No need for a jQuery plugin, it's simple to do. I noticed it too and looked through their JS and found it to be way more complicated than it needs, using jQuery.
Marketers take note. This link could also be titled "How to properly deal with plagiarism of your own website." Acting like a good sport with an even better sense of humor will win you many customers.
Responding well to them? Their design is a standard template - slider below a menu, 3 columns below that, brands/testimonials below that, large footer. The only similarities I really see are the structure of the templates, and both look like they're from bootstrap, so I'm not sure what the stealing is complaining about.
I wonder if you're design blind? I've met a few people like that before. If that's all you think there is to a design, the 'standard' layout, you've missed a lot.
Are you seriously going to tell me you can't see the similarity between:
That most websites don't have that curve, or the spacing on the left/right or the little bar above the menu rather than below or any of the things that screams a rip? Then scroll down to the footer and they're identical.
Go open any other software consultancy website and see if you can see those same similarities?
There's so much more to a design than just the grid layout.
I've seen this happen myself at a company I consulted for, they told the designer they wanted a website that looked like X's website, so the designer pretty much cloned the website, moved a couple of things around and changed the logo. Client thought it was wonderful.
On a separate note, does anyone else find the indenting of the HTML on the infinum site to be very odd?
I'd say I'm design blind. From the examples in the post I would say, yes the sites have a passing similarity, but many, many company webpages look very similar to those two. The color schemes and layout details are different, the logos are quite different and the wording is different. So, to me, this is not plagiarism. Perhaps a telling comment on the sameness of a lot of design on the web.
I was thinking the same until I saw the run through. It seems quite obvious that they copied, to the extent that even minor details are there. However, I still think that the design is a trend, and it's a common pattern that you'll find hundreds (thousands?) of sites follow, not to say copy. And it's obvious that Infinium did not come up with the style.
I would like to see if they used similar CSS classes (which anyone probably can check in 5 minutes, but we can't be bothered... it's a common design pattern, yeah).
I'll copy what I wrote in another comment: Um, did you know that "awards" in the software industry are a sort of marketing gray area where companies pay a lot for a submission to some "organization" who then hands out "awards" and "nomiations" that can be advertized on websites?
I worked at a company where our web site was copied by a competitor entering the same domain. They copied the look of the site but also copied the Google Analytics tag as well. We found out about them because their page views showed up in our analytics.
Boy-oh-boy I wish Google would lock analytics IDs down to a domain. Somebody in a university in Mexico City copied mine into a project they have in their www directory, and I just had to regex filter it out of GA.
seems like the amount of people who do this is rather big. Google probably thinks it's a good way to track users of websites that aren't their customers :D
I had a similar experience. When they copied our website they even copied the corporate logo at the bottom of the page, which was linked back to our corporate website. I was looking at the referrer logs for the corporate site and saw click-throughs from some site I had never heard of.
This exact same situation happened to me in the past month. My login page and its assets were copied, right down to the Rails asset digest fingerprints in the filenames as well as the Google Analytics code, which is how I discovered them.
I sent a sternly worded "Notice of Copyright Infringement" email and two weeks later their whole site was completely redesigned.
At the company I work for now, they found a site for a British company (we are in the US) that didn't steal the look of the site or the copy of the site -- they stole the names, headshots and bios of the executives and used them on their site.
Bootstrap provides a slim set of tools for constructing a website. The power comes in it's components, mobile-readiness, and extensibility. Going from default Bootstrap to either of these two sites would still take a lot of design work. You can also see the linked article's author talking about specific design decisions they made that aren't made by default Bootstrap.
I think a more accurate critique would be to look at some of the templates on Wrap Bootstrap. A lot of them do similar things to both of these websites.
They are pretty similar. Because of popular UI frameworks, large sites dedicated to design (and design trends in general), it's pretty normal for me to run into two web sites that look so similar I have to wonder if they're part of the same company.
Is there any other evidence that this was a copy or that the design was intentionally lifted and tweaked/modified from infinium, such as large swaths of JS (not from an open source library) or something ridiculous like a failure to remove your copyright, css elements that are unused on their site but used on yours, id tags in the html and the like that are unique enough to clearly have been copy/paste? Have these guys copied other things belonging to infinium?
I agree with others on the kudos: this was fun way to handle suspected plagiarism.
This is nothing. Our 100k line vod web app was ripped off wholesale, with a new backend built from scratch, and repurposed to show pirate content. This was some serious engineering chops and time investment that went into a ripping off a site with hundreds upon hundreds of templates and thousands of lines of js and ajax interacting with an unknown backend that had to be reverse-engineered. We discovered it because they forgot to change the Google Analytics code (which they were polite enough to fix once we brought it to their attention via their facebook page) so we saw this huge traffic content ramp up from Georgia. There is no way to view it as anything but flattering.
