>How serious is layout theft really anyway? <P>
I think the problem lies in that he's selling himself as an interface designer, but he stole someone else's interface.

Kharma will take care of all of it.

I once had a drunken idiot fall asleep on my rug and piss himself. The rug got $50 to clean, but after we got it back we *FOUND* an awesome wall clock that would have cost $100.

Kharma. Bank on it.

I bet there are damages involved here. After all, if they're in the same business and the coldjazz guy was using Hudson's design to fraudently plug his services then he was in affect stealing work from Hudson. Times are tough, nobody can afford to have work stolen from them. If I were Hudson I'd sue the coldjazz creep under the DMCA.

Cool. I've been looking for a new site design. Thanks!

This is the beauty of internet. Copy code you couldn't write yourself, learn from others.

The copying guy is probably worth the money. He works fast with that method.

Cooljazz is as authentic as his Kenny G-esque name implies. A fucking half-assed hack. Does he expect nobody to notice the discrepancy between his Portfolio Site, and his actual "Design Portfolio?"
Take a look at the shoddy work he's produced, and the truth is plain as day.
Oh, and to the schmucks that draw the analogy between stealing design/layout/UI, and pirating music. What "cooljazz" has done is akin to taking a Kenny G song, and without even re-recording it putting your name on it, and selling it (for money) as your own. It's a totally different story, you morons. You probably listen to Kenny G, too.

A quote from the great Bruce Mau:

35. Imitate. Don't be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the seperation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look at Richard Hamilton and his version of Duchamp's Large Glass to see how rich, discredited and underused imitation is as a technique.

Christ, he's still rendering glass spheres on checkerboard.
I don't think he's a threat to the design community.

> rendering glass spheres on checkerboard

It's so SIGGRAPH 1986.

too funny. he should get a new domain "coldbusted.com"

p.s. that kenny g rant was actual LOL material, thanks.

layout theft? haha. This hack went too far, but come on, the entire online/offline publishing world is all about appropriating layout ideas.

i'm not saying this guy didn't push it, but hudson is so full of hot air its unbelievable.

Appropriating layout ideas is one thing, but stealing the code and design lock, stock and barrel- then passing it off as your own? That's more than "pushing it"...it's fraud. At the least the guy could have modified some of the tags so it wasn't TOO obvious he riped the whole thing off. I'd be bent, too.

Marcad, the entire publishing world is not about the wholesale appropriation of others' work. Not every thief gets caught every time, but that's another matter. The designer has every right to be irate. Did you look closely? Those weren't just "layout ideas" that were swiped; it was the entire design of the site plus all its supporting code.

If good design were easy, there'd be more of it. There's a lot of first-rate design work wrapped up in that website. The designer has been ripped off. It's theft.

Edited by author 03-13-2003 12:04 AM
But what can you do about it? Nothing. I used to work for a company called Ipswitch Inc. When we were in the process of redesigning the corporate site (when it was still in beta) someone at our competitor (GlobalSCAPE) stole the site design. The exec's were pissed, but we could not sue them, because the web is a free medium. You can steal anything you want with basically no repercussions. So now GlobalSCAPE has a similar layout to Ipswitch (most of the code is the same).

This was for one of their OLD sites, not their current one.

Russell, if it's copyrighted, and they actually copy non-trivial chunks of your content (as opposed to just imitating the general appearance) you _can_ sue them.

The web is just like traditional media that way. However, general appearance is _not_ protected by copyright, on the web _or_ in print. Now, if you register some aspect of your site design as a trademark, and a competitor copies that part of the design, you'd have a pretty good claim that they were trying to confuse your customers, and again, you could sue them. For example, I believe UPS has claimed that a brown truck is a trademark of theirs, and any delivery company whose trucks look too much like UPS trucks is trying to steal their trademark.

Ha! That is BAD. But, it's not like an "UI Designer" with
"Expertise with graphics programs Adobe Photoshop 6 and ImageReady 3. Expertise in image optimization and cross-browser compatability. Strong familiarity with QuarkXPress 4 and Macromedia Director 8 and Flash 5 and Adobe Illustrator 8. Strong organizational and marketing skills; proficiency in systematizing complex work environments. Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously and quickly grasp new concepts. Familiarity with Windows, UNIX, and Macintosh environments."
Has much hope of finding any sort of job nowadays, any way.