across as ye olde IP Troll and thus deserving the collective pitchfork stabbing that DMCA hammer wielding requires.
mikeash 14y ago
"Eventually, he removed the most blatant icons which (in my eyes) is an admission of guilt." Sure, couldn't possibly be that he just wanted to do whatever it took to get you to leave him alone.
- alexpenny 14y ago
  Here are the icons in question. http://i.imgur.com/xDDULcG.png http://i.imgur.com/xDDULcG.png Also, the Flat-UI guy also copied other artists on dribbble. http://cl.ly/image/3Q181w0b1u2K http://cl.ly/image/3Q181w0b1u2K From http://drbl.in/eXkk http://drbl.in/eXkk, and http://drbl.in/gmsD http://drbl.in/gmsD I'm not saying these are in copyright violation, merely examples he has copied prior work.
  - deelowe 14y ago
    s/copied/used as inspiration/ Copyright means you literally copied the design. Are you maybe confusing copyright and trademark? With trademark, you can get in trouble for creating brand confusion, which has a more to do with the look and feel than the actual copy.
    - dangrossman 14y ago
      Copyright also grants the exclusive right to create derivative works. Using another work as the basis of your own, even with zero direct copying, can be an infringement of that right. I doubt that happened here, and proving it would be near-impossible, but we should be cognizant of what copyright actually is.
  - datasage 14y ago
    All it manages to show is that as a designer he is not very original and maybe influenced a bit too much about what he is inspired by. But this in itself is not a copyright violation.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    This isn't at all related to my comment. Did you reply to the wrong one?
arrrg 14y ago
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t look like a copyright infringement to me. I cannot see any artwork that was directly lifted. The icons may be superficially similar but they are no copies.
georgemcbay 14y ago
Filing a DMCA request when you don't have a very solid copyright claim can be dangerous: https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15 https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15 I doubt this case will escalate to that, but at the very least I think I can safely say LayerVault is the loser here. I was only scarcely aware of LayerVault previously with no specific opinion and now after hearing the claims and seeing the supposed "proof" I have a negative opinion. And for what gain?
Daiz 14y ago
As others have pointed out, Allan's "reply" is quite the non-reply with the lack of concrete proof and evidence of the supposed "copyright infringement". What I personally found interesting, however, was Allan's initial reaction to the Flat UI Kit on Twitter: "Has nothing to do with us. Very distasteful."[1] Later on, after the pitchforks had showed up, he tweeted the following: "It's neat that someone made a flat ui kit"[2] That tune sure changed quickly! [1] https://twitter.com/Allan/status/308937462221254657 https://twitter.com/Allan/status/308937462221254657 [2] https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309346292902014976 https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309346292902014976
lgsilver 14y ago
Who are LayerVault's lawyers? Seems like bad legal advice to me...
- nwh 14y ago
  I doubt they sought any. Presumably any half decent lawyer would tell them that there's absolutely no breach of copyright.
ak217 14y ago
Did you realize that you were doing something illegal (and seriously abusive) by responding to this with a DMCA takedown?
likeclockwork 14y ago
Wow, I never looked at DN before and I don't think I will start now. In that thread they come across as thuggish scumbags who don't care about evidence and believe that anyone should be able to use the legal system to bulldoze competitors doing "similar" work. Also, this Allan guy whoever he is, is dripping with self-importance.
- Metapony 14y ago
  I agree.
fdfgsgsdfgsd 14y ago
It's pretty obvious that these icons are not copies of the originals. They are very similar, but clearly independently produced. It's a bit tenuous to apply copyright law here. Copyright is for the act of copying information, not style. Trademarks can legally protect a particular style, but trademark law isn't enforced through DMCA requests.

beseku 14y ago

The 'old DN icon' ... http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346