We did not publicize it in any way because we are a legit film streaming company with hundreds of distributors worldwide, and no good can come from any awareness of a site that looks like ours streaming pirated content. Maybe some day.
> You should probably link your client logotypes to their respective websites. If they don't have website at least to Wikipedia or something.
In cases like this, I'd recommend linking to a case-study or other type of portfolio page about the client. I'd rather not send potential customers to another site where they might not come back.
am I the only one who doesnt find the sites that similar after all? Or to put it another way - neither of them seem particularly unique (fixed header, slider on top, broad sections and large footer) compared to many marketing sites these days?
Nope, I'm with you. I've seen much more obvious plagiarisms. Although it's obvious that Kintek were more than a little inspired by infinum, and indeed some items look copied as is except the color change, the rest looks like any other bootstrap / grid based marketing site template. They might have pushed the "inspiration" part to the limit, and might deserve the post for not being too original, but I'm sure you can find thousands of sites that have similar elements and statistically, some of them copied from someone else. And I'm sure infinium were also inspired (even subconsciously) from other designers.
Almost every other site today has a dark header, a Mac screen / laptop carousel, slide scroll / parallax / infinite scrolling and a 3 column grid using the same icon fonts, dark 3 column footer with links, partners / as seen on techcrunch / customer logos in gray emboss. everyone has it. Although it's clear they copied, you could find sites that have these elements that didn't copy (or copied from someone else). So it's just the number of similar elements that is annoying, not each element individually IMHO.
That's pretty much the feeling I had... I would even say that it might be that kintek never heard of this guys, they just happened to have very similar idea that probably came from similar sources.
- The scrolling animations on the header are exactly the same.
- The curved/depressed backgrounds behind the hero image (fairly unique) are the same shape and style.
- Page sizing is the same.
- Color scheme is the same, with blue swapped out for red.
These are just from glancing quickly between the two sites. Combined with the overall similarity, the fact that the scrolling animation is exactly the same is the most damning evidence that they deliberately copied the other site.
Your sentence is made up of letters and symbols that are used in hundreds (thousands, millions) of books and writings around the world. How dare you copy them. Come up with your own alphabet.
(My point: It's not the individual elements that matter. It's the unique combination. Infinum may not be exactly trend-setting, but unless you can find a site constructed with the exact same combination of design details, I say that Infinum is nowhere near as guilty when it comes to copying.)
Where Infinum uses #333, Kintek uses #313131. Where Infinum uses rgb(34, 34, 34), Kintek converts it to hex and uses #222222. The only major difference I can find is the highlight color, which is obvious. (red vs. blue)
You're not alone. In fact, at first I thought their sites were standard Wordpress templates. I was kind of surprised they actually built them by hand. They both consist solely of what I would consider standard elements and layouts.
It's one of the most blatant examples of plagiarism I've ever seen.
It's arguably worse than simple wholesale lifting of css, since they've carefully and deliberately redrawn distinctive design elements, and lifted half the copy as well
And this is a medium-sized design company, in a developed country. And it got nominated for an award.
Sure, the design has evolved a bit since it started as a direct copy, and the design wasn't that original in the first place, but I'm baffled by people suggesting the similarities might have been accidental.
Um, did you know that "awards" in the software industry are a sort of marketing gray area where companies pay a lot for a submission to some "organization" who then hands out "awards" and "nomiations" that can be advertized on websites?
"Awards" in many industries are marketing grey areas. In this case, though, it's just yet another free css design gallery: the only notable thing being that kintek probably nominated themselves, knowing exactly where their original design came from...
> I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as “Great job, we’re really impressed!”. I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the ‘software’ doesn’t even run. This is hardly surprising when you consider that it is just a text file with the words “this program does nothing at all” repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. The PAD file that described the software contains the description “This program does nothing at all”.
Styles, like fashion, follow trends. But the similarities on these sites go well beyond just similar trends, especially once you're beyond the main page. The copy on the "Services" page is probably the most damning:
We provide a wide array of software design and development
services -- from Mobile applications and Web applications
to User interface design, Quality assurance and Digital
Strategy -- we're a trusted partner helping you develop
your business.
vs
We provide a wide array of Award Winning design and
development services -- from Digital Strategy, QA and UX
Design to iOS, Android, and Facebook Apps, Responsive
Mobile Enhanced Websites, Ecommerce and Business
Automation Tools -- we're your trusted partner in Digital.
I don't think anyone honestly believes those sentences were written independently of each other. Look at them in their context on the page, and the plausibility of coincidental design similarity goes even further out the window. This was clearly a copy/paste/edit job.
