Jul 15th, 2006 Flattery
It seems The City Church isn’t the only design being ripped off lately. Khoi Vinh, a well-known designer, had his personal blog design copied emulated by an architectural institution. He wrote about it, admitting he was at a loss for course of action, and the comment thread that followed could literally be bound as a novel. Long story short: The designer responsible for the institution’s site apologized for misinterpreting Khoi’s copyright notice and removed the design, defaulting back to a previous one. It’s a happy ending, but the discussion is still going on Khoi’s site … do check it out. (And don’t skip the comments.)
So my thoughts immediately go to this Joomlart rip off of our (or Jesse’s) design, which is more than a little “inspired”. We’ve clearly placed a copyright notice (including the “all rights reserved” clause) on every single page of the site, but some still defend the template and its designers, stating that it’s not an exact copy, and that the source code is completely different (source).
Now, since The City Church site has received so much attention (did you see we won two CSS Mania awards?! Woohoo!), I anticipated having to deal with plagiarism, to some extent. In fact, I’ve even been asked if I’d email the PSD and source files to someone so they could copy the site for their own use — you know, since they were “located so far away”. Right. I’m not opposed to people taking the design and code for educational purposes, but straight-up copying is cheap and (in my personal opinion) unethical.
I know Jesse deals with this all the time, and I’ve read other designer’s blogs as they’ve engaged in the same sort of battles, with their own designs being stolen or repurposed. My position has always stayed the same: I’m with the designers.
See, there’s just two sides to this issue, and two kinds of people involved:
- The designers or design-saavy — those that understand design to be a commodity, something valued as much (or more) than physical objects that can be traded, bought and sold.
- The design-wannabes or genuinely ignorant — those that think design is liquid and free, something of lesser value than, say, source code. These people also attack designers personally, citing the designer’s inability to see the “big picture.”
Now, before I go further let me clarify and say that while it’s evident the Joomlart template has been built from the ground-up, and the designers (apparently a team?) that worked on it probably worked very hard, it still emulates elements of The City Church design too closely to be considered original.
Also, what makes this case unique is the fact that our design is being redistributed and sold. You must be a member of the Joomlart site in order to download the template, and a membership costs $40 per year. The fact that others can download, easily install and use this template/design in about 5 minutes makes this even more sticky. How could Joomlart cleanup should they somehow see the error of their ways? They’d have to contact each member and ask them to, out of the kindness of their heart, stop using the template.
Ugh. This is not flattery.
Sean Sperte is Geek & Mild. His passion for technology and media, along with his interest in 
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Comments
David Russell
July 17, 2006
Sean: I believe you and Jesse should do everything necessary to protect his design and your markup and prevent Joomlart from making money from the design, redistributing the design, copying the design or making money from elements of the design, redistributing elements of the design or copying elements of the design.
I’m all for inspiration. I’m all for education. But I’m all against plagiarism. And this case is obviously plagiarism—with commercial gain for the violators.
I’m praying that this resolves quickly and painlessly for you.
Mom
July 19, 2006
I remember when this happened to you at 14 years of age, Sean. Your inspired and original design was utterly copied and presented as someone else’s sole design…someone so far away, in Italy no less. I had mixed reactions then, as I do now. It WAS flattering that someone would think it is so good as to take it, but it enraged me that they would take it and make it their own. I sent an angry letter to the site’s webhost, who immediately took the site down. That was satisfying. I’m hoping for such an immediate and satisfying resolution for you as well.
Doug
July 26, 2006
“Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.”
—Pablo Picasso
I have to say I wasn’t agreeing with you through most of the post until you said they were re-selling. Unfortunately, the nature of the web is such that everybody “borrows” from everybody else. With html being easily readable and tools like httrack and sitesucker making the grabbing of all the css files simple, it’s just the way it works. The Internet and www was built by a lot of people who adore open source culture (GPL, cc, etc.) and it should be expected that what you put on the web is going to be taken, re-mixed, re-used, copied, etc. It does break down though once someone in the chain starts charging for your work.
duncan
August 5, 2006
let me preface this by saying i enjoy your work and think the joomlart is pretty flagrant and i hope this situation is resolved.
however, it’s interesting that you’re taking them to task for biting your style when this site make pretty liberal use of OS X design cues.
while there’s a difference, i’m not entirely sure where the line is drawn. does the joomlart use of the curved element around the search box go too far? is the red star-burst for comments too similar to apple’s mail indication?
Sean Sperte
August 6, 2006
Point taken, duncan, but you said it yourself: I’ve taken design cues, not copied design elements. I’m also not profitting (beyond my own satisfaction) from this website or its design template.
The other aspect of this is that the elements I’ve emulated are a part of an interface platform, not an interface design, and are a part of set of (hopefully) standardized icons for multiple applications. I could list a number of non-Apple software titles that use these icons (NewsFire, FontExplorer, Transmit, QuickSilver, etc.), but it’s probably too long.
duncan
August 6, 2006
now you’re arguing semantics. what is the difference between a design cue and a design element? what’s the difference between an interface platform and an interface design?
trying to compare a web site to an application is rather spurious; i don’t know because i haven’t delved in to the world of cocoa app development, but as the red star-burst is pretty universal and consistently applied to many many applications one could assume it’s an element of the interface toolkit and available to all developers to use in a specific manner. does that mean the design can be taken and used outside of that framework? would using the logo for mail.app as an icon on your site be okay? what about using the apple logo? where do you draw the line and why do you get to decide where that line is drawn? why are you emulating and joomlart is stealing? aren’t you both using the hard work of another designer to your benefit?
like i said i do think there’s a difference, but you’re kidding yourself if you think you are not also guilty of using the hard work of another designer.
