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swanson

Seriously?

It's a clock - how many unique ways are there to design it? It's a folded up map with pins in it.

He moved the hour/minutes hands, changed the colors and shadows, used different continents in the map.

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Seriously?

Apple paid $21 million for a clock design after first adopting your attitude: http://www.law.com/corporatecounsel/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202...

Apple's clock design was indistinguishable from the original. This is not.

Apple's clock was an exact copy of the swiss railway clock. In this case, the rounded corners are different, the color is different, the shadow is different, the lengths of the lines are different.

Apple's wasn't an exact copy either. (The Swiss railway clock design was nicer.)

There were slight differences in hand lengths, removal of the logo (obviously), and stroke widths.

This is the essence of what is wrong with copyright law: "Apple paid $21 million for a clock design."

I believe in the value and importance of design, but the money/value ratio of design IP has gotten out of hand.

The clock in question, aside from being an exact copy, was an example of a trademark infringement not copyright infringement. It's very different. In fact trademarks must be defended against infringement or they can be considered void.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights

If he had copied, even in just a similar way, LayerVault's logo to use as an icon (and assuming LV trademarked it) then this discussion would be pretty different.

Did you read the article? They were sued over trademark infringement. Trademark has nothing to do with copyright or the DMCA.

Here are a thousand other ways to design a clock. http://dribbble.com/search?q=clock+icon

What exactly is the point you're trying to make?

Swanson asked: It's a clock - how many unique ways are there to design it?

Thanks, I figured that part out. I was more replying to this response in the context of the grandparent, which made little sense to me at first, and even less sense when he edited it in some strange attempt to distinguish between "copying", which he seems to be accusing the Flat-UI creator of, and "copyright violation", the legal prerequisite for filing a DMCA takedown, which is what the rest of the comments on this post seem to be discussing.

Try adding "flat" to that search criteria, then how many ways do you get?

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