Miles’ Blog » Design

Once again, only sixteen months after the last case, we’re faced with another website looking very familiar to our own.

This time, however, it only took 32 minutes from the legal letter being received, for the offending website to revert to a Coming Soon screen. Perhaps they heard about our last case, and how it ended up settling out of court?

Maybe the designer hadn’t read my previous post about the Basics of Copyright, however that’s no excuse. In this case it’s just laziness and a lack of ethics.

I’m being gentle here. I think it’s more a case of theft of our hard work and efforts and dilution of what makes our website different (especially since a competitor web company pointed it out to us). I’m being so gentle, that I’m not even linking to the offending website yet, and I am reasonably sure the grabs above aren’t enough to give it away.

So, why be gentle at all? Well, the fact is the client may have made the reasonable assumption that they had engaged a professional web company. By outing the website in question, all I am doing is pointing the finger at the client and not their supplier(s).

It doesn’t help that their web company has let their hosting lapse, so I can’t link to them. However, I will await feedback from the client, and will let you know in due course.

A spokesperson for the web company are saying that they were just ‘handed a design’, so where does the fault lie? Certainly not the client, it’s not their responsibility to visit every page on the internet to ensure it doesn’t match anyone else’s, however things certainly become less obvious when we look at the web company.

The supplier to the client, in this case a web company, has a duty of care that they’ve made sure all their designers, contractor or not, have a reasonable understanding of what design theft is and isn’t, and that they ensure they only employ designers with a reasonable professional understanding.

So, what could a client do? I’d suggest asking that all contracts state that the suppliers have taken all reasonable precaution to ensure that all imagery, photography and design elements are properly licensed. They could ask to see these licenses (a big ask), or indeed ask if the web company has professional indemnity insurance, and if so, does it cover copyright infringements.

Meg over at Blogpond has a great post about Blogging and Plagiarism, which is also worth a read.

I’ll let you know the outcomes of this case over the coming weeks.

Image: Screengrabs from Bam Creative website and similar designed site.

As many of you may know, my wife Meredith, is not only a prolific blogger and fantastic mother, she also designs jewellery and sells it both in Perth galleries as well as online via Etsy.

Recently, she started going under the moniker of her new label, Captain Oh Captain, and combined her fascination in old sea tales of yesteryear and her joy of creating necklaces and other jewellery.

So this post is a thinly disguised excuse to promote her great work, and link to her site as well as throw a big mention to MOO and their great MOO Minicards (as shown above).

Embrace great design - go forth and buy some great Australian jewellery and then some nifty Moo Minicards!

Image: MOO Minicards for Captain Oh Captain.

If you are like most designers, sometimes it seems just hard to get started every day, chock full of fresh design ideas, without falling into a designer rut of producing the same look over and over.

We’re lucky as web designers, that there are a stack of resources at hand, on the web, that can help us overcome these moments. Here’s fifty websites that I know of.

My top five most visited:

• Design Interact
• Cool Homepages
• Linkd Up
• StyleGala
• CSS Zen Garden

More gallery style sites to point your eyes towards (in no particular order):

• CSS Import
• Unmatched Style
• Absorb (New Zealand)
• CSS Vault
• Inspiration King
• W3C Sites
• Design Shack
• CSS Drive
• The Best Designs
• Style Boost
• CSS Remix
• Darkeye
• Design Snack
• Web Creme
• Res72
• Pagina In Valida (brasil)
• Kaliber10000
• Digital Thread
• Cool Websites
• Plastic Pilots
• Screen Spire
• Best Web Gallery
• CSS Beauty
• Digital Refueler
• CSS Bloom
• May 1 Reboot (annual event)
• CSS Heaven
• Be Inspired (in Russian)
• CSS Love
• HOW Design

…and some designer magazines:

• Net Diver
• Lounge72
• Style Gala
• A List Apart (design and development)

Then there’s a few design ‘portals’:

• AustralianINFront (Australian)
• Design is Kinky
• Pixel Surgeon
• computer love
• 5oup (for students)

And finally, some design forums to finish off the list:

• Designers Talk
• YayHooray!
• Port80 forums (OK, so I am biased)
• AustralianINFront forums
• SitePoint forums
• forums4designers

Now, if you spend 15 minutes every morning visiting just some random offerings from the list above, I guarantee you’ll refresh your inspiration. Good luck and great designing!

Image: Motel, Swan View, WA.

My most popular post from a while ago, which included the Web2.0 Colour Palette, was all in jest however it also hinted on something I used to do when I spent most of my time designing for web and print.