That's not good enough; it's too common. Sentence structure can't be copyrighted, just as common design elements can't be copyrighted. Show us HTML or CSS blocks that are exactly the same or slightly tweaked on both websites.
It's not "damning" because that sentence structure, in particular, can't be copyrighted. It's "damning" because it is one very obvious part of a larger whole which, compounded, make it very unlikely that these two sites were developed independently. You could argue that Kintek changed it just enough to make it not plagiarism or copyright violation, but that's not exactly the point.
Looking at the code, it looks like the Infinum site is using a bootstrap base, but a fairly customized navbar, and that the kintek site is using something else... the structure of the markup is similar, but definitely different, as well as the difference in CSS classes.
Yes, there are similarities, but I have no reason to believe that one is a ripoff of another. They're both pretty bog-standard bootstrap-like marketing sites.
while it certainly looks like the second one did indeed rip off the first, i'd have to say there's nothing at all about the first one that looks even remotely interesting or innovative to me. looks like a run-of-the-mill $20 wordpress template.
It may not seem like it is copied, but it definitely is. Take a look at the background image that gives that curved effect. They haven't just tried to recreate it, they've literally downloaded the same image and just used that.
If you hash both files on the original website and the new one, you'll see they both amount to: e6a486ac74a59aaa1abefec33de40c55
I can't decide if it's a general aversion to public complaining, or if this company is really as arrogant and self important as this article made them out to be. In fact, after the thuggish threats, I'm pretty sure it's arrogance.
I think he's referring to how they are arrogant for threatening them, sending them "design tips", and playing themselves up as sexy and dangerous all in the same message.
They definitely have a valid point about the plagiarism but they're being really cocky and showy about it.
Edit: Ya, they might have been trying to be funny or venting, I can understand that. But they really shouldn't have ANY kind of physical threat in there at all. Its childish and just pointless posturing.
I'm not sure about what OP was thinking, but I felt the same way. The article seemed to have mixed messages. One was, "how dare you steal from us" and the other was "Everyone steals".
Looking at the two sites, they were both using such common web design styles these days, that I would have assumed they both based their site off of someone else's.
If I were them, I would have stuck to the second argument, realized that no idea or design is a unique snowflake and everyone steals constantly.
"But after some thought, Darko, our design lead (he's a very nice person) convinced me to give you guys the benefit of the doubt and not send the Croatian emmigration in Australia (known for working as bouncers and construction workers) knocking at your door."
Yeah. You tend to lose the moral initiative when you pretend you have the backing of some nefarious street thugs.
Well I'm sorry Infinum, at least their site does something when I click the tabs across the top.
OK, looks like you're doing some sort of pjaxing of the content; problem being there is none of the usual browser feedback that suggests I should wait, seeing as your site is probably under more load that normal.
Suggestion: if you're going to use pjax-style techniques, show some sort of progress indicator when the request takes longer than a few seconds... or don't use pjax-techniques when they're really not necessary.
Man these guys are tripping. I see some resemblance but really how can you complain about someone following the same design trends that you are. Sorry to say if this is plagiarism, then so is 90% of the web.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadhttps://gist.github.com/grundprinzip/5868304
http://jsfiddle.net/Killswitch/BSukL/show/
Nothing on the page but the code, so open that in a new tab and swap tabs to see it in action.
I agree, they should’ve done that. As the post is now, I don’t feel it is especially funny and I don’t see them being a good sport either.
Infinum is one of the top developers here in Croatia. Nice to see them responding well to this.
Are you seriously going to tell me you can't see the similarity between:
http://www.infinum.co/services http://kintek.com.au/services/
That most websites don't have that curve, or the spacing on the left/right or the little bar above the menu rather than below or any of the things that screams a rip? Then scroll down to the footer and they're identical.
Go open any other software consultancy website and see if you can see those same similarities?
There's so much more to a design than just the grid layout.
I've seen this happen myself at a company I consulted for, they told the designer they wanted a website that looked like X's website, so the designer pretty much cloned the website, moved a couple of things around and changed the logo. Client thought it was wonderful.
On a separate note, does anyone else find the indenting of the HTML on the infinum site to be very odd?
I would like to see if they used similar CSS classes (which anyone probably can check in 5 minutes, but we can't be bothered... it's a common design pattern, yeah).
I sent a sternly worded "Notice of Copyright Infringement" email and two weeks later their whole site was completely redesigned.
Still speechless about it.
But they both appear, on a code level, to be Twitter Bootstrap. Infinum definitely needs to get over themselves.
I think a more accurate critique would be to look at some of the templates on Wrap Bootstrap. A lot of them do similar things to both of these websites.
