So, both sides have pretty much spoken, and what irks me the most is that the LayerVault guys haven't provided any concrete evidence to support their claims; they've posted vague responses and joked about DMCA'ing their friends on Twitter. There's also the question of why they would even pursue something like this. A simple Risks/Benefits analysis would've surely led most people not to issue a DMCA over a few icons they felt were stolen.<p>It's hard not to lose a little respect fo the LayerVault guys, even if the icons in question were <i>direct copies</i>. I get you're protective of your art, but this doesn't really make sense from a business standpoint, and their response has been less than convincing. It's really disappointing.
LayerVault, the same people who brought you DesignerNews.<p>If that's indeed them who sent the notice, they are just shitting all over their reputation and alienating a lot of people. Talk about "starting off on the wrong foot"... and for what? A design that is border-line trivial. It would seem that their best option for getting the situation under control is to release their own version of the toolkit. A version that is sufficiently different from their original background-color, border-radius and icon @font-face. If not, they are bound to repeat the clone wars of Svbtle.<p><i>Edit</i> | LayerVault actually appears to be a pretty useful product, clearly with a lot of thought sunk into it. Which makes it twice as unfortunate that they decided to pursue something like this. Google "LayerVault videos" if interested.
Good luck Layervault, you might want to think about this some harder.<p>Github search found 116 repositories: <a href="https://github.com/search?q=flat-ui&ref=commandbar" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/search?q=flat-ui&ref=commandbar</a><p>There are 48 forks alone of this single fork: <a href="https://github.com/iurevych/Flat-UI/network/members" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/iurevych/Flat-UI/network/members</a><p>The project itself shows 129 forks.<p>You really prepared to piss off hundreds of people by sending a DMCA takedown to each and every one? Really? Do you know when to stop digging? Is the hole deep enough yet? Found some suspicious odorous dark substance? I can tell you, it's not oil.
I think these are the icons in question from LayerVault, DesignMode, and similar icons from Noun Project.<p><a href="http://imgur.com/IH1osAD" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/IH1osAD</a>
So it seems that you have to provide exactly zero proof and your word (in a good faith) is enough to take a repository down. There is no way to verify anything and in order to stay safe they (github in this case) have to take the content down.<p>Now imagine I file a takedown notice for every aspiring project posted here on HN that is hosted on github. They take a pretty good hit from it I'd assume, to be silenced on the launch. Of course I open myself to litigation with false takedown request... but what do I care? I'm not a citizen of United States and I don't really care what laws are there.<p>So what now? How can this work?
This was a big article already not even two days ago on HN: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331766" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5331766</a><p>Why is this being upvoted a 2nd time in the same week to the top of the homepage...
For those upset with LayerVault's behavior, but are intrigued by their product offering, I just found <a href="http://pixelapse.com" rel="nofollow">http://pixelapse.com</a> which appears to be the closest competitor: <a href="http://www.quora.com/Design/How-do-LayerVault-and-Pixelapse-compare" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Design/How-do-LayerVault-and-Pixelapse-...</a>
So I think the Noun Project should just send a takedown notice to LayerVault. Since the perjury clause only pertains to contact info and whether they can represent the project itself, that would have the same consequences for "accidentally" getting the actual allegation wrong (=none), right?
Did LayerVault try to contact Flat UI to discuss their grievances before sending a DMCA Takedown? If so, what was the result of that conversation. If not, why didn't LayerVault pursue that path before posting this to Github?<p>We in tech need to be good to each other because other corporate interests and patent trolls won't be. We should always give each other the benefit of the doubt and try to resolve issues without menacing legal language and the threat of lawyers. We need to show we can thrive without this garbage. Otherwise, it will only embolden our enemies and cause this type of confrontation to happen more frequently in the future - to everyone's detriment.
This all relates to trade dress, not copyright per se.
there's also the question of originality i.e:
Two men are wearing suits. Both suits originate in previous suits. The similarities that they therefore share would be those attributes of the suit that is not encompassed by previous works. So therefore, even though the two suits the two men may be wearing appear virtually identical, they are indeed not and do not share any substantial similarities to one another.<p>it's trés bothersome when designers behave like this when they're themselves just un/consciously influenced by previous artmovements and designers (florian freundt(2003), matias duarte spring to mind).
There is an unfortunate tendency in the creative field (design, music etc) to think of ones ideas as unique and that others are stealing them.<p>I never understood why people don't just embrace the idea of imitation being the biggest form of flattery.<p>So you are doing something right, great continue with that.<p>LayerVault lost me as a customer today.
I have never seen the inside of LayerVault. The demo page only has vague outlines of similar controls. Does anyone have screenshots of LayerVault in action?
Funny that the mods haven't fixed the typo in this title in the 4 hours since it was posted, they must be too busy messing up other titles by removing useful context and deleting swear words...
If you want to speak up, don't hesitate to contact LayerVault's support ( support@layervault.com ) and let them know, respectfully, how you feel. You can also tweet your opinions @layervault.<p>I stress respectfully. Try to be well spoken and sincere.
I hope that won't set a precedent on Github and we won't start seeing abusive and/or automated dmca's on repositories all around because "similar images were matched", youtube-style.