tptacek 14y ago
Huh? Not the same.
- beseku 14y ago
  Now I don't know what icon is in the Flat UI pack, but to cite the DMCA's icon as being 'kinda lifted' from theirs[1] when it is so similar to a number of CC-licenced icons on The Noun Project seems like a poor argument in my eyes. [1] http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH http://imgur.com/3zoKuvH
  - tptacek 14y ago
    If the Flat UI icon is as different from the Noun Project icon as DN's is, Alan at LayerVault will be equally wrong. They just aren't the same icon. The visual metaphor all these icons rely on is decades old. It's the details that matter.
    - beseku 14y ago
      I think you are hitting the nail on the head - with styles/aesthetic arguments like this, when is it a copy? Adding a leaf of paper into the icon? Colouring it in? Adding a line of faux text below the faux image? Which came first? Which was the origin? My only point was that when you are getting hammered by people and the evidence you provide is that, it looks poorly thought out.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        What evidence? What am I missing? Does someone have a link to the Flat UI icon he's referring to? The impression I got from his message is, Flat UI included a verbatim copy of the DN icon.
        beseku 14y ago
        "... they even managed to kinda lift the old DN icon ..." I think you misunderstand. I'm not arguing as to whether the Flat UI guys copied them or not, but like the larger argument, the icon he is putting forward as copied work is itself conceptually very similar to other existing icon work(s). As a designer I would be more than a little miffed if that design appeared if I had created the Noun Project's version and not openly licensed it. If that is the case, it somewhat undermines the claim that the assets are fully owned by them or even that ownership can be so quickly claimed.
        hkolek 14y ago
        Similarity is completely irrelevant. If we independently arrive at the same original work then that is not copyright violation. That's not what copyright is about. We then each hold the copyright of our respective works, even if they're completely identical (in practice it will probably be hard to proof that you didn't just copy the other work if they're really identical). IANAL, but that's what I was told by a law student.
- TillE 14y ago
  Yeah, that's a pretty strange claim. Same concept, but completely different details. There might be some ground for trademark infringement if the original icon was important, but no way is that a copyright issue.
- justjimmy 14y ago
  That's the point… 'He kinda copied it, so we slapped him with DMCA. We kinda copied a free icon, but it's okay.'
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Did he "kinda" copy it, or is it a copy? The two icons we're comparing here are not copies. They are markedly dissimilar.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - justjimmy 14y ago
      Well, LV said 'They even managed to kinda lift the old DN icon :)' Don't know if 'kinda' is being used to soften the accusation or it's not a straight up copy - I can't see the icon they are talking about. http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/ http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/ Edit: Found them and slapped them together for side by side comparison http://imgur.com/rli5IVU http://imgur.com/rli5IVU
      - tptacek 14y ago
        They've been posted upthread, and they aren't copies.
- meerita 14y ago
  What he's claiming is not the perfect copy of the shape, but the style. It's a clear "copy" too, very very similar. In the end, if you change a pixel from that you can make a "not the same" icon, don't you think? We can discuss on how many differences but it will end on nothing. I can express that, 2 o 3 differences are not enough to claim "different" and you can claim than 1 will not be enough too. To me, they're clearly wrong. But if the guy copied the art and pasted it, that's another story.
- integraton 14y ago
  Designer News icon: http://imgur.com/a/H3zlP http://imgur.com/a/H3zlP Noun Project: http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 http://thenounproject.com/noun/newspaper/#icon-No6346 Flat-UI's newspaper icon: http://i.imgur.com/9TKbKNl.png http://i.imgur.com/9TKbKNl.png If anything, the Designer News icon is much more similar to the Noun Project's. All of these icons are similar to innumerable newspaper icons, including several at the Noun Project alone.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I agree.
Guillaume86 14y ago
If it's the best example he found to justify the takedown notice, it was really not a smart move...

jgj 14y ago

A really good way to coerce the pitchforks back into their sheds is to provide proof, especially when your DMCA is vague and posted on a ridiculously public platform. Allan has done neither, and still hasn't done so in his tweets or this post over on his bubbly walled garden. A few simple side-by-side screenshots would have sufficed and put the court of public opinion squarely on his side. He may be completely in the right but his approach left him open to the "pitchforks" he's so dismissively bemoaning.

cjensen 14y ago
DMCA takedowns are basically form letters. There is no place to put the full explanation. Second, it was Git Hub that posted it publicly, not the DMCA issuer. Yes, a full explanation would be nice too.
- Bluestrike2 14y ago
  Though much is boilerplate, it's also irrelevant. Here, we have a DMCA takedown notice that lacks two of the necessary elements: specific identification of the copyrighted work infringed as well as the infringing material. It doesn't take much to meet these elements, which together would have also allayed public concerns. Barring that, however, it's not a valid notice. As a result, Github has no duty to act as the courts have explicitly affirmed.
Pyramids 14y ago
Not to mention, he even says himself that it was " ... the similarities are a bit more than striking. That's not a huge issue until you release everything together - the icons, the colors, the UI elements, whatever." DMCA notices are to enforce against copyright infringement only, not as a tool for organizations to abuse in order to remove content which they think is "too similar", if this was the case, businesses would simply send their competition DMCA notices for being "too similar." He also stated that because DesignModo "removed some icons" which LayerVault thought were the most blatantly infringing somehow implies guilt, as opposed to just someone trying to handle a dispute in a friendly manner. I'm not a designer, and I haven't heard of LayerVault until now, however unless some very damning evidence is presented, I feel like every statement he's making is essentially digging a deeper grave. EDIT: Having looked at the examples of the claimed infringement which are now surfacing, this is even further evidence that this is misuse of the DMCA. At most, this would be a civil / trademark dispute.

