Comments on: Hey Google! Where’d you get that logo?

By: czesco

czesco — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:24:06 +0000

I'm totally against the blatant copying, as in the website example, but I have a problem with the idea that if there are common elements between two or more creations that is somehow 'wrong', as in the searchmash case. It's ridiculous to argue that anybody creates anything truly original ex nihilo. You see things and you take elements and twist them and mix them together with other ideas and create something new. People who create always are influenced and borrow from other works. You cannot copyright an idea, only an execution, and how much do you have to change something before it is a different object? I don't know the answer to that but I think it's dangerous for creativity to assume that any similarity is inherently 'wrong.' I will state, again, that I am totally against wholesale copying; that's not being creative, that's being a hack.

By: When logos look alike | Logo Design Love

When logos look alike | Logo Design Love — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:37:59 +0000

[...] Hey Google! Where’d you get that logo? On ideasonideas. [...]

By: Alan Stuart

Alan Stuart — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:03:26 +0000

amazing. you guys are good at finding crooks. fuck them, but you should be very flattered.

keep it up, the copy is never as good as the original, even if it is google.

-A

By: Daniel Schutzsmith

Daniel Schutzsmith — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:00:05 +0000

I agree with Jon, nothing gets under my skin more than when a designers website says something like they are extremely "ethical" and have great "attention to detail" only to realize that their whole site is just a template from Monster Templates, or worse, a rip-off from another designer's website.

Eric,
definitely the x-height is your ace card. its ways too similar. the probability of a designer making that x-hieght almost identical to yours AND having the same style of characters is probably a trillion to 1

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:35:53 +0000

I found one of my logos plagiarised last year after the piece had shown up on Digg in an article on Logo Design.

At first I was pretty pissed off...and then I resigned...and now I am a little flattered.

What pisses me off now is that idiots who would willingly plagiarise another designer's work for profit feel that they have any business in this business. While it's not uncommon to find companies (especially small ones) cribbing pretty heavily from successful designs, it's troubling that your examples are all supposed design professionals.

BTW - I totally think the searchMash logo is cribbed from yours. The X-Height and repeated syllable are too much of a coincidence.

By: Daniel Reeders

Daniel Reeders — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 06:51:17 +0000

The substance of your concern isn't that searchmash used a similar font, it's that they used a similar font with similar modifications to represent the same syllable in a LOGO.

Anyone who can't see how that's a problem probably shouldn't be reading this blog...

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:07:54 +0000

I am sure I saw very, very similar letter forms before you came up with your wordmark, but I would not go as far as implying you plagiarized them either.

The "violin master" website, of course, is a different thing altogether.

By: none

none — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:44:57 +0000

honestly, it just really looks like a large version of the hooge font found on miniml.com

By: Jess S.

Jess S. — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:26:34 +0000

Yep, tre, you're certainly right about the differences between patent/trademark and copyright infringement.

I definitely wasn't trying to imply that one might "lose ownership to that copyright..." My understanding, though, is that courts look to history of enforcement on infringement suits when rendering decisions.

Best,
J.

By: tre

tre — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:39:49 +0000

jess s.,

(disclaimer: i am not a lawyer, but here are my two bits anyway):

i believe what you are referring (in regards to actively defending your work) is trademark / patent law, not copyright.

the two are often confused. copyright is statutory and as erik remarked earlier, is attributed to the author as soon as a work is created. no statement of copyright is required; no court filing is required. the trick comes when an author seeks compensation for a violation of copyright law -- then you need proof (that can be a difficult task or some cases), but an author does not lose ownership to that copyright if they do not pursue legal action.

trademark / patent law, however, requires companies to actively seek out and protect those trademarks/patents through legal action. i am unsure why this is (but i know it is an integral part of the trademark / patent law) -- it's an unfortunate part of the law because it sends companies on ridiculous fishing expeditions (i.e. ludicrous patent suits for hyperlinking, docked palettes, embedding objects in web pages, etc.)

both laws are antiquated and definitely need revisiting -- but as far as i know, you don't lose your copyright if you don't pursue legal action.