Is there any other evidence that this was a copy or that the design was intentionally lifted and tweaked/modified from infinium, such as large swaths of JS (not from an open source library) or something ridiculous like a failure to remove your copyright, css elements that are unused on their site but used on yours, id tags in the html and the like that are unique enough to clearly have been copy/paste? Have these guys copied other things belonging to infinium?
I agree with others on the kudos: this was fun way to handle suspected plagiarism.
In cases like this, I'd recommend linking to a case-study or other type of portfolio page about the client. I'd rather not send potential customers to another site where they might not come back.
Almost every other site today has a dark header, a Mac screen / laptop carousel, slide scroll / parallax / infinite scrolling and a 3 column grid using the same icon fonts, dark 3 column footer with links, partners / as seen on techcrunch / customer logos in gray emboss. everyone has it. Although it's clear they copied, you could find sites that have these elements that didn't copy (or copied from someone else). So it's just the number of similar elements that is annoying, not each element individually IMHO.
then from the article they link an early mockup of the clone site, it says right there "100+ projects"
How many sites look like the Stripe landing page now adays?
Also, it's about 3am in brisbane at the moment, so you might not get a response for another 7 hours.
- The curved/depressed backgrounds behind the hero image (fairly unique) are the same shape and style.
- Page sizing is the same.
- Color scheme is the same, with blue swapped out for red.
These are just from glancing quickly between the two sites. Combined with the overall similarity, the fact that the scrolling animation is exactly the same is the most damning evidence that they deliberately copied the other site.
Also, compare http://www.infinum.co/services with http://kintek.com.au/showcase/ - specifically, the "home > showcase" nav.
(My point: It's not the individual elements that matter. It's the unique combination. Infinum may not be exactly trend-setting, but unless you can find a site constructed with the exact same combination of design details, I say that Infinum is nowhere near as guilty when it comes to copying.)
Where Infinum uses #333, Kintek uses #313131. Where Infinum uses rgb(34, 34, 34), Kintek converts it to hex and uses #222222. The only major difference I can find is the highlight color, which is obvious. (red vs. blue)
Based on the fact they use:
* Make use of both the Yoast SEO and Gravity Forms plugins, which are well known Wordpress plugins.
* Twitter Bootstrap
* Have an /assets/ folder which most likely rewrites to /wp-content/themes/themename/assets/
* Have a /plugins/ folder which most likely rewrites to /wp-content/plugins/
Look at the area immediately below the fold.
It's one of the most blatant examples of plagiarism I've ever seen.
It's arguably worse than simple wholesale lifting of css, since they've carefully and deliberately redrawn distinctive design elements, and lifted half the copy as well
And this is a medium-sized design company, in a developed country. And it got nominated for an award.
Sure, the design has evolved a bit since it started as a direct copy, and the design wasn't that original in the first place, but I'm baffled by people suggesting the similarities might have been accidental.
Hell, I kept getting spam regarding assorted awards my software "won" simply because I provided some sort of XML file indicating download details.
(http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards...)
> I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as “Great job, we’re really impressed!”. I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the ‘software’ doesn’t even run. This is hardly surprising when you consider that it is just a text file with the words “this program does nothing at all” repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. The PAD file that described the software contains the description “This program does nothing at all”.
Yes, there are similarities, but I have no reason to believe that one is a ripoff of another. They're both pretty bog-standard bootstrap-like marketing sites.
If you hash both files on the original website and the new one, you'll see they both amount to: e6a486ac74a59aaa1abefec33de40c55
What more proof is needed? Haha
Perhaps there's a niche for a replacement?
EDIT: there appears to be a Flikr stream to replace it. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/piratedsites/)
Are you saying they are arrogant for outing a plagiarizer?
They definitely have a valid point about the plagiarism but they're being really cocky and showy about it.
Edit: Ya, they might have been trying to be funny or venting, I can understand that. But they really shouldn't have ANY kind of physical threat in there at all. Its childish and just pointless posturing.
Looking at the two sites, they were both using such common web design styles these days, that I would have assumed they both based their site off of someone else's.
If I were them, I would have stuck to the second argument, realized that no idea or design is a unique snowflake and everyone steals constantly.
Personally, I plan to steal their idea for changing the title of a page when it loses focus. Not today, but some day.
Yeah. You tend to lose the moral initiative when you pretend you have the backing of some nefarious street thugs.
PS: Thanks for stereotyping Croatians, asshole.
If anything that is some stereotyping about bouncers and construction workers... but not really I think.
OK, looks like you're doing some sort of pjaxing of the content; problem being there is none of the usual browser feedback that suggests I should wait, seeing as your site is probably under more load that normal.
Suggestion: if you're going to use pjax-style techniques, show some sort of progress indicator when the request takes longer than a few seconds... or don't use pjax-techniques when they're really not necessary.