Whilst (afaik) unrelated to the DCMA claim at hand, it is possible to trademark a specific colour, with plenty of examples at [1], and there have been controversial suits over 'infringement' in the past. My recollection is that colour trademarks are much more restrictive in their coverage than other forms, although I may be wrong there.
Edit: Emphasise the trademark-ability, not copyright-ability, of particular colours/palettes.
> Trademark infringement and copyright infringement are different things.
Yes, I'm aware of that, and have edited original comment emphasise it. I had vaguely thought there was some provision in the DMCA for remedies for other types of IP infringement as well as copyright, but haven't really looked into it that much. Then again, given how much easier it is to (potentially) infringe some trademarks, the severity of the remedy (immediate takedown, with perhaps later return) does seem like overkill.
I wasn't arguing that it was easy, merely possible. The examples all do seem to be large companies with significant legal budgets and generally strong or exclusive brands though, which does indicate it being quite rare.
Maybe if you compare them side by side, I don't know. When I first saw UI Kit however I immediately thought LayerVault had 'open sourced' their design as it looked so similar. I later learned the kit was created by a 3rd party.
Am I understanding this right; that LayerVault is trying to claim that they are the sole owners of the flat UI trend? I'm sorry Allan, I've been a fan of yours since before LayerVault was even launched, but this is really low. And if I'm remembering correctly, this isn't the first time you guys have harassed someone about using "your" aesthetic.
What he said is that he is "the exclusive rights holder for the artwork contained within Flat UI". Presumably he's referring to Flat UI the UI Kit, not Flat UI the general trend.
Well, that remains to be seen. Looking at both websites, it's difficult to tell what they are talking about. Flat-UI doesn't seem to have any assets that mirror anything on LayerVault's. They need to be more specific.
> Flat-UI doesn't seem to have any assets that mirror anything on LayerVault's.
I would say that is the issue in a nutshell. LayerVault is claiming they are the exclusive rights-holders, yet absolutely nothing in Flat-UI is the same as anything on LayerVault's public site.
The only possible angle remaining would be if LayerVault had a bunch of these elements behind their paywall... something tells me that's not the case.
Edit: Alright, I admit the colour Turquoise is used on both pages. Still, I'm fairly confident turquoise boxes (of differing shapes!) are not copyrightable.
It's not about the flat UI trend. If you look at Layervault, their design is really unique and top notch. Flat UI-framework is heavily inspired by Layervault's design. There's no doubt about it. Same roundings, paddings, pastel color scheme, etc. They look visually extremely similar.
LayerVault is obviously pissed that a design similar to their unique design will be used by amateur Bootstrappers all over the web.
I think we're all upset more about the attitude and approach of how LV went about this.
You can't patent Colors / Helvetica Neue / Rounded Corner Squares. It just reeks of tactics similar to patent trolls.
I think a while back there was blog theme used that was similar to Svbtle, but there was no take down notice or such nonsense. It generated a decent discussion and conversations about something that's too close in style.
Look at @layervault on Twitter, they are just getting destroyed right now. Even by designers, their main target audience.
If they went along the lines like 'Hey, this is pretty similar to our design. We think it's cool we inspired you but can you deviate it from us a bit more or re-name the project to like Layervault Bootstrap?' I mean why not - have your name in the same conversation as Twitter Bootstrap!
I really really like LayerVault's style a lot and there's no doubt that Flat-UI is influenced by it, but it's not as if LV created this in a vaccuum. Dribbble (which is my main way of watching design trends) has had this stuff pretty common over the past three years.
They look visually similar. As well as dozens of other pieces/sites.
It's unique and top-notch if you live in the bubble LV seems to think people do; even Google's been using a similar approach for a few years now as they focus more on design. They also got on the defensive recently regarding Pixelapse; a product that essentially does the same thing LV does (but better in a few regards), citing that the concept for a "Github for designers" was "stolen" and using screenshots to compare the two, which were both basically Dropbox's sync/manage drop-down.
Allan says Designmodo was not being cooperative in emails on the issue, and I think that's the point where you take it to a blog post with examples of the case you're trying to make, rather than forcing Github to shut down an entire project that goes outside of just the illustrations in question.
