Stealing Is a Skill

m8ven

Good artists copy, great artists steal? Still hurts to be the one being stolen from though.

graemep

Does this level of copying not imply a copyright infringement?

N_Lens

The Tim Ferris school of thought. Can’t say I agree with it.

cjcenizal

My favorite quote that expresses this idea is from Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47: “Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good appreciation of everything that already exists in this field.”

emaro

I kind of agree in the sense that stealing a good idea and executing it well is a skill. Copying someones site "pixel by pixel" seems disrispectful though and I don't know what there's to be proud of.

deltamidway

Stealing is a source of flattery. I've had logos I've designed outright copied. Jokes on them: They discovered they could not copyright the mark and had to rebrand (again). Stealing is stealing unless you're really good at it.

meander_water

> However, it’s your job to go down the rabbit hole, learn the 100%, and sprinkle in your 3%. I would say that there is a big difference between stealing without acknowledgement, and stealing with acknowledgement and actively learning through reverse engineering.

sscaryterry

Very, and really very few things, especially in software engineering is novel or new. Everything is the same old concepts, repackaged, tweaked, renamed. Cyclical in nature, fads come and go. Stealing in this context might be tad harsh.

nusl

I think copying a website like this is very poor taste regardless. If I see you doing this, I immediately lose trust in your product and will immediately leave. If you can't put the effort into the face of your product, how can I trust you to put effort into the product itself? Shitty behavior, with a shitty justification self-affirmation blogpost.

dghlsakjg

Copywork is an exercise where writers just copy verbatim another writers work. If you haven’t done it, it is an extraordinary way to see how the greats work. It also tends to improve your own writing skills - at least as long as you are copying from your betters. This seems like the web design version of this.

mannanj

I looked up stealing to ground this comment of mine: > stealing: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice I admire Ben for being so direct. I wonder why we fetishize, herbicide and normalize theft, even deception today. When did this become normal, and why draw the line at digital creation and not just allow theft of physical objects, too? (I mean I get the arguments about copying someones digital creation doesn't really mean you took what they had from them, you just made a copy, though this doesn't logically apply to if I also physically stole someones product and made a copy since copyright/patent protection likely applies)

MCP123

It's stealing when copyright is infringed and when the stealing part is not acknowledged. Otherwise, can we called it "inspired by"?

nullbio

Mintlify "stole" their latest design off Stripe. It's very obvious.

PashaGo

Most great products are nothing, but well-timed and well-executed stolen ideas.

a3w

Off-topic; but the nerd in me complained: In GURPS, stealing is two skills: filch and pickpocket.

erikschoster

In a marketplace, this is theft. (Which, given this example is of a website for a for-profit product, seems appropriate.) In a community it's tradition. Building on traditions in a community (aka great artists steal) is different than trying to get yours in a marketplace. Art and community traditions aren't a competition until they are dragged into the marketplace.

sandcat_

I feel like there’s a difference between Virgil Abloh being brought in to work on an iteration of the Air Force 1s and simply ripping off a design from an unrelated company, presumably without permission, and making a few tweaks.

michaelfm1211

This feels wrong.

willchis

The best way to make a really boring and generic product pop is... by copying a really boring and generic marketing page. God I miss the old internet. Give me some insane pixelated flash website over this bland trash any day. https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/flash-websites-in-the-early-...

z3t4

What do you do if your version becomes immensely more popular and successful then the thing you copied? When people start calling you a genius.