Opinion please

[vee]

Hi folks,

Grateful for your opinions on an issue we faced today please. In all of our time designing websites, we've never faced this - an accusation of copying one client's website when building another. On the contrary we usually get glowing recommendations so this has come as quite a shock. These are the sites concerned - the first is around 18 months old, the second around 8 months or so.

*snip*

The owners of the latter site mailed today to say that they had "found" the other site and were very disappointed that they were so similar and how hard they'd worked to remain exclusive (note that the site that has apparently been copied actually came last  ). They referred to the use of drop-down menus and image blocks as though those things are unique! Remarkable. So just to check we aren't going mad, can you guys give this a quick sense check please. We obviously have evidence of when the sites were designed and published so the whole accusation is nonsense but grateful for your opinions anyway. Before you look, they are entirely different - this is what's so bizarre....

Thanks
Vee

[sponna]

Well this sort of copying is rife. I'm just in from cutting the lawns (hopefully for the last time this year) and within 10 minutes of me starting the bloke over the fence had started cutting too! He had a mower and everything - very similar to mine. Cheeky tw@t! And would you believe it, when he'd finished mowing he got a strimmer out quite like mine - well actually a completely different colour but it sounded the same. The rotten BAST%&RD! Surely there's an ombudsman for this sort of thing? Can I sue??

(seriously what are they on??!! - chalk and cheese....)

[Steve Lampkins]

Their DNS settings must be messed up... and redirecting them to the site you did...


EDIT: Hold on, they both have the word 'dentist' dozens of times... busted...

[Mr Anderson]

Well there's square bits and borders on both, and they both have white areas. Plus you're using the same words, jumbling them up to say different things is just a wicked ploy to deceive.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. Or maybe just tell them to get a grip. If they persist just contact your insurers (Hiscox still?) who should be able to provide legal representation if required.

[familychoice]

Apart from the enclosed box/border thing for the content and the wibbly menu highlights there's not a lot of similarities there. I think for anyone to have a case for duplication there would have to be a high ratio of similarities to differences, and that definitely isn't the case - there are a lot more unique elements to both than similarities.

There's definitely a 'house style' there, but every designer has one, even if they think they haven't. But you haven't just taken an old template and whacked in a different logo and text, and changed the colours a bit, like I do.

[vee]

Thanks for the feedback - clearly we aren't going mad.

Following a factual response (difficult to remain unemotional but I think we managed), we received a follow-up this morning. Obviously it made them think because they have asked to continue the relationship on the "good terms that they previously enjoyed" - but no apology! I wonder where that leaves them in the priority order now that we're increasingly busy? Amazing innit.

[familychoice]

Following a factual response (difficult to remain unemotional but I think we managed), we received a follow-up this morning. Obviously it made them think because they have asked to continue the relationship on the "good terms that they previously enjoyed" - but no apology! I wonder where that leaves them in the priority order now that we're increasingly busy? Amazing innit.

Doesn't surprise me at all. I've just had a nasty email from some clients I built an ecom site for. They had a small budget and wanted just a basic site to sell a few products on. No special requirements, all standard stuff, so Cubecart it was then. I provided them with all the details, we added their products, pricing, tax, shipping, payment options etc and they traded happily and reported that the site was doing really well. 6 months later they want VAT and non VAT pricing displayed at the same time, custom VAT pricing and other stuff that's out of Cubecart's (and most other off the shelf systems) league. I tried a couple of plug-ins but due to the complexity of their requirements it's just not working despite spending 8 hours of my own time unpaid trying to get it to work. I've offered to put them in touch with a Cubecart developer but that's not good enough, I'm crap, my service is crap and I need to get round there fast and sort it out. They point to big custom sites that have probably cost 50 times more than theirs and tell me their site should provide exactly the same functionality and I 'better get myself over there now' to sort it out.

Lovely people. Looking forward to Monday, as ever.

[dougans]

my nokia 3210 looks as much like my iphone as these 2 sites do. yes i can see how they've decided they've been copied, not only do both your sites live on the internet, work in a web browser and even have a web address but both sites have images and maybe a similar border style. next time put it as an option when they are signing up "external web designer to be used for base template design - £10,000 extra" and they'll never moan again :-)