Thread

Well they do say that mimicry is the highest form of flattery:

http://www.magic3000.com/aspbite/categories/index.asp

Lol.

Excellent trick! 😊

“Web design by NovaNet”.. pffft!

“NovaNet UK specialises in high end, complex web design using our in-house Content Management System.”

I almost expect to see this too;
“Btw, we borrow our designs from the pros and pass them off as our own.”

LOL!
I hope this clears up soon.. it’s sad to see them butcher Jesse’s beautiful work like that.

best
Andy

Umm, hello everyone….. My name is Patrick and i am responsible for the EE rip off that is being discussed in this thread.

This is going to be a fairly lengthy reply, as i NEED to explain why/how this has happended - so you might want to grab a cuppa tea about now.

I have been learning web design since 2004, starting with a youtube themed site called magic showcase. Magic is my hobby and magicians could upload videos of themselves performing tricks and have other members rate and comment on them - leading to a league table of results for highly scