Stealing Website Designs

Hey Hey People.....

Here's an ethical question for you, maybe a legal question. Where do you stand on stealing website designs.... A lot of people will look at a page and say hey that's cool they way they did that, and steal the concept of the code but I'm talking about something more serious. Taking a page and completely copying the design because you want your page to be liked. I ask because some aquaintances recently did this, and while they'll never be big enough for anyone serious to notice.. I'm wondering about it.. It's not really Ethical or Logical... here are the sites i'm talking about..

Original
Copy

The site was designed for the band and they know nothing about the blatant copying. Anyways.. i just made me think... Where does everyone stand on stealing code.. be it a snippit or a complete site.

The pictures are definate copyright violation. If it was merely a question of understanding how the design was done, then it's not necessarily a copyright violation but given that they've taken the pictures (and not even changed the names of the pictures) it's a little more blatant.

I think Mojo Media, the company that designed Nickelback's site, would have a case against Aftersight.

Now back to the ethical issue: as I said, if it was merely to understand how they did something, I wouldn't see that as a problem. But when you copy everything (graphics included) then that's not the art or ability of creating something. Just means you are a good mimicker and plagariser as well as thief. We have to be careful because there are a few tools out there that have templates to them but you usually can tell. ;)

Definetly, as a ex-newspaper writer, we had to take a class in plagerism. This is a very obvious form of it, and it well went past admiration of the site, to plain insult.

I think stealing code sucks IF you pass it off as your own original idea. Looking at other people's code to get an "idea" or understand a concept is okay as long as you still do your own work. Most programmers I know (myself included) wouldn't DREAM of stealing another person's code. I mean, coming up with your own ideas are most of the fun! :)

You know. I wish I had more students like you Mathgirl. Every semester I catch at least 3-5 people plagarising in my Intro to Sec course and even catch the occassional one in my Advanced Course. There are usually two reasons: "I didn't know that was plagarism" or "I was too busy to do it".

I can understand a single line or two but when a 9 page essay has 8 pages "copied" from a website or other source it's not an essay.

And it's just as bad when it comes to scripting. I'm creating a training game for a project I'm working on. I've asked for ideas from others on how to deal with things but I've deliberately posted that I'm not looking for code, just logic (I suck at it sometimes .. now apparently is one of those times).

I think in the original example of this thread if the 2nd site creator's had contacted the first and asked permission and registered where they got it from it would show honesty and integrity. Right now I wouldn't hire them because of the potential legal issue they'd put a company into with that kind of activity.

Hahaha....well MsMittens, I wish more teachers wanted students like me! ;) Seriously, though, you mentioned you get the line "I didn't know that was plagarism" a lot -- how is it a person can even make it to college and not know what it is???? :rolleyes:

Hmm half the joy in making a site is making it Unique, I would hate it if I had spent a lot of my time to create a site, only to have someone pinch the design without even so much as an email asking if they could borrow parts of it, eg images.
I think the company who designed the site would have a case against them, Although I am not sure if they will bother at the moment, if the copy site started to become really popular, then I'll bet they will start to bother

MathGirl.. you said you don't know how people can say that.. but it happens quite easily.. There's a retired dentist in my program.. so he's got a university degree and everything else.. and last semester his group was caught plagarising an assignment for our communications class.. The problem is most high schools don't identify it very well and don't spend a lot of time on it.. They go on and on about how they'll punish you for it.. but they never do.. I know a guy that turned in "Mentor's Last Words" as an english essay. he got a 9/10 and was commended for a brilliant paper. and he just hit print on the website and turned it in... And when you get to College/Uni it's you plagerize and your out pretty much... unless you have a valid reason (which is highly unlikely)... it should be a required section in high school english but it's not.

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The problem is most high schools don't identify it very well and don't spend a lot of time on it

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You're correct, HTRegz. What do you think about the idea of students knowing right from wrong? It's such a basic concept. I mean, that they can claim that they didn't know??? I don't think they can rightly say that just because the definition of plagiarism was never explained to them. Surely they know it's NOT their work. They also know taking something that is NOT their's -- is stealing. So, clearly, "ignorance" is no excuse. But that does seem to be the direction society is headed...just a bunch of "excuses", "poor me's", "it wasn't my fault's", "my environment is to blame" whining cry babies. Wow, sorry...I sort of got off track, there. :p



EDIT: Woohoo! I'm a member.....finally!!:)

First, I agree with the consensus about stealing code. I have the creativity of a brick but somehow I was able to generate original code when I was in school. :p

However, what do you do when your boss comes to you and tells you to steal a website design? :confused:

I will provide an example.

I was working for a software development company and the web designer there had their boss come to them and requested that they created a page for a new project for the company. The only problem here is that the boss wanted a replica another company's page. Now the web designer asked for some clarification as to whether he just wanted the same style as the original and the web designer was quickly corrected. The boss wanted the same page with a different color scheme, logo, and information.

What would you do?

How the hell did we get to talk about school. Most of us hate it (or hated it). And for the copyright crap, Id be all over that guys ass if it was my site.

©2001 Nickelback - All Rights Reserved
Designed, Hosted and Maintained by Mojo Media, Inc


Nuff said. Your "aquaintences" are theifs. There unorigional too.

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<snip>

I was working for a software development company and the web designer there had their boss come to them and requested that they created a page for a new project for the company. The only problem here is that the boss wanted a replica another company's page. Now the web designer asked for some clarification as to whether he just wanted the same style as the original and the web designer was quickly corrected. The boss wanted the same page with a different color scheme, logo, and information.

What would you do? [/B]

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I'd be aquaiting the boss with copyright law. And probably be looking for work elsewhere. It's not worth going to court over and having your reputation put through the mud. Logos are often copyrighted and carry a lot of legal weight behind them (often 5+ zeros).

When I was learning html, the view source function was the greatest thing in the world, because you could look at how other people coded something, then figure out how to do what you wanted. If I ever saw anything really neat, I would just find out who the designer was and instant messaged them and asked for a bit of a lesson, of course, it wasnt a designer like the guy that did the nickelback site, just small time personal websites. You can learn a lot by looking at other peoples code, but by no means should you take their code, or images.

Your friends are music artists, but if they want to express themselves over the internet, they are going to need to become design artists as well.

i dunno i personally believe if they just used the design of the site as inspiration and while highly similar not a total copy its not that bad...if your a begginer...other wise i agree with cheesegod...the creation is half the fun.....as for the art and graphic copyright violation i say burn them as i have had some of my art stolen and claimed by others

Well I'll relate this a place I worked for had a call one day about a job only it was not in the state where our web site was so this person gave the URL. Silly designer had copied our entire site and was editing it on-line, some of the information was correct but all phone numbers and email address were for our company. They took the Logo, content, flash intro all of it and were tweaking it for another company. The ones that hired the designers, copyrighters, progreammaers etc paid in access of about 80k. To say they were not happy is putting it lighlty. But the company finding out from a call from me Net Admin fired the person they hired to do their site that stole our site, and believe me this person or persons blew their professional standing out the window (lol get it?) and most likely will not design many web sites. It is one thing to copy even a personal site but a business site if your any kind of programmer should always be a big No No. Since I am also an artist I get very upset if any of my artwork or graphics are used without permission, funny how if you ask one usually will get an OK. I believe credit is due where it originates, if one just copies stuff then I'd consider another profession after all you don't have other people do your homework or your job tasks just because it is on the Web is no excuse.

Just by doing a view source you can see the exact code is used, including the Javascript. This is a blantant copy, a bad one at that and should be taken care of immediately. I would think that Mojo Media would want to know about it. The easiest thing to do is to put yourself in their place. Would you want someone ripping off your work and then claiming it as their own? I would hope not.

on a related topic:

http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0208.html#3

some people have tried to encrypt their html content, unfortunately it seems to be a little difficult.

some of you who have read my previous posts know that i pimp the counterpane cryptogram a lot. it's basically my favorite source on security in general and cryptography specifically.

Well... You can still steal the images. Once you've done that, just load them into a WYSIWYG editor and you will have the desired effect. You may not have the exact code, but it would look pretty damn close.

id have to say its fine. The web design theft can easily be prevented. just use frames! stuff like that. its easily preventable.

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Originally posted here by er0k
id have to say its fine. The web design theft can easily be prevented. just use frames! stuff like that. its easily preventable.

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I dont see how frames would help. You can still view source content by right clicking on the framed area.

I think it's alright to adapt a concept as long as you add you own uniqueness to it. Nothing is better than building your own basic site with it's own flavour. I mean, you could look at the original site - like the way the menu and buttons work and then try and build something similar , yourself, into your site. It'll make it easier to expand\customise later, it'll look in place, and the sense of achievment you'll get is all good.

It doesn't feel right to copy something line by line and then play fill the blanks. Nor does carbon copying a design.

If your website is a big thing and you dont want it copied, use digital images.
Encrypt your copyright behind them. That shouldnt be very difficult to implement,
but difficult to break.

Anyway, if you have stolen somebody's website, i dont see how you can even visit your own website again and again and remind yourself that it's stolen.
You would need a high absence of consiousness for that, really.

This is where I stand :

Life is all about improving on what the last generation has done and passing it on to the next.So I'' have to agree with bquine

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I think it's alright to adapt a concept as long as you add you own uniqueness to it.

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I remember in the 80's, we had lots of remarks about the Japanese manufacturers copying the television to cars.Well as a result we have better televisions today, at a cheaper price and an improved technology that can be passed on to the future generation.

Wouldnt it be silly, if you want to make a car, you'll have to re-invent the wheel.

I am however against lazy people who copy and plagiarise for their own benefit without adding their own uniqueness to improve on what they have copied or giving the credit.


:p Dr_Evil