Their approach seems less about actually proving their worth by focusing on their product and ignoring outside "competition", and more about trying to shut down those that they feel are a threat to them. Not sure what exactly that says about them or the confidence they have in their own product, but it's a bad attitude to have towards innovation and inspiration.
Agreed. Imagine if LayerVault had taken a more transparent and community oriented approach and said: hey guys, the flat gui project is really cool and we're delighted that it got inspired by our stuff, namely x, y, z (comparison screenshots).
Without some extraordinary explanation by Layer Vault detailing an actual theft of files or copying of their actual work, it sounds like Layer Vault just did a major scumbag move that harms designers everywhere.
And that's a shame because I like Layer Vault a lot.
Can someone please summarize for those of us not plugged in to the web UI framework (or whatever this is) community? I'm seeing entities like "LayerVault" and "Flat UI" and products (?) named "trend" that I've never heard of.
Is this an abuse of process I should actually care about or is it just a "who did what?" spit between estranged developers?
Flat UI (http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/) in an open source project along the same lines as Twitter Bootstrap. or another bootstrappable interface framework.
LayerVault (https://layervault.com/) are a company that provide a version control system for design work.
Thanks. This isn't directed at you personally, more at the community mindpool:
And did Flat UI derive artwork from LayerVault? Is there a connection between the developers? Did they work with the same artist? Certainly some of the icons on the two sites look similar, though I don't see any obvious duplication.
A critically important step in any hot blooded DMCA freakout is verifying whether or not infringement took place. The letter (frustratingly) doesn't point to any specifics but it does at least allege infringement. I can't find a clear denial in the linked thread. So again: should I be upset about this?
I don't have the answers to these questions, but I'm happy I'm not the only one that wants these answered before I jump to conclusions and bash LayerFaul OR the Flat UI people.
To add some context, LayerVault posted a blog post outlining "The Flat Design Era"[1]. While the term has been used before in various context, to me, the post seemed to ignite a lot of discussion in the tech/design community about flat design (and by relation, skeumorphs, etc.,)
LayerVault is a vocal proponent of the "Flat UI" approach and uses it almost as a signature look and feel for their product. In the follow up discussions, the blog post author has said that no post or discussion fully understands what he meant [2].
I can't read the takedown letter or discussion where I am (for some reason github is blocked). But based on what I've seen, the kit is similar to LayerVault's approach to employing Flat UI. That combined with the blogpost, I wouldn't be surprised if LayerVault felt that their look and feel was infringed upon. Obviously, this doesn't mean that they actually were infringed upon in the eye of the law, even if the kit was derived from LayerVault.
As a designer, I can sympathize with LayerVault's issue with the kit (I'm making assumptions), but with such a design, I really wonder how valid their complaint is within the law.
They're just claming to be the owners of the style, colors of his work. Meaning you cannot do something with Avenir and Helvetica font, combined with non-glassy graphycs. Something totally absurd, like saying I cannot make a framework inspired on X design movement.
They're not claiming to own the style or colours, they're claiming that some of illustrations used in FlatUI are illustrations that LayerVault owns the copyright to.
Right. And doing it in a vague way (not specifying WHICH illustrations they supposedly own the copyright to). Most of us who have looked at the illustrations side-by-side see their claim of owning copyright to be unfounded, for lots of reasons:
1) None of the illustrations in Flat UI are identical to LayerVault's illustrations. Derived works? Maybe. But under the law, that's okay.
2) Looking at illustrations from the Noun Project, and color palettes from Google and elsewhere, we see the same similarities that we do between LayerVault and Flat UI. If Flat UI is guilty of copyright infringement as LayerVault asserts, then LayerVault is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement from elsewhere.
3) Copyright isn't even the right legal vehicle for this debate. LayerVault could conceivably deem its icons to be trademarks, and show a likelihood of confusion when compared to Flat UI's icons. But LV using an icon set as a trademark would be unprecedented, and difficult to argue. (And even if that were the case, the Noun Project could just as easily claim LV infringed on their trademark.)
Overall, if LayerVault is claiming they own the copyright to illustrations used in Flat UI, they're flat-out wrong. And that's where the problem comes in - filing a fraudulent DMCA notice is bad business.
This appears to be an abuse of process from LayerVault.
