When Is It Different Enough?
Filed Under: Design, Philosophy
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There is an interesting discussion going on in the comments over at Copyblogger. The ubiquitous Chris Pearson commented on John Wesley’s Wordpress theme
Hey John,
Your site is nothing more than a Cutline/Copyblogger Theme mashup. Where’s my link?
Here is a screenshot of the theme in question
(Click to enlarge)
John Wesley’s reply
Chris,
I’ll readily admit that I built off the structure of the Cutline Theme because I had no previous design experience, but I took the link out after tweaking nearly every aspect of the style and customizing it with all my own graphics. I’ve also borrowed aspects from other sites as well. I think that makes it more than a mashup and I don’t think anyone but yourself would even recognize the influence. Honestly I’m flattered that you noticed.
This is starting to remind me of the Vanilla Ice sample fiasco…
From Wikipedia: Vanilla Ice drew controversy by claiming that he owed no royalties for sampling “Under Pressure”, citing one minor alteration to the bass line. Although no lawsuit was ever filed, the rapper supposedly settled out of court, and songwriting credit was retroactively given to Bowie and the members of Queen.
When is something altered enough that you no longer need to pay tribute to the original?
I’ve finally come to the conclusion that smart guys like Chris make it possible for the rest of us to focus on what is important, producing great content. I don’t want to think about browser compatibility or why my floats aren’t lining up anymore. That is why I hired Chris to think about that stuff for me.
There is some ego involved in taking footer links out, but as a thank you to all of the people who spend hours working for free on quality software - leave them intact. If you didn’t start from scratch, it is the least you can do.
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You have a good point. I never intended to slight Chris or steal any of his work. I only took the link out after I thought the design was more me than him. I’m thinking about putting it back in for the reasons you provided, but I still think his contribution at this point is nearly all structural. If I went back in and renamed all the classes and moved a few things around would that be all right? I’m not a designer and have no idea what the etiquette is, but you have to expect that when you release a piece of code to the public people are going what they want with it.
John,
Even though the design is different, how much of the overall code did you actually write? There is a ton of structural PHP that goes into creating these themes and if you add all of that code up, it is a lot more than just the CSS.
You could always do what Yaro over at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/ did and put a based on the ______ theme in the footer, or you could call it something creative like the Cutblogger or Copyline theme.
Good Luck,