- Under: Web Design,
Getting Inspiration Wrong: Website Rip offs
One sure fire way to lose any respect as a designer is to copy or steal from another site. With so many Web Galleries around these days its easier to find good looking sites to help fuel your inspiration, but unfortunately there are too many people who are using these galleries to steal images, code and layouts from people who spent time creating something unique. It’s one thing to take inspiration from a design, or have similar elements, but these are just too much in my opinion. I don’t want to say too much as I think the examples below speak for themselves.
Bigfilebox
Original Design
Rip Off
I think that this one has to be one of the most blatant and obvious rips ever. I hate to think that someone might have been paid to produce this.
Fluoro
Original Design
Rip Off
Changing a color does not make a design “yours” - If you like the look and layout, make something similar - Don’t just steal it.
Elliot Jay Stocks
Side by side comparison, original design on the right.
I came across this article by Elliot Jay Stocks, a popular designer & blogger, as I began to research this article and I thought it was important to add as he’s written quite an extensive account of his personal experiences with this issue.
Clear Left
Original Design
Rip off
Another really blatant “design” - This one is horrendous, they even stole the logo. Clear left actually had 6 rips they found. But the one above is the most obvious.
CdeVision
Original Design
Rip Off
There have been a few changes made on this one, but I think that it’s too close to the original, even down to fonts etc. I think that you could have used the same feel here quite easily without ripping it.
SpinBiz
Original Design
Rip Off
Admittedly this one isn’t particularly obvious, as there have been a lot of modifications, but some of the details are just blatant rips, as well as the color scheme and layout.
Swindle Magazine
Original Design
Rip Off
This is another one which has been heavily modified, but you can see the elements align exactly and only things like colours have been modified. With a layout like this there is so much freedom with layout, I can’t understand why you would need to rip it so obviously.
Brush Network
Original Design
Rip Off
It’s quite clear to see how this site was heavily influenced. There are a few different elements, but the main curve and buttons have clearly been copied too closely.
Mitionographer
Original Design
Rip Off
This website has a similar subject, so it seems to me they’ve seen the success of a competitor and tried to replicate it, quite literally.
Kinetic Kreations
Original Design
Rip Off
The original here is beautiful in my opinion, and copying something so unique is quite a silly idea, as it’s clear that you had only one “influence” in your design.
BrandUp
Original Design
Rip Off
Now on first glance I wasn’t too sure this was a rip the design is quite generic, but if you read the text you can see they they even stole the text, not a great decision.
Conclusion
I’d say that a lot of these copies were completely unnecessary, In the fact that they could have used the sites as inspiration, finding styles and elements they like, without completely ripping it off. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with seeing something you like, and making something similar, but similar does not mean trying to replicate it exactly, or stealing graphics and code.
One good example that I can think of to illustrate this point would be to look at “tag clouds” - They must have come from somewhere. Someone saw one on somebody’s blog and thought “yeah, nice idea” then set about making their own. But the variety out there is astounding, there are many creative ways of presenting the same element or information, without the need of stealing. I’m sure this is something everyone has an opinion on, so I’d love to hear them.
Sources: Pirated-Sites & You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice
Further Reading: Elliot Jay Stocks
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On a similar note, I always wonder how many designers and/or firms re-use their own work. I know sometimes I get stuck in one “train of thought” or I get wrapped up in a particular style, and it bleeds through to several projects I am working on. That’s when going to a few galleries helps inspire me to weave something new (to me) into my work.
@Gabe, thanks for the comment. I think that re-using your own work, or certain elements of your own work is on a different level, because you aren’t gaining from the hard work that somebody else has put in. But in some ways the client might be let down by the fact that what they’re getting isn’t completely unique.
It’s possible multiple sites purcahsed the template from the same source. (not referring to the ones in your examples in particular).
Yeah, there are chances that there are a lot of sites out there that are using the same templates. But the chances are the person who made the original theme is still gaining from this, as they chose to allow their template to be used on multiple sites.
But what we are talking about here is people stealing exact copies of a site and claiming it as their own. In which case the original designer will be losing out. Thanks for the comment, and all the ones in my examples were reported by the original designers to be rip-offs.
It’s unbelievable how similar they are, the word RIP definitely fits in these cases!
Great post! That’s really frustrating, seeing these blatant rips!
Wow. I have never seen such a good collection of ripoffs. Didn’t know it was that bad. Great article.
- John
What a total rip off from Fiouret! Man, I just realized there are so many of them. It’s just that I never come across the rip offs. Or probably I thought of them as original designs!
This is definitely a great post. It raises awareness among the designers and the rippers themselves and at the same time, it educates the people out there. The new designers or potential designers - never steal anyone’s creation!
@Andrew, John & Fath Glad you found it useful, thanks guys!
is there anything we can do about this? can we not copyright our style sheets or something like that?
it feels futile to just complain about it.
@calvin, I think in many cases just emailing these people and pointing out the fact that they are similar may resolve the issue. But other than that I’d love to hear any suggestions on how we can protect ourselves against this? Anyone have any ideas?
a shotgun usually protects me from those that stole things from me…but useless for internet purposes.
damn
as a self confessed coding idiot i have copied/borrowed code from other people to use and also in the process of adapting it learnt how to do it myself.
all times i have contacted the designer and asked permission and/or acknowledged there input on the site as you see from the links in the footer of my blog.
there is a line between inspiration/learning and piracy!
