4 ms·

I'm not a massive fan of the most of the responses in this thread. Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from L

I'm not a massive fan of the most of the responses in this thread. Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault. The similarities aren't minor, in either style, tone, or techniques. The three icons DesignModo removed were the most obvious offenders. And by obvious, I mean, "Yeah, you completely ripped those". So DesignModo has absolutely no right, in any sense, to be indignant. They produced unoriginal, lazy, copied work, and got called out on it. Within this thread, I see lots of idiotic bits such as "LayerVault doesn't own hex codes!", "You can't own a style!", etc etc. These type of comments miss the forest for the trees. Individually, no, LayerVault has no right to claim ownership of any specific color. But Flat UI's rip is the combination of a rip of all things together, not one thing in specific. Change the color scheme of the illustrations and you'd have less of a case. Change the shadow technique, or the general aesthetic of the icons. It's the COMBINATION of all of these factors which makes this a "rip". Now, what DesignModo did may not be illegal, but why is anyone rushing to defend them? In what terrible universe is being an insipid, unoriginal copier something any community champions? And why would anyone walk away with a negative opinion of LayerVault? Really? You don't think they should be slightly irked that DesignModo ripped off their distinctive style, and is _charging_ people for the chance to use it? It baffles the mind.

mkmkmmmmm 14y ago
It's becaused they misused the DMCA to force removal of content that, while inspired by them, they actually don't own the copyright of. Vis., they are using the DMCA illegally to remove legal content.
- etchalon 14y ago
  I'm not sure how they "misued" the DMCA. The law has specific mechanisms for notifying a hosted service of material which violates your copyright. If LV believes the work violates their copyright, they're well within their rights to request it be taken down. You might like the draconian nature of the laws mechanisms but it's not a "misuse". It's just "I don't like it when people use it."
  - hhw 14y ago
    They misused the DMCA because they did not own the copyright of the content they filed a DMCA against, plain and simple, and they made specific claims in the DMCA otherwise. Just because the icons were similar does not make that a copyright violation. LV either abused the DMCA out of ignorance or dishonesty. There is no other possibility here, and they deserve every bit of negative sentiment that has resulted against them.
    - etchalon 14y ago
      They believe they do. So it was neither ignorance nor dishonesty. _You_ don't think they do.
      - TillE 14y ago
        Again, you and LayerVault don't seem to understand copyright. Here's an example. There's a famous iPhone game called Fruit Ninja. There's another game called Veggie Samurai. Total ripoff in every imaginable way, but completely legal. Copyright means you can't make direct copies or derivative works of my stuff. It doesn't mean you're not allowed copy all my ideas.
        etchalon 14y ago
        And you don't seem to understand what LV is actually alleging.
        pixl97 14y ago
        And neither do they (LV). Trademark is not copyright.
      - mkmkmmmmm 14y ago
        The DMCA is for direct copies of IP. This dispute is better resolved with a civil court case because the ownership is non-obvious. It was a very clear misuse of the DMCA and I hope the victim receives some compensation.
ak217 14y ago
"Drew inspiration" is not proper justification for a DMCA notice. The fact that they're illegally misusing that law is why I'm walking away from this with a very negative opinion of LayerVault.
- etchalon 14y ago
  It is when it crosses the line into actual theft, which three of those icons apparently did.
  - ak217 14y ago
    You have a very poor understanding of DMCA if you think that. There is no way that law can apply here.
  - mynameisvlad 14y ago
    Have you seen the icons so you can judge it for yourself? I have. At best, it's inspired by the LV ones.
  - pi18n 14y ago
    Actually under no circumstances whatsoever can copying an icon cross the line into actual theft. It's possible to cross the line into actual copyright infringement.
    - visarga 14y ago
      Yeah, if the icon in discussion is pixel for pixel identical to the "original", including the dithering and anti-aliasing, that would prove copying. But they have just similar concepts and colors. One black shoe might seem similar to another, but they don't infringe on copyright. One fashion creation from Zara might be quite similar to another one from a no-name, but if they slightly move one button or pocket, it's a new design.
      - pi18n 14y ago
        I agree with this. I'm just pointing out that without even observing the icons in question I can assert that no theft occurred.
mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
I think you are confused about what we are most upset about. You don't even mention the DMCA once in your comment. The DMCA, and abuse of it, is something that gets HN's dander up. As far as we can tell, LV perjured themselves, either intentionally or through ignorance of what copyright actually means. The result is that legal material will have been taken off the internet for 10 days, with no repercussions, despite the (presumably) false claims made by LV. It is in this context that people are breaking out the pitchforks. If LV had made a blog post complaining about the "rip", they probably would have gained HN's sympathy.
- etchalon 14y ago
  Reading through the comments, I do see a few mentions of the DMCA, but there's plenty of "they don't own turquoise!" type comments as well. If you're upset they used the DMCA (a legal tool made specifically for this type of situation), I guess that's fair, if slightly myopic.
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    I don't think you understand the DMCA. It is NOT a legal tool for this type of situation. The DMCA ("Digitam Millenium COPYRIGHT Act") provides the take-down mechanism as a means to take down copyright infringing content, and in exchange gives the hosts of that content a safe-harbor[1]. So when people say "they don't own turquoise", those people are correct. LayerVault does not and can not hold a copyright on turquoise, or on their style of icon, and thus does not have the right to issue a copyright DMCA take-down notice for content made in the same style as their own. [1] If a host follows the DMCA take-down process, in theory they're safe from being sued for unwittingly and unintentionally hosting copyrighted content. in practice, those suites tend to happen anyway, with the claim that the infringement was knowing -- see also youtube, megavideo).
    - etchalon 14y ago
      And LV isn't going after them for turquoise, but for specific illustrations, which are copyrightable. You're jumbling what LV actually did with the simplification of what they did.
beatboxrevival 14y ago
With LayerVault I saw similarities to Always With Honor, Bobby McKenna, or hundreds of other artists doing the exact same visual style with UI design. All artists and designers copy, distort, rehash, re-contextualize. We have championed this process and those artists for hundreds of years.
tetrad 14y ago
> Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault. The similarities aren't minor, in either style, tone, or techniques. What it boils down to is that there was no actual copyright infringement. If you look at the side-by-sides of the alleged infringement, it's kind of silly. Even laying aside the heart of the issue, did they "rip off" the gear icon, the newspaper icon, or the chat icon? Did they "rip off" the general color scheme or look-and-feel? Or are those merely representative of a minimalist flat school of design which is currently in vogue? How many freelance designers would you have to contract to make a "settings" icon, or an "interlocking gears" icon before you got back a (clean-room) design which looked even more like LV's than the one in question? Same goes for the newspaper and the chat icon. And is there any direct inspiration going on there (designer laying eyeballs on LV's design and then drawing ours a day or a month later) - probably not. And we could make the designs all clustered a lot tighter if we specifically asked for one that used very few high-contrast colors or a "flat" style. If you then presented 10 of these farmed-out icon designs to a panel of designers, and told them that some of them had been ripped off of others, they would probably have some pretty strong opinions on which those were. And they would be wrong.
visarga 14y ago
> realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault if (inspiration.drawnfrom("us")) { file.DMCA(); }