They have a design in a style that's not quite originally theirs-- they've seemingly abused the DMCA to have github remove a completely unrelated UI kit in the same style.
Flat UI has (seemingly) been designed and developed completely independently, having nothing to do with LayerVault. No artwork is derived, based-upon, designed by the same artist, etc.
You should care about this because the process is biased towards the accuser. Given no chance to rebut, Flat UI is removed, and disabled. Despite providing his side of the story in the commit comments https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/735e17614cca63102b8414..., the author now has to write a formal counter-takedown notification, and the repository will still be offline for up to 10 days (https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown)
Furthermore, 'designers' and HN users should care because LayerVault runs a 'Hacker News' for designers at https://news.layervault.com/. LayerVault is not the right entity to run this site after these DMCA shenanigans (if in fact no infringement has taken place).
The rebuttal is a DMCA Counter-Notification. They're easy to write and just asset that you do in fact own the copyright, or are otherwise authorised the use the materials that the DMCA notice referred to. Once that's been done, the host has to restore the removed content within a certain time period and the issuers of the original notice have to take action directly against you (as in sue you) if they want to pursue the issue further.
Before we start yelling about "abuse of process" though, we might want to wait for more information about what's actually going on here. It would hardly be the first time one small company has used another company's assets without permission, so perhaps we should see what LayerVault has to say before getting so worked up.
LayerVault has posted details on what they felt was infringing and appears to misunderstand (willfully or otherwise) the purpose of a DMCA notice. There is no evidence that artwork identical to that of LayerVault has been used in FlatUI. While some artwork is similar, that is another issue entirely, an issue outside that of the DMCA.
Yesterday, somebody posted a toolkit [0] on Github Pages consisting of a color pallette and some UI elements that are basically "flat" -- no gradients, drop shadows, etc, just color and shape.
Today, LayerVault [1], a company that makes 'github for designers,' sent a DCMA github a DCMA Takedown Notice [2], claiming that they own the exclusive rights to "the artwork contained within Flat UI."
The creators of Flat UI are disputing this in the linked comment thread, but we do not know if they've actually sent a DCMA Counter-Notification [3].
Incidentally, Flat UI's page probably did violate somebody's copyright, but not necessarily LayerVault's. No, they used part of Big Buck Bunny [4] without proper attribution [5] under its Creative Commons license [7].
Thank you. I had the github page open for 2 days, but hadn't cloned the repo, then found out it was DMCA'd! I've been hunting around looking for someone who had mirrored it.
For those who are unfamiliar with DMCA notices, in short:
1. Content Provider Receives DMCA
2. Content Provider must act 'expeditiously' to remove content which is claimed to be infringing
3. Individual has an opportunity to submit a counter notification to their content provider, in which case the content can be reinstated after 10 business days regardless of the other parties claims. (Unless an injunction is obtained.)
4. Any further action is only by legal means (court injunction)
EDIT: After rereading your question, I'm assuming you're referring to a situation similar to my third example scenario, that might best address it.
Generally:
- If the content provider is outside of the United States, DMCA is not valid whatsoever. However, some organizations, especially in English speaking countries, will honor it simply as a notice of infringement.
- If the individual sending the complaint is outside the United States, but the content provider is within the US, usually the content provider will cooperate anyway to protect themselves from legal obligation under Safe Harbor provisions.
- If the end user receiving the complaint is outside the United States and the content provider is within the US then the content provider should still honor the counter notice and would be covered by Safe Harbor provisions. I'm not sure on the specifics of this, however you must at minimum consent to the jurisdiction of US Federal Law for any further actions.
For the most part, the content provider / hosting company will do what is in their best interest to legally safeguard themselves, with little regard for end user rights. Generally speaking, the larger the company the moreso this applies.
Github seems like a reasonable organization, and if you submit a counter notification in valid format they should act accordingly.
While unrelated to this issue specifically, something which is interesting to note is that in a several year old paper from Vanderbilt University, they specifically mention a provision dealing with enforcing the DMCA on foreign websites. While this provision has never been used to my knowledge it does exist and is quite scary considering the implications:
While direct action against a foreign site is not possible in U.S.
courts, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) allows courts
to order the blocking of infringing sites. Section 512(j)(1)(B)(ii) (the
“Foreign Site Provision”) permits an order to restrain an Internet
service provider (“ISP”) from providing access to a “specific, identified,
online location outside the United States.” Therefore this provision,
with some limitations, may be used to block U.S. access to infringing
foreign sites.
