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Ripping/Copying 3737 Responses
Last post: 2 years, 1 month ago | Thread started: Feb 8, 08, 3:08 p.m.
- killerqueen
Shut up.
- Dog-earFeb 8, 08, 3:15 p.m. – Permalink
- Corvo
That's true. But on the other hand there's also the possibility that two persons in opposite sides of the world, with no communication whatsoever between them, can achieve the same idea. It's perfectly possible (or even common): the thing is that their potential technological difference will never confront them, and the simpler process is lost because, whereas the same widespread use of technology tends to induce repetitions of the same idea, but not bring any simplification to it.
- Dog-earFeb 8, 08, 4:44 p.m. – Permalink
- killerqueen
I said shut up.
- Dog-earFeb 8, 08, 4:58 p.m. – Permalink
- rainman
Back when I worked for a local B2B startup I designed their website. After about 4 months of it being live my boss calls me into his office and asks me, "Did you really design our site?" I said um... yeah... why? He then proceeded to type in a URL. When the site loaded I saw that exact same site... only difference was this company had taken out our company name and inserted theirs. Same content, same design. That's what I call Plagiarism.
Plagiarism happens all the time... and, for the most part, it's fairly acceptable. It's just these instances where it's fairly obvious that the person on the other end is being lazy or uncreative where I find it distasteful.
- Dog-earFeb 8, 08, 5:05 p.m. – Permalink
- Corvo
^ true. then a distinction must be made between what is inspiration (which sometimes touches the rip-off frontier) and what is an exact copy of design elements put together in the exactly same place. This is not a new question either - but when Anders asks for good examples of a rip-off you're bound to think of similarities (improvements?) rather than exact rips (as in code, elements, events, etc), and then - just then - your ground starts to get muddier, and you realise that graphical work depends much upon copy+paste and improvement.
- Dog-earFeb 8, 08, 5:26 p.m. – Permalink
- Anders
In music there is a phenomenon like Mashup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas…)
For more on this, download the excellent documentary Good Copy Bad Copy
http://creativecommons.org/weblo…I don't think it has to do especially with styles/trends, other than the creative copying of another work might become a style for others. In this way, you are creating something new for the lazy to rip-off, thus making in entirely different from the original source.
It's an interesting topic, if you dive a little deeper than the usual 'rip-off or accident'. In the most original cases, where two works has so much in common, it's mostly a matter of chance and the work is often so based on an idea, that you can trace it back to its source of inspirations.
The incident of finding works of art that resembles my own in an almost frightening way, is in a way very uplifting; that there is something bigger than the ego. An idea that somehow needs to be realised. I have this feeling sometimes when I see other peoples art or design; that I like it very much, but somehow have an urge to add something – to make it different, new, personal..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App…)
The idea of appropriation has long been used in art, but mostly it doesn't reveal new ways of seeing in design. Mostly it is seen as a rip-off or laziness. I'd love to see designers sample more.I watched a TED talk with J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost TV series
http://www.ted.com/index.php/tal…
where he wonders why filmmakers always rip off the monster and not the characters or stories in those movies. I think Jaws is his example.Why not sample Build, Sagmeister, Paul Rand, whoever.. but in a new way? There is a chance, a small one perhaps, that it'll reveal new directions, new ideas that has nothing to do with style. Not plagiarism, but inspiration/association.
The cliché Picasso quote 'Good artists copy. Great artists steal'
has to do with the leaving the monster behind.Maybe I'm just rambling.
- Dog-earFeb 9, 08, 5:12 a.m. – Permalink
- OSFA
Funny that there is a thread about this since I just realized an ex client decided to take our design and give it to his 'web guy' to copy and publish.
Do you guys have samples of good cease and desists letters for design? Particularly web design? We presented the option to the client and advised them that if they didn't proceed with us they could not use any of the elements on their new site. What should be my first step?
- Dog-earFeb 9, 08, 6:21 a.m. – Permalink
- Corvo
^^ there's an interesting side to OSFA's situation. Why is it not ok for the client to own the design - and let you or another designer develop it later on, as the business takes new shapes? After all, a design is made for a particular client and it is part of his assets. But of course, everybody would hate that - dropping off of a gig and having another team working on your stuff - but (imagine) the other team is respectful of your job and tries to improve it? I think then we would be on what Anders would call a "positive rip-off?". Thing is ideas are dear and are the designer's asset, so no one evens considers with pleasure having another person profiting from your work - but that is contraditory to the aim and nature of design itself. A little bit contraditory at least.
- Dog-earFeb 9, 08, 9:05 a.m. – Permalink
- Anders
The Designers Republic 'ripped off' a lot of japanese pop culture icons to tell a message. For the positive examples, maybe we should call it an influence, inspiration, sampling..
Copying is interesting, especially when it involves the hands of a human being and not just a computer. When there is a real brain involved. What interests me is that you can see 100 of similarities in the print design that gets featured here on this site and many other design portals or blogs.
Maybe some of them are simply copying some ideas from another source, but mostly the end result is still interesting – which then inspires other people to copy that. There is a lot of this in the graphic design that goes around online and what goes around, really goes around..
If that many designers feed off design to make design, then maybe for design's sake we should believe in the good of copying?- Dog-earFeb 10, 08, 2:22 p.m. – Permalink
- OSFA
so, any advice on what should I do tomorrow morning regarding this company? We provided them some samples of what their site would look like but then they said 'they were not ready to move forward' and never got back to us. Three months later I check their site and it is a complete rip of our concept. I am pissed! Do I have any rights on this? What are my legal alternatives in order to either get paid or have them bring down the site and come up with their own design?
- Dog-earFeb 10, 08, 5:59 p.m. – Permalink
