Copycat Startups: When is it OK to Steal Ideas?
21.05.12
There are differing opinions in our field when it comes to the fine line between using a website or idea as inspiration and blatant copyright infringement.
Some feel that getting inspired by other designs and utilizing elements of them in your own is completely natural, even necessary. Others argue that copying anything, even a fairly generic layout structure, is copyright infringement.
No matter which side you’re on, you can’t help but notice copycats in almost every successful new web service or social network that launches. In many cases, the copycats out-innovate and eventually become market leaders. Facebook wasn’t the first social networking website … there was Friendster (which actually patented social networking), MySpace, and then Facebook.
More recently, Pinterest has come under the spotlight as an innovative way to bookmark, categorize and share ideas, photos, and links. As Pinterest grew in popularity, copycats like Pinspire and Clipix have popped up, with almost exactly the same layout and functionality. Pinspire and OpenPin.org are almost pixel-for-pixel clones of Pinterest — at least Clipix tried to come up with original graphics.
Source: SitePoint