Few days ago I discovered incoming link to my blog from a Russian blog called Seo-Study. That is not interesting by itself, but when I visited this site earlier today I had something to see. Although this design was featured on various sites, it has passed no more than two weeks since this blog was lunched, so I suppose this is first rip-off. What do you think?
I don’t understand Russian, so if someone could translate what they are saying, please be so kind. At our company Omnicron, we had a few rip-offs, but nothing of this kind (and they even copyrighted the design :) and there is still my own about picture - this is really scary). Is this a rip-off?
Important update
Now is 16:50 (approximately) and as I can see, this site is now password protected. To see what am I talking about, I prepared a screenshot (I recreated the screenshot from my saved page). Take a look.
Rip off - Seo-Study
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 @ 16:38
He,
i came arround from CSSMania.com and this is not a rippoff… but why looks the author of the russian site like you? ;)
Anyway i think it’s an indication of your creative work.
BTW… well done site. Good Job!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 @ 21:43
Thanks Steffen on your comment. Off course the author likes me, that is obvious :). I can see that this rip off is back and running, and since I discovered it there was some changes, but logo is still the same, don’t you think?
And here is a description of a site that was mentioned to me on MintPages.net forum:
take your blog
flip it horizontally
change the fruit
and you get
http://www.nmediagroup.co.uk/blogs/ilovedesign/
I don’t think this is a rip off too, but it’s very close.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 @ 23:06
No problem!
1st: The logo is absolutely the same. No changes, ok the typeface is not yours. But who cares? And who speaks already Russian or can read it ;)
2nd: A ripoff too.
To get Inspiration is ok. But to steal some ideas … i don’t know?! Feelin lucky it’s your work and your idea!
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 @ 19:39
Well, I know I should be furious, and in the matter of speaking I am, but because this two are the first copies of my site, it’s a bit entertaining. Not only because the first (Russian) guy password protected the whole site when he/she discovered incoming links from this domain, but because I have the incoming link from his site (and in the first place (take a look at the screenshot) he used my ‘about’ picture as well :). He has to like me :) he,he
Thursday, January 04, 2007 @ 22:37
Wow… total rip off of your design. You can always send a threatening letter from a lawyer who knows about this sort of issue (I was responsible for writing up a lot of those letters in my previous job, so I know about them quite well) and see whether that gets you anywhere. Thing is, I’m not sure Russian law protects international copyrights, or if it does protect it, how fervently they go after violations. (If AllofMP3 is an indication, not very.)
Good luck with this, and sorry to hear your design (and logo) have been ripped. That aside, beautiful site, though I gotta give it to the russian site: russian blondes in tank tops are much more… interesting… to look at than grapes.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 @ 9:44
@Gnorb: As I said earlier, this russian rip-off is very funny to me. Maybe in real-life situation I will threaten a little, but this is so obvious rip-off, it’s not worth it.
And maybe I will remove the grapes. Who knows? Shortly :)
Friday, January 19, 2007 @ 13:48
I feel that this is a ripoff. The logo, the background and the concept is a ripoff.
Rippers isn’t easy to deal with sometimes, I hope it works out for you.
Good luck with it man.
Friday, January 19, 2007 @ 14:22
@Alexander: Yes, it’s obvious ripoff, and I didn’t kicked no asses lately :)