Re #3, the reinstatement must occur no sooner than 10 days from receiving the counternotice. It's not immediate. This gives the other party time to go to court for an injunction before the content goes back online.
Even Apple didn't even go after others when rounded corners, glassy/glossy, gradient buttons was the trend. (Yes, Apple didn't invent those, just as LV didn't invent flat UI or the art work - which btw, is just a flat color. Glad Pantone isn't going around with LV's mentality.)
Apple does go after other designs that are similar to theirs, but (big BUT), they don't use DMCA unless there was an actual copy of their artwork/software. They file an injunction with a judge to stop sales of the product and/or sue them in civil court.
Of course it is. A DMCA take down has people look at their content and download it. Any reasonably good business person would be able to twist this into sales.
Ignoring the colour (red on white VS white on blue) and the distressing of the Debian logo vs the cleanness of the designmodo logo there's the opening of the spiral - Debian curve starts at 6 o clock, while designmodo starts at 4:30 or 5 o clock. And the inside of the Debian loop goes further.
Apparently, the notices say "under penalty of perjury", but at the very least you should be able to sue abusers civilly. I'm just not sure that is a great recourse for open source.
DMCA needs reform on this. There needs to be scale of fines for parties that issue takedowns based upon false copyright claims.
The part that's "under penalty of perjury" is only the statement that you are authorized to act on behalf of a copyright holder, not that your claims are true.
The actual content holder, and the content provider are then eligible to counter-sue whomever filed the false takedown notice, applicable examples of this include:
The only thing that is not completely generic imo is the color scheme FlatUI picked, which is similar to the scheme on LayerVault. But it's not exactly the same (I checked, everything is quite close though). Don't think something like that warrants an action like this at all.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 215 ms ] threadEdit: Emphasise the trademark-ability, not copyright-ability, of particular colours/palettes.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/colors-that-are-trademarked-2...
Plus, it is actually fairly difficult to trademark a color.
Yes, I'm aware of that, and have edited original comment emphasise it. I had vaguely thought there was some provision in the DMCA for remedies for other types of IP infringement as well as copyright, but haven't really looked into it that much. Then again, given how much easier it is to (potentially) infringe some trademarks, the severity of the remedy (immediate takedown, with perhaps later return) does seem like overkill.
I wasn't arguing that it was easy, merely possible. The examples all do seem to be large companies with significant legal budgets and generally strong or exclusive brands though, which does indicate it being quite rare.
All of their assets were created in-house by DesginModo's designers..
I would say that is the issue in a nutshell. LayerVault is claiming they are the exclusive rights-holders, yet absolutely nothing in Flat-UI is the same as anything on LayerVault's public site.
The only possible angle remaining would be if LayerVault had a bunch of these elements behind their paywall... something tells me that's not the case.
Edit: Alright, I admit the colour Turquoise is used on both pages. Still, I'm fairly confident turquoise boxes (of differing shapes!) are not copyrightable.
LayerVault is obviously pissed that a design similar to their unique design will be used by amateur Bootstrappers all over the web.
You can't patent Colors / Helvetica Neue / Rounded Corner Squares. It just reeks of tactics similar to patent trolls.
I think a while back there was blog theme used that was similar to Svbtle, but there was no take down notice or such nonsense. It generated a decent discussion and conversations about something that's too close in style.
Look at @layervault on Twitter, they are just getting destroyed right now. Even by designers, their main target audience.
If they went along the lines like 'Hey, this is pretty similar to our design. We think it's cool we inspired you but can you deviate it from us a bit more or re-name the project to like Layervault Bootstrap?' I mean why not - have your name in the same conversation as Twitter Bootstrap!
A total botched and missed opportunity.
They look visually similar. As well as dozens of other pieces/sites.
Allan says Designmodo was not being cooperative in emails on the issue, and I think that's the point where you take it to a blog post with examples of the case you're trying to make, rather than forcing Github to shut down an entire project that goes outside of just the illustrations in question.