mkmkmmmmm 14y ago

It's becaused they misused the DMCA to force removal of content that, while inspired by them, they actually don't own the copyright of. Vis., they are using the DMCA illegally to remove legal content.

etchalon 14y ago
I'm not sure how they "misued" the DMCA. The law has specific mechanisms for notifying a hosted service of material which violates your copyright. If LV believes the work violates their copyright, they're well within their rights to request it be taken down. You might like the draconian nature of the laws mechanisms but it's not a "misuse". It's just "I don't like it when people use it."
- hhw 14y ago
  They misused the DMCA because they did not own the copyright of the content they filed a DMCA against, plain and simple, and they made specific claims in the DMCA otherwise. Just because the icons were similar does not make that a copyright violation. LV either abused the DMCA out of ignorance or dishonesty. There is no other possibility here, and they deserve every bit of negative sentiment that has resulted against them.
  - etchalon 14y ago
    They believe they do. So it was neither ignorance nor dishonesty. _You_ don't think they do.
    - TillE 14y ago
      Again, you and LayerVault don't seem to understand copyright. Here's an example. There's a famous iPhone game called Fruit Ninja. There's another game called Veggie Samurai. Total ripoff in every imaginable way, but completely legal. Copyright means you can't make direct copies or derivative works of my stuff. It doesn't mean you're not allowed copy all my ideas.
      - etchalon 14y ago
        And you don't seem to understand what LV is actually alleging.
        pixl97 14y ago
        And neither do they (LV). Trademark is not copyright.
    - mkmkmmmmm 14y ago
      The DMCA is for direct copies of IP. This dispute is better resolved with a civil court case because the ownership is non-obvious. It was a very clear misuse of the DMCA and I hope the victim receives some compensation.