David Russell
August 7, 2006
Duncan: It’s hard for me to believe you even spent that much time figuring out a counter-argument to this problem. You are absolutely missing the forest for the trees here. Go back and take a melook at the Joomlart template and look at thecity.org. You cannot tell me there is no violation of copyright in this case. And that is the point of this discussion.
We all need to be inspired as we design. Sometimes that inspiration is external and sometimes it is internal, but still taken from a collage of external events. So I’m a long time believer that there is very little pure originality in life. Anything that seems original is simply new work that was inspired by a multitude of works to come together to create something new. Am I saying I can take the Apple logo, remove the bite and call it mine? Nope. That’s not “processing” the inspiration. That’s stealing.
It’s evident that Joomlart was not merely inspired by The City Church design. They didn’t even take the time to process any inspiration. They intentionally reconstructed a template based on a majority of the elements of a design under strict copyright. That’s the issue here. Period.
Doug
August 9, 2006
David, I think you really hit on the important issue here: Copyright.
Sean, the fact that you have a copyright notice on every page does little to clarify what is copyrighted. In fact, the design is not identified as part of the copyright notice on the terms of use (http://thecity.org/legal#terms). I think if the contents under copyright are to be so specifically designated, the design should be specific as well.
I’m curious though as to what you would really consider to be copyrighted. Tabs? Hovering? Font? Font Color? Round corners? Gradients? or are you proposing that the position of those items on the page is what is copyrighted? There is not a lot of law that will back you up on that. Copyright of design doesn’t appear applicable to a website: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap13.html) but IANAL.
A couple side notes:
Luke 6:29 would seem to say, send your source code and image library to Joomla (by some interpretations).
Also, by calling “copyright infringement” you are just another voice in a crowd with the MPAA and RIAA. If you want to make people think twice about Joomlart’s sale of your design, release it under a Creative Commons Non-Commercaial, Attribution license. Then you’ll get the web community behind your position as CC violations tend to get people much more up in arms then copyright violations (cf. GPL).
duncan
August 9, 2006
david: i have never stated anything other than the fact that the joomlart design is a rip-off of what sean did, quite the contrary.
my point of contention is that sean is using someone else’s design work in his site. the fact that his elements are incorporated in a larger unique design does not make it any less of a copyright infringement. glass houses.
let’s put it this way, say the designer of all these “borrowed” elements from apple posts a blog on his site about sean ripping him off. what’s the defense?
David Russell
August 9, 2006
Doug: I love the Creative Commons license and I really appreciate the free information and free software movements as well as the idea of sharing, using and properly attributing creative elements under the CC. But I do find it a little difficult to trust the idea that somehow Sean would find a better response from the community that drives the CC compared to the legal recourse that he has at his disposal through a strict, all rights reserved copyright. Again, I like the idea, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me.
Also, I think you are missing the point of copyright. You say that Sean didn’t do a good job covering the design in the terms of the site. The essential nature of copyright is to protect the intellectual property of a single individual or group of individuals from being exploited by an outside party for gain.
In this case, it is quite clear that Joomlart is benefitting from intellectual property that is protected under copyright for another entity—in this case, The City Church.
Duncan: My apologies for over-generalizing your comment. Re-read my comment above. This would be my response to your question.
I’m certain we’re all struggling to find some definition in a somewhat gray area. It seems we are all simply defining this at different levels. And I’m fine with that. :)
Thanks, Sean, for letting us hash this out on your turf.
Doug
August 10, 2006
I echo thanks to Sean for this forum of discussion.
David, quick question… what intellectual property is Joolmart benefitting from that is protected under copyright? Colors? Tabs? Pixel widths? What?
I think the protection you are assuming exists, doesn’t. Copyright of a design doesn’t exist. If Sean and The City Church (or anybody else for that matter) wants to protect their design they should apply for a Design Patent.
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/intelprp/glossary.htm
DESIGN PATENT [patent]. A government grant of exclusive rights in a novel, nonobvious, and ornamental industrial design. A design patent confers the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling designs that closely resemble the patented design. A design patent covers ornamental aspects of a design; its functional aspects are covered by a utility patent. A design patent and a utility patent can cover different aspects of the same article, such as an automobile or a table lamp.
More reference:
http://www.bitlaw.com/patent/design.html
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/design/toc.html
The bottom line here is that no copyright violation or infringement has occured because copyright is not applicable to this case. If a patent is filed for and granted, Sean and The City Church could pursue a legal recourse toward having Joomlart take down their rip-off, but in the meantime, they just have to accept it.
Sean
September 9, 2006
I know it’s almost two months later, but I’d like to revisit something Doug said:
For the record, I disagree that sending source files (or even making them available) is the more godly thing to do.
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