I have been known to scan leaves and plants, and photograph interesting colours and colour combinations in nature and packaging and my surroundings, in order to use them in my print and website designs.

Well, I took over a hundred photographs of graffiti along a wall which runs next to Tonkin Highway, Perth today, and thought what a great subject to do some colour analysis.

So, with little fanfare, fresh off the walls of Perth, here are the Colours of Graffiti 2006, a 43kb JPG file with approximately 70 colours to get your creative juices flowing. Let me know if you use it for a design, I’d be keen to see the end result!

Image: Spraycan in front of Graffiti, Perth, WA.

Since having previously posted about our recent issue with someone borrowing the Bam Creative website design and code, I have had a number of emails and questions relating to copyright. Being the business geek I am, I knew much of this already, but here’s the results of my research, which you may find worth reading.

Note: this is NOT legal advice, and deals specifically with Australian copyright law only. Do not treat this post as gospel; if in doubt, please speak to a lawyer.

THE BASICS OF COPYRIGHT

Copyright Law in Australia basically covers creative works. So, if your work involves elements such as;

1. Written material (articles, blog posts, etc)
2. Musical works and sound recordings (musical scores, songs, etc)
3. Dramatic works and film (plays, film, TV, etc)
4. Artistic works (graphic design illustration, etc)

…then your work is covered by Copyright under Australian law. Yes, that’s right – unlike some other countries, copyright in Australia is automatic upon the production of an original work, and it’s free.

The moment you create your work it is automatically protected by copyright, which normally lasts until seventy years after the death of the creator (you).

It is also interesting to note, that the law does NOT actually require a copyright notice of any form. That means although that funky little copyright symbol in the footer of your website is there, and you say in your source code that everything is copyright, it is not really needed.

Not that I think it’s a bad idea to remind people of their obligations, and your rights as a creator. If possible, try to always insert a copyright notice, or at least, the copyright symbol, in your website or documents.

THE TRICKY THING ABOUT CLIENTS AND CREATORS…

The problem with the copyright law is that unless there’s been a specific legal agreement between the creator (website designer/developer, photographer, illustrator, etc) and the person or organization paying for the work (the client), then you’ll find that normally the creator is the owner of the copyright, and not the client.

The client may have the right to use it in the ways that have been agreed, but if there’s no express or implied agreement, it’s going to be hard to not favour the creator.

Moral of this is as a client, always ensure you have a written agreement with your creative suppliers about who owns the copyright at the end of the project, and even who has the responsibility for checking copyright on third party elements, such as supplied photographs for a website, presentation, etc.

DEALING WITH PLAGIARISM

So, your website ends up getting copied, or at least a large element of it does; what should you do? There are a few approaches you could follow; it’s really up to you.

Firstly, before starting any of these approaches, you should take a backup copy of the infringing material. You should also try and discover when this material was published, and check that against your own published works dates.

Then you should research who the offender is – do a domain name whois, run a company or business name search, or even call them and ask for their details.

Once you have the evidence, have the details of the other party and are sure of your facts, you could do one (or more) of the following;

1. Make contact with the infringer and ask that they stop.
2. Contact the hosting company or ISP and have them remove the content
3. Speak to a lawyer or legal firm

Number one is a cop out in my opinion – all that achieves is setting the precedent to allow people to rip off your work until you notice, and then you’ll ask them politely to remove it. Number two in my opinion isn’t much better.

I had a chat with a trademark lawyer a few months back, and when I mentioned I had ignored people who were very close to infringing our trademark, she rightly asked why I bothered to pay for the protection, if I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I see copyright and creative works the same way.

Should you choose number three, your lawyer will advise you with a few scenarios. Some are fairly cheap (well, a few thousand is cheap for a legal bill) and others less so (let’s say BIG figures for BIG cases that go to trial).

What you do from here is totally up to your own personal judgement – ask yourself what effect or damage the copyright infringement may have caused you or your business, and then weigh that against what chances your lawyer believes you have and who the offender is.

You may be able to settle out of court or even just accept assurances that the other party has dealt with the issue. You may also want to follow through with court – just ensure you listen to your lawyer, that’s what you are paying them for.

NEED FURTHER INFORMATION?

Some good local websites to research a bit more about copyright, would be
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) and the Australian Copyright Council, both of whom offer fact sheets on their websites.

You can also call your state based law society, who would be able to put you in touch with a lawyer who specialises in the copyright area.

Image: Copyright symbol.