Their approach seems less about actually proving their worth by focusing on their product and ignoring outside "competition", and more about trying to shut down those that they feel are a threat to them. Not sure what exactly that says about them or the confidence they have in their own product, but it's a bad attitude to have towards innovation and inspiration.
https://news.layervault.com/stories
The blog is our CTO's.
And that's a shame because I like Layer Vault a lot.
Is this an abuse of process I should actually care about or is it just a "who did what?" spit between estranged developers?
LayerVault (https://layervault.com/) are a company that provide a version control system for design work.
And did Flat UI derive artwork from LayerVault? Is there a connection between the developers? Did they work with the same artist? Certainly some of the icons on the two sites look similar, though I don't see any obvious duplication.
A critically important step in any hot blooded DMCA freakout is verifying whether or not infringement took place. The letter (frustratingly) doesn't point to any specifics but it does at least allege infringement. I can't find a clear denial in the linked thread. So again: should I be upset about this?
LayerVault is a vocal proponent of the "Flat UI" approach and uses it almost as a signature look and feel for their product. In the follow up discussions, the blog post author has said that no post or discussion fully understands what he meant [2].
I can't read the takedown letter or discussion where I am (for some reason github is blocked). But based on what I've seen, the kit is similar to LayerVault's approach to employing Flat UI. That combined with the blogpost, I wouldn't be surprised if LayerVault felt that their look and feel was infringed upon. Obviously, this doesn't mean that they actually were infringed upon in the eye of the law, even if the kit was derived from LayerVault.
As a designer, I can sympathize with LayerVault's issue with the kit (I'm making assumptions), but with such a design, I really wonder how valid their complaint is within the law.
[1]http://layervault.tumblr.com/post/32267022219/flat-interface... [2]Designer News thread that I have no link to at the moment.
Check what the framework developer said: https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/735e17614cca63102b8414...
"he said that he: "I am the exclusive rights holder for the artwork contained within Flat UI". Liar!."
1) None of the illustrations in Flat UI are identical to LayerVault's illustrations. Derived works? Maybe. But under the law, that's okay.
2) Looking at illustrations from the Noun Project, and color palettes from Google and elsewhere, we see the same similarities that we do between LayerVault and Flat UI. If Flat UI is guilty of copyright infringement as LayerVault asserts, then LayerVault is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement from elsewhere.
3) Copyright isn't even the right legal vehicle for this debate. LayerVault could conceivably deem its icons to be trademarks, and show a likelihood of confusion when compared to Flat UI's icons. But LV using an icon set as a trademark would be unprecedented, and difficult to argue. (And even if that were the case, the Noun Project could just as easily claim LV infringed on their trademark.)
Overall, if LayerVault is claiming they own the copyright to illustrations used in Flat UI, they're flat-out wrong. And that's where the problem comes in - filing a fraudulent DMCA notice is bad business.
And http://i.imgur.com/qJXJUaH.png are just proofs than they can't own anything.
They have a design in a style that's not quite originally theirs-- they've seemingly abused the DMCA to have github remove a completely unrelated UI kit in the same style.
The two items in question are as follows: https://layervault.com/ http://designmodo.github.com/Flat-UI/
Flat UI has (seemingly) been designed and developed completely independently, having nothing to do with LayerVault. No artwork is derived, based-upon, designed by the same artist, etc.
You should care about this because the process is biased towards the accuser. Given no chance to rebut, Flat UI is removed, and disabled. Despite providing his side of the story in the commit comments https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/735e17614cca63102b8414..., the author now has to write a formal counter-takedown notification, and the repository will still be offline for up to 10 days (https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown)
Furthermore, 'designers' and HN users should care because LayerVault runs a 'Hacker News' for designers at https://news.layervault.com/. LayerVault is not the right entity to run this site after these DMCA shenanigans (if in fact no infringement has taken place).
Before we start yelling about "abuse of process" though, we might want to wait for more information about what's actually going on here. It would hardly be the first time one small company has used another company's assets without permission, so perhaps we should see what LayerVault has to say before getting so worked up.
10 days can be a long time to have stuff go unexpectedly offline.
Today, LayerVault [1], a company that makes 'github for designers,' sent a DCMA github a DCMA Takedown Notice [2], claiming that they own the exclusive rights to "the artwork contained within Flat UI."
