Does "copyright" matter in today's rapidly evolving internet?
With a new Web 2.0 site popping up every day, and increasing adoption of open-source codebase... how do programmers, designers and passionate inventors protect their work?
We were asking ourselves these questions 2 months ago, when bloggers alerted us of a blatant BlinkList rip-off. They even included screenshots.
We managed to grab a few more screenshots, too! (Right before the theives "innovated" on their UI and removed "BlinkList" from the HTML title. Yes, those clowns actually left <title>Blinklist</title> in their code.)
It's one thing to innovate on someone's code. But this guy copied our UI, our icons, our advertising text, our footer and even our HTML title tag.
And steal the picture of one of our team members?
What were they thinking?
Being a bunch of understanding folks, we tried to empathize with the people behind "WireFan".
How? By hunting them down.
Turns out, a "Troy McKirk" claimed WireFan on technorati http://technorati.com/profile/TroyM
Was Troy McKirk the evil mastermind? Considering
1. He also claimed http://jump2top.com/, a search engine marketing site.
2. You received a "confirm ur registration" email from jump2top@gmail.com when you register for an account on WireFan,
Yeah, he was *almost* suspicious.
His full details and phone number are on this page:
http://jump2top.com/
I'd love to have one our readers call him and demand an interview.
We'll let this one slide Troy. We wish Wirefan good luck.
If you look at BlinkList and WireFan today, you'll notice we both have moved on.
We've rolled out BlinkList Spaces (only for existing BlinkList users), and a lot of user experience improvements. WireFan can continue stealing stuff, but I doubt they'll be stealing our users.
For us, this episode is a reminder of how we should keep focused on what matters most: Our community of passionate users! And not get distracted by cheap (but amusing) imitations.
This is near unbelievable – it almost looks like a bad joke.
WireFart (pardon my French) still looks a lot like BlinkList (the buttons, the stars, ...) but in fact... it looks nothing like it.
I fell in love (well...) with BlinkList's UI the minute I saw it and I've learned to love its usability and features since. You guys are way in front of these clowns.
Congrats on the new blog space and keep up the good work.
Yup, it is pretty unbelievable. Thanks for all your positive feedback on BlinkList. I am glad that you are loving the service as much as we love developing and improving it!
wow, now that's true site-cloning! unbelievable.
another thing: something is wrong with your feed here. It doesn't work.
"Error on line 21: The element type "ADMINNICENAME" must be terminated by the matching end-tag ""."
fixed! thanks marcel
Is it just me or is your blog theme really messed up? IE 6; right column on top of the the body which is pushed all the way to the bottom.
Love Blinklist! Wish I could filter searches by what my friends have blinked like I used to.
Ah, at last you mentionne this! I started wondering if I was the only one seeing it as a ripeoff.
Terrible - I tried to contact them but the contact link… is not a link.
( Sorry I posted this under the wong post, and copy pasted it here.)
Here is the explanation... A layout similar to blink was used during the development procedure. The site is not like blinklist. You will know it if u use it.
The functionality is more like digg.com..The site was not active while we had blinklist like dumy template..Ok it was a mistake not to have a password protected page during the development time..
We like their design and used during our development procedure.But the application again not the same....
I bet most of you guys did somethnig similar ...
"How? By hunting them down. ??"
Btw I am amazed by your "Hunting down idea"...it is so smart...
Here is a tip for your future "hunting down" projects. start from "whois record" of the domain names?
Troy
Troy, that's real smart! Now use your smarts to find tips for originality
the whois for wirefan is bogus.. admin contact is admin@gmail.com ? troy, give us more tips
There used to be websites like http://www.pirated-sites.com (still online) to report such abuses. Here "web 2.0" juste means "act before you think" just in case you're afraid of missing the wagon...
Troy is such a slave driver.. he asked Filipinos to work homebased and do trash.. he pays them but squeeze their last breaths to the limits... what an ass having this wirefan been copycat'd at someone else site.. such a childish act! grow up cant you make original works? Can someone check if he has violated any laws against filipino homebased workers? he doesnt allow holidays celebrated, work 9 hours on weekdays and 5 hours on saturdays,, that is lame!
Troy, come on! you need to grow up.. sooner or later your company, jump2top.com wont have trust in you and immediately will go down... to the sands of miami!
Bugger,
- I only know one person who asked extra 13th month salary and complained about the holidays. That person got extra 2 weeks salary and disappeared. That person was making double of what others make with the same qualifications.
We do offer all major holidays(more than US holidays).
"violated any laws" ? Lets face to find out who is violating the laws.
I do not think that you do report your income to your government, and pay income tax. As far as I know stealing is also a crime..
Thanks
this guy doesn’t just kill the industry, he also rips it off
hi hakan kirkan, whats the :that person: on your posts? why plagiarate on someone else site? doesnt your programmers have the edge your looking for? i think that blinklist can be reported to some web authority... that having a penalty of $$$ amount!