shiven 14y ago

Sounds like a non-reply reply lacking specific/concrete examples of what was infringed that they needed to issue a DMCA takedown. LayerVault needs to illustrate their case with clear-cut examples or else they are coming across as ye olde IP Troll and thus deserving the collective pitchfork stabbing that DMCA hammer wielding requires.

mikeash 14y ago

"Eventually, he removed the most blatant icons which (in my eyes) is an admission of guilt." Sure, couldn't possibly be that he just wanted to do whatever it took to get you to leave him alone.

alexpenny 14y ago
Here are the icons in question. http://i.imgur.com/xDDULcG.png http://i.imgur.com/xDDULcG.png Also, the Flat-UI guy also copied other artists on dribbble. http://cl.ly/image/3Q181w0b1u2K http://cl.ly/image/3Q181w0b1u2K From http://drbl.in/eXkk http://drbl.in/eXkk, and http://drbl.in/gmsD http://drbl.in/gmsD I'm not saying these are in copyright violation, merely examples he has copied prior work.
- deelowe 14y ago
  s/copied/used as inspiration/ Copyright means you literally copied the design. Are you maybe confusing copyright and trademark? With trademark, you can get in trouble for creating brand confusion, which has a more to do with the look and feel than the actual copy.
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    Copyright also grants the exclusive right to create derivative works. Using another work as the basis of your own, even with zero direct copying, can be an infringement of that right. I doubt that happened here, and proving it would be near-impossible, but we should be cognizant of what copyright actually is.
- datasage 14y ago
  All it manages to show is that as a designer he is not very original and maybe influenced a bit too much about what he is inspired by. But this in itself is not a copyright violation.
- mikeash 14y ago
  This isn't at all related to my comment. Did you reply to the wrong one?

arrrg 14y ago

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t look like a copyright infringement to me. I cannot see any artwork that was directly lifted. The icons may be superficially similar but they are no copies.

georgemcbay 14y ago

Filing a DMCA request when you don't have a very solid copyright claim can be dangerous: https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15 https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15 I doubt this case will escalate to that, but at the very least I think I can safely say LayerVault is the loser here. I was only scarcely aware of LayerVault previously with no specific opinion and now after hearing the claims and seeing the supposed "proof" I have a negative opinion. And for what gain?

Daiz 14y ago

As others have pointed out, Allan's "reply" is quite the non-reply with the lack of concrete proof and evidence of the supposed "copyright infringement". What I personally found interesting, however, was Allan's initial reaction to the Flat UI Kit on Twitter: "Has nothing to do with us. Very distasteful."[1] Later on, after the pitchforks had showed up, he tweeted the following: "It's neat that someone made a flat ui kit"[2] That tune sure changed quickly! [1] https://twitter.com/Allan/status/308937462221254657 https://twitter.com/Allan/status/308937462221254657 [2] https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309346292902014976 https://twitter.com/Allan/status/309346292902014976

lgsilver 14y ago

Who are LayerVault's lawyers? Seems like bad legal advice to me...

nwh 14y ago
I doubt they sought any. Presumably any half decent lawyer would tell them that there's absolutely no breach of copyright.

ak217 14y ago

Did you realize that you were doing something illegal (and seriously abusive) by responding to this with a DMCA takedown?

likeclockwork 14y ago

Wow, I never looked at DN before and I don't think I will start now. In that thread they come across as thuggish scumbags who don't care about evidence and believe that anyone should be able to use the legal system to bulldoze competitors doing "similar" work. Also, this Allan guy whoever he is, is dripping with self-importance.

Metapony 14y ago
I agree.

fdfgsgsdfgsd 14y ago

It's pretty obvious that these icons are not copies of the originals. They are very similar, but clearly independently produced. It's a bit tenuous to apply copyright law here. Copyright is for the act of copying information, not style. Trademarks can legally protect a particular style, but trademark law isn't enforced through DMCA requests.