The creators of Flat UI are disputing this in the linked comment thread, but we do not know if they've actually sent a DCMA Counter-Notification [3].
Incidentally, Flat UI's page probably did violate somebody's copyright, but not necessarily LayerVault's. No, they used part of Big Buck Bunny [4] without proper attribution [5] under its Creative Commons license [7].
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321603
[1]: https://layervault.com/
[2]: https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/735e17614cca63102b8414...
[3]: https://help.github.com/articles/dmca-takedown
[4]: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/
[6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5322357
[7]: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/about/
http://news.layervault.com/
Have we established exactly which elements are allegedly infringing copyright? I've gone though both websites and I don't see it...
http://ge.tt/19rXMGa/v/0?c
You can use Chilling Effects Counter-Notification generator to automate the process:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf
For those who are unfamiliar with DMCA notices, in short:
1. Content Provider Receives DMCA
2. Content Provider must act 'expeditiously' to remove content which is claimed to be infringing
3. Individual has an opportunity to submit a counter notification to their content provider, in which case the content can be reinstated after 10 business days regardless of the other parties claims. (Unless an injunction is obtained.)
4. Any further action is only by legal means (court injunction)
Disclaimer: IANAL (yet)
Generally:
- If the content provider is outside of the United States, DMCA is not valid whatsoever. However, some organizations, especially in English speaking countries, will honor it simply as a notice of infringement.
- If the individual sending the complaint is outside the United States, but the content provider is within the US, usually the content provider will cooperate anyway to protect themselves from legal obligation under Safe Harbor provisions.
- If the end user receiving the complaint is outside the United States and the content provider is within the US then the content provider should still honor the counter notice and would be covered by Safe Harbor provisions. I'm not sure on the specifics of this, however you must at minimum consent to the jurisdiction of US Federal Law for any further actions.
For the most part, the content provider / hosting company will do what is in their best interest to legally safeguard themselves, with little regard for end user rights. Generally speaking, the larger the company the moreso this applies.
Github seems like a reasonable organization, and if you submit a counter notification in valid format they should act accordingly.
Also, I see the Chilling Effects URL is getting hammered, here's a static version which you can modify: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html
While unrelated to this issue specifically, something which is interesting to note is that in a several year old paper from Vanderbilt University, they specifically mention a provision dealing with enforcing the DMCA on foreign websites. While this provision has never been used to my knowledge it does exist and is quite scary considering the implications:
While direct action against a foreign site is not possible in U.S. courts, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) allows courts to order the blocking of infringing sites. Section 512(j)(1)(B)(ii) (the “Foreign Site Provision”) permits an order to restrain an Internet service provider (“ISP”) from providing access to a “specific, identified, online location outside the United States.” Therefore this provision, with some limitations, may be used to block U.S. access to infringing foreign sites.
Designmodo are the best UI's makers! Don't hit these guys!
Even Apple didn't even go after others when rounded corners, glassy/glossy, gradient buttons was the trend. (Yes, Apple didn't invent those, just as LV didn't invent flat UI or the art work - which btw, is just a flat color. Glad Pantone isn't going around with LV's mentality.)
Just speechless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software#.22Look_and_feel...
> I am the exclusive rights holder for the artwork contained within Flat UI
That's quite a difference to "look and feel". Right now, there is just not enough information to know what this is all about.
If it was icons, I think a court said recently icons cannot be copyrighted?
Ah maybe it was thumbnails cannot be copyrighted.
EDIT: https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7d9027189b18855f5f2ddeb7d...
Ignoring the colour (red on white VS white on blue) and the distressing of the Debian logo vs the cleanness of the designmodo logo there's the opening of the spiral - Debian curve starts at 6 o clock, while designmodo starts at 4:30 or 5 o clock. And the inside of the Debian loop goes further.
[ Note that the DN logo and the FlatUI newspaper icon that have been held up as examples by LV are about as similar as these two icons. ]
shakes head in dismay and wanders off
DMCA needs reform on this. There needs to be scale of fines for parties that issue takedowns based upon false copyright claims.
OPG v. Diebold (2004):
https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15
Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. (2007):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp (Overview)
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/lenz_v_universal/lenzorde... (Court Orders)
"We certainly didn’t invent the flat style"
whaaat? why you attack designmodo in this case????