3 ms·
The distinction I think I've seen is that designers are often more inclined to assert ownership of an abstract idea, whereas developers tend to assert ownership
by ratherbefuddled 14y ago
The distinction I think I've seen is that designers are often more inclined to assert ownership of an abstract idea, whereas developers tend to assert ownership of the concrete and often revile the notion of owning ideas.
I say this because (in general), whilst developers would not violate a license or steal code, they would often happily implement the same idea someone else had from scratch without any qualms. You can see this in how the notion of patents are despised in software far more than other industries.
Perhaps for developers, ideas are easy and implementations are hard, whilst for designers the reverse is true.
In any case, copyright is about the concrete. You can't - or at least shouldn't be able to - use the DMCA to prevent people expanding on your ideas or being inspired them. Unless an artifact has been copied, there is no copyright violation.
This seems counter-intuitive to some designers, but at the same time seems obvious to developers.
In this particular case, there is no copying and no copyright violation. That is obvious. There is also as much evidence that FlatUI was inspired by LayerVault's work, as there is that LayerVault was inspired by other work already created.
The DMCA takedown was wrong legally, and strategically, but despite the reaction LayerVault don't seem to realise this. Sadly for them their business will probably suffer for it, and they've probably made FlatUI a lot more popular.
- derleth 14y ago> they would often happily implement the same idea someone else had from scratch without any qualms There is only one MD5. There is only one preorder traversal of a binary tree. Creativity is essential, but unless you do those kinds of things the same way as everyone else, you're doing them wrong and will get the wrong results.
- gertef 14y agoAPI and implementation are not equivalent.
- derleth 14y agoNobody said they were.
- ratherbefuddled 14y agoI think you've missed the point. There are dozens different of implementations of each. As far as I know, nobody got DMCAed by the inventors of either for writing one. Yet here, we have designers trying to claim ownership of a particular set of colours and a vague notion of style. Both of which were around before their "implementation" was.
- derleth 14y agoBut only one method, only one underlying design. That's the point here. > Yet here, we have designers trying to claim ownership of a particular set of colours and a vague notion of style. Exactly my point.
- ratherbefuddled 14y agoIt's not clear to me from your comment whether you are agreeing or misunderstanding. The underlying method is an idea, not an implementation. It is not subject to copyright. It might be patentable in some places, but that has nothing to do with the DMCA. Developers generally scorn software patents (owning an idea) but respect copyright (owning an implementation). The designers here are trying to assert copyright over an idea, which you absolutely cannot do.
- pixl97 14y ago>There is only one MD5. >you're doing them wrong and will get the wrong results. I don't guess you're a developer or coder. Being that the speed of MD5 has increased greatly on the same hardware over the years has shown there are many, if not infinite ways of finding an md5sum. Essentially code is math and number are infinite. You could calculate a number with multiplication and call it NumberTwizzle(TM), I could then look at your formula and write a new formula with bit shifts that runs twice and outputs the exact same answer. I could not call it NumberTwizzle though. >Creativity is essential, but unless you do those kinds of things the same way as everyone else, This partial sentence, I don't even. Creativity is looking at what other people are doing and coming up with a 'better', 'cheaper', or 'faster' (maybe all) solution to an existing problem. doing 'things' the same way as everyone else is the exact opposite of creativity.
- derleth 14y agoEnglish must not be your first language. Read for comprehension and post something that's actually responsive to my post.