Some guy once offered to pay me to dupe my site exactly except for putting his face into it. I did, charged a hefty fine, then redesigned my site a few days later
Did my comment go through?
Omg these are such…hardcore…rips. Good finds though, if you can be complimented on finding these;)
Thats quite scary some are almost identical clones, clearleft logo is identical ,i suppose it would be flatttering if some one copied your design..although i wouldnt reccomend it, always interesting to see what people are up to
It’s a really really sad situation.
I see this things on the web from times to times and thought it happens only on the ‘major leagues’. But recently, I’ve been a victim of such a rip. My portfolio is http://www.arsnovadesign.com.ar/ (even a ‘couple’ of CSS galleries featured it), and suddenly I see a rip: http://www.marksimons.co.uk/
The worst is that this guy calls himself a designer…
I don’t know how to feel angry or sad. I think I’m gonna redesign and let the whole thing go. Thanks for the article (and for letting me express!)
Another one that you can add:
http://www.midi.is is an online ticket sale system in Iceland and this site copied the layout very clearly: http://www.united-ddl.com/.
Thanks for this post.
Imitation is the ultimate form of flattery. Wake up folks, this has been going on in EVERY creative industry known to man — from music to fashion to product design, “sampling” will never end…And lest not forget the infamous programming mantra “Good programmers write good code, great programmers reuse code.”
@Joe - I think that yeah imitation is quite flattering, to have people aspire to make something similar to what you have can feel good, as you are inspiring people to be creative. However stealing content (which is the case in most of these examples) is not flattering at all, and in all of these cases is frustrating for the people who designed the sites, as they are the ones who reported them in the first place.
I’m a little bit shock to see how similar are these rip-offs! I came across a couple of “seen that before somewhere else” websites, but never exact copies such as those you showed.
I’d be embarrassed to even put a copy site online!
You know, I had never heard about the “You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice” website before, but I swear I just spent the past hour browsing through that website. Crazy.
As for EJStocks, he’s ALWAYS getting ripped off. The most ironic thing about that background thing is, if I recall, he posted a tutorial on how to create your OWN. LOL. WTH?
I can’t believe some of those, the Clear Left one is the best! How on earth did they think they would get away with that.
Most of you probably know the website of Veerle Pieters, an icon when it comes to website design. http://veerle.duoh.com is in my eyes still one of the best looking blogs out there.
A few months back I came across website, which looked almost exactly the same - http://www.jhzenith.be - and I informed Veerle about the fact that her site has been ripped off. As a consequence, she set things in motion to have the other site changed. Unfortunately, she did not entirely succeed with that, as the rip off site still looks too similar.
This is really frustrating!
How infuriating. It’s amazing how people think they can get away with it. That’s a pretty thorough list though, Brian. Good work!
These examples clearly show a certain lack of integrity. Howeve, the really interesting question, that you begin to touch on, is where to draw the line. Is it ok to copy the font of the log. What about also putting the a different icon, but in the same place in the logo? But what if that icon used the same colours?
Is there any way to draw up some ‘rules of thumb’ about what is acceptable or not? I guess the best rule of thumb would be, “if in doubt, request permission”.
It seems that it is easier to steal the wheel, rather than reinvent it for these folks. This is only the tip of the iceberg, and lots of examples can be seen in the Wordpress realm.
When it boils down to basic design and placement of elements, how much can be done before it gets repetitive? I agree that some of the examples shown above are uncanny likenesses.
I was accused of “copying” the design over at http://www.guitarangel.net a couple months ago. I admit that I used her design as inspiration, but that was all I used it for. I had a different color scheme, the fonts were different, the “curve” on the header was on the other side. My theme was more earthy and grassy, while hers is pink and gray and wispy. However, since “similar elements” were in play, a lot of people accused me of “copying.” Even though I wrote all my code myself, created all images myself, and didn’t “copy” anything.
Here’s one for ya:
http://flickr.com/photos/kineda/2738820159/
You know, some of these may be from one of those template stores.
Wow outright theft!, If your going to rip at least change abit so its no so obvious lol
Bad designer is copier, good desinger is stealer
I hate rip offs and this one is again a beautiful example.
original: http://deaxon.com/
copy: http://www.make-money-fast-online.com/
digg: http://digg.com/design/make_money_fast_online_com_are_theives
[...] A small collection of websites which is believed to be a rip offs of original websites. View more [...]
[...] En Elite by Design han creado una lista de sitios que han confundio la “inspiración” con “el robo parcial o total” del sitio que los inspiró. Es curioso ver, por ejemplo el sitio de Fiouret que copión casi al 100% el sitio Clear Left, les dejo aquí algunos ejemplos, pero pueden ver la lista completa en: Elite by Design: [...]
[...] Enlace: websites rip off [...]
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[...] ?urada konu ile ilgili çok güzel bir derleme yap?lm??. hangi tasar?mlar?n nerelerden, ne ?ekilde al?nd???n? görmek isteyenler inceleyebilir. i?lemin wordpress tema yönünün sistematik anlat?m? için de ?uraya bakabilirsiniz. “kötü tasar?mc? kopyalar, iyi tasar?mc? çalar” sözü bir nebze de olsa do?ru san?r?m. [...]
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