ak217 14y ago

"Drew inspiration" is not proper justification for a DMCA notice. The fact that they're illegally misusing that law is why I'm walking away from this with a very negative opinion of LayerVault.

etchalon 14y ago
It is when it crosses the line into actual theft, which three of those icons apparently did.
- ak217 14y ago
  You have a very poor understanding of DMCA if you think that. There is no way that law can apply here.
- mynameisvlad 14y ago
  Have you seen the icons so you can judge it for yourself? I have. At best, it's inspired by the LV ones.
- pi18n 14y ago
  Actually under no circumstances whatsoever can copying an icon cross the line into actual theft. It's possible to cross the line into actual copyright infringement.
  - visarga 14y ago
    Yeah, if the icon in discussion is pixel for pixel identical to the "original", including the dithering and anti-aliasing, that would prove copying. But they have just similar concepts and colors. One black shoe might seem similar to another, but they don't infringe on copyright. One fashion creation from Zara might be quite similar to another one from a no-name, but if they slightly move one button or pocket, it's a new design.
    - pi18n 14y ago
      I agree with this. I'm just pointing out that without even observing the icons in question I can assert that no theft occurred.

mrgoldenbrown 14y ago

I think you are confused about what we are most upset about. You don't even mention the DMCA once in your comment. The DMCA, and abuse of it, is something that gets HN's dander up. As far as we can tell, LV perjured themselves, either intentionally or through ignorance of what copyright actually means. The result is that legal material will have been taken off the internet for 10 days, with no repercussions, despite the (presumably) false claims made by LV. It is in this context that people are breaking out the pitchforks. If LV had made a blog post complaining about the "rip", they probably would have gained HN's sympathy.

etchalon 14y ago
Reading through the comments, I do see a few mentions of the DMCA, but there's plenty of "they don't own turquoise!" type comments as well. If you're upset they used the DMCA (a legal tool made specifically for this type of situation), I guess that's fair, if slightly myopic.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  I don't think you understand the DMCA. It is NOT a legal tool for this type of situation. The DMCA ("Digitam Millenium COPYRIGHT Act") provides the take-down mechanism as a means to take down copyright infringing content, and in exchange gives the hosts of that content a safe-harbor[1]. So when people say "they don't own turquoise", those people are correct. LayerVault does not and can not hold a copyright on turquoise, or on their style of icon, and thus does not have the right to issue a copyright DMCA take-down notice for content made in the same style as their own. [1] If a host follows the DMCA take-down process, in theory they're safe from being sued for unwittingly and unintentionally hosting copyrighted content. in practice, those suites tend to happen anyway, with the claim that the infringement was knowing -- see also youtube, megavideo).
  - etchalon 14y ago
    And LV isn't going after them for turquoise, but for specific illustrations, which are copyrightable. You're jumbling what LV actually did with the simplification of what they did.

beatboxrevival 14y ago

With LayerVault I saw similarities to Always With Honor, Bobby McKenna, or hundreds of other artists doing the exact same visual style with UI design. All artists and designers copy, distort, rehash, re-contextualize. We have championed this process and those artists for hundreds of years.

tetrad 14y ago

> Any designer would look at Flat UI and immediately realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault. The similarities aren't minor, in either style, tone, or techniques. What it boils down to is that there was no actual copyright infringement. If you look at the side-by-sides of the alleged infringement, it's kind of silly. Even laying aside the heart of the issue, did they "rip off" the gear icon, the newspaper icon, or the chat icon? Did they "rip off" the general color scheme or look-and-feel? Or are those merely representative of a minimalist flat school of design which is currently in vogue? How many freelance designers would you have to contract to make a "settings" icon, or an "interlocking gears" icon before you got back a (clean-room) design which looked even more like LV's than the one in question? Same goes for the newspaper and the chat icon. And is there any direct inspiration going on there (designer laying eyeballs on LV's design and then drawing ours a day or a month later) - probably not. And we could make the designs all clustered a lot tighter if we specifically asked for one that used very few high-contrast colors or a "flat" style. If you then presented 10 of these farmed-out icon designs to a panel of designers, and told them that some of them had been ripped off of others, they would probably have some pretty strong opinions on which those were. And they would be wrong.

visarga 14y ago

> realize that they drew inspiration from LayerVault if (inspiration.drawnfrom("us")) { file.DMCA(); }