

Over 20 designers have copied my website and I don't mind - dunny105
http://www.adhamdannaway.com/blog/web-design/imitation-truly-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery

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enigmango
I found it interesting that three images were commented out of the article:

[http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/desi...](http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/designer-coder-20.jpg)

[http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/desi...](http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/designer-coder-21.jpg)

[http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/desi...](http://www.adhamdannaway.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/designer-coder-22.jpg)

I can only guess why they weren't included, but it does seem like they're less
blatant rip-offs than the others.

~~~
lstamour
The "touch of" is pretty revealing though, in the copy for the "coder"
sections of the first and third.

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SrslyJosh
I wouldn't be very happy if I hired a designer based partly on his website and
then found out that he copied the design.

Just sayin'.

~~~
crystaln
Exactly. While it may be flattering to be copied, rote copying by a designer
for what is presumed to be a demonstration of creativity is not acceptable.

Some of these are perfectly reasonable adaptations, others are quite close to
duplicates.

~~~
coralreef
With enough time, I'm sure we could uncover art with the exact same design
style that was created prior to his website.

~~~
crystaln
That seems highly unlikely, unless he plagiarized himself. You might find
something similar, but unlikely a split face with similar styling, the
designer/code split, etc.

~~~
inDigiNeous
Everything is a remix. Everything we do is based on something we have seen
somewhere, how else could we do it ? Hardly anything is original, creativity
is just the process of knowing how to mix things in a creative way to create
something seemingly new.

~~~
coldtea
> _Everything is a remix._

Yeah, not really. There are traces from previous works and influences in
anything, but this is not it.

This is not the Beatles being influenced from Buddy Holy, Elvis, Little
Richard, and co in their early records.

This is like the Monkeys. Or the 20th cookie cutter R&B outfit.

And of course the Beatles went and did stuff that nobody else has done at the
time with Revolver and Stg Peppers et al. And Velvet Underground. And
Kraftwerk. And tons of others.

> _creativity is just the process of knowing how to mix things in a creative
> way to create something seemingly new._

Well, then the examples in this website is the total opposite of it.

~~~
vonseel
Musically I'd say it's like sampling a classic hit and getting rich off
someone else's hook.

------
austinz
I like how, out of the 20 examples, 10 of them essentially copied the HTML
snippet in the 'Coder' section of the 2012 image. Most of them even left the
"jedi" div intact.

On the other hand, only 6 of the examples copied the yellow-blue-pink splotch
motif from the 'Designer' section.

(These don't have any meaning in the bigger scheme of things; they're just
statistics that amused me.)

------
nyolfen
he does mind, which is why he posted this; he's staking original ownership on
this design in a humble way

~~~
klez
I remember, back in 2008, I directly asked him if I could make something like
his page and showed him a screenshot of my version.

Mine had a keyboard and a pencil instead of my face.

He said to go ahead. At the end I didn't, but that's a different story.

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shangxiao
What I find amusing is the fact that quite a few people didn't even bother to
change the designer blurb, which to me suggests they know absolutely f all
about design and hints at why they find it necessary to copy in the first
place.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Hell, a lot of them didn’t even change the face on the “designer” side! It
doesn’t look like them at all, and doesn’t line up with the altered “coder”
side.

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jorjordandan
My favourite part is the people who imitated the facial expression. Like they
saw the site and thought, "Nothing says good web designer like mouth scrunched
off to the side"

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ionwake
It feels like maybe your site was ripped off and placed on a "free" templates
site, where upon others copied it?

I mean I could be wrong, it just might explain the high number of rip offs.

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usaphp
I wonder why most of those who copied his website are Indians

~~~
Kaligule
Filterbubbles perhaps? I never saw a website like this before. But he says he
was featured a couple of times, so maybe the website was famous on some
communities, but seldom seen on others.

~~~
thewarrior
That's not the real reason. There's no shame here in copying even if it's a
total ripoff.

We copy assignments,lab reports,project work , designs , everything. We get
the job done.

Originality ? Who gives a shit.

~~~
galfarragem
Everyone that has intellectual honesty and wants to feel pride of himself.

You are just saying that intellectual property worths zero. I wonder if
somebody wants to travel somewhere and to make it more easy to accomplish, he
steals your car. "Who gives a shit", "he got the job done", he is on his way!
You worked your ass off to buy it but that's not important.

If everybody would be behaving like this what world would we get? Soon there
would be nobody to copy and all the world would be like Asia.

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eoger
Looks a lot like a Mercedes Benz ad I saw the other day :
[http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/mercedes_benz_left_brai...](http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/mercedes_benz_left_brain_right_brain_paint)

~~~
stevenjohns
That left brain/right brain design has been done to death:
[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=left+brain+right+brain...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=left+brain+right+brain&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X)

------
Thiz
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

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malkia
I'm wondering how you've found about them?

~~~
MildlySerious
"Over the years, people have informed me of websites that they felt looked
similar to mine."

------
ricardonunez
A while back I got really annoyed when two of my competitors copied the
buttons, pricing table and the content of two of my websites. This guy is
handling it well. I understand getting some inspiration, but copying the whole
thing is just too much. They are "designers".

~~~
ChrisGranger
I found one especially ironic, where the guy has the nerve to call himself a
"Creative Visionary"... He must be capable of some impressive doublethink if
he's not just outright lying to his clients.

~~~
ricardonunez
I'm with you. I'm sure his results are the size of his creative vision.

------
sadlyNess
Related: On that left-brain right-brain roles split(it's not really that way):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8989685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8989685)

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leadjoint
I wonder if there is a free Wordpress theme out yet based on this design..

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notfoss
I have always felt that a lot of designers tend to copy stuff. But then again,
perhaps coders copy code too. I guess, it's just easier to spot copied designs
than copied code.

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pacomerh
If you didn't mind you wouldn't have posted all the other copies ;) It's
alright to mind, and it's alright to complain sometimes

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zubairq
Great to read this. I admit, I pretty much copied you too:

[http://www.zubairquraishi.com/](http://www.zubairquraishi.com/)

:)

~~~
demarq
Since you only copied the navigation menu and you don't claim to be a
designer, I think you fall under the category of inspired rather than copy cat
:)

~~~
zubairq
Ah, ok, well thanks for the inspiration! :)

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BhavdeepSethi
Is there a way to fingerprint the code in such a way that it's quite difficult
to detect/remove but easy to trace?

~~~
jrochkind1
No. But you can just diff the code and see it's XX% the exact same code.

~~~
shangxiao
Sure you could, if the code is complex enough you would hide dead code acting
as a signature, which would be somewhat analogous to mapmakers inserting false
towns in their maps [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street)

~~~
BhavdeepSethi
This is what I was looking for. It seems like a common copyright problem in
bunch of applications.

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zerr
Do these kind of personal sites help in finding/attracting leads? (for
programmers)

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allendoerfer
All those Wordpress coders, who focus on clean, elegant and efficient code …

~~~
paulojreis
... with a touch of CMS and jQuery! :)

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vonseel
Guess it's time to design yourself a new website.

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skimmas
the multiplication of mediocrity miracle

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joyofdata
#humblebrag

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ypeterholmes
Repost.. jk

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NewsReader42
Let's hope they made theirs faster than yours because your website is
painfully slow.

