Recently we became aware of the startling similarity between our blog and that of another local company’s. How’d we find out? Well, they called on us to talk about a business relationship. Hell of an introduction! When confronted, they were quick to admit they greatly admired our blog and wanted to use it as the basis for their own, so hired a company to code something similar.
Fair enough. However flattering this is (it is actually), the blog looked almost like an exact copy so we thought we’d look under the hood at the code. What we found was that actual elements of our CSS code had been copied and pasted. Even a few of the graphic elements were ours. Not cool. Especially not cool since this is an experienced web design shop with principals involved heavily in the blogosphere that should know better. We even got a call from them to admit it and apologize since they did not want to cause any sort of issue amongst our companies.
Who’s the victim here? All of us. We’ve spent a tremendous amount of time perfecting our blog for our own purposes, not as a template; the web design firm that acted on the behest of their client got sucked in by their client’s desires and slipped into an ethical mud puddle; and the client because they only knew to ask for what they wanted and were not aware the firm they hired had merely repurposed another’s code in violation of copyrights.
A quick Google search turned up several posts about copying. One on the WordPress blog and another on About.com spell it out clearly enough.
What’s interesting here is that in advertising and design our work is constantly influenced by the things around us, but because the work is often very public, plagiarism is never a good idea. The thing about most websites and blogs is that the code is just as public, yet is behind the scenes so perhaps it is more tempting. On a recent podcast of Across the Sound by Joseph Jaffe and Steve Rubel, they referenced the legal action taken by Lugz against Apple for the similarity of the Apple iPod commercial featuring rapper Eminem to a spot for Lugz done in 2002. In the discussion Jaffe, who hails from the advertising world, said that it was not likely deliberate since an idea can rise from the subconscious that is not entirely original. Plus, within the creative process a review would kill any ideas that are too similar to known past ads. It’s tough to imagine a creative making a conscious decision to copy work considering the safety net in place to catch it and the public scrutiny the work will be subjected to. You’d think creatives and coders working on the web would undergo a similar thought process. Hopefully, most do.
If you like our blog, please post a comment and tell us, just don’t copy it.
Posted by Ben Garfinkel
Tags: Branding, Design, Technology, Websites
Steph Tekano (November 25th, 2005)
Check out this entire site devoted to uncovering web design rip offs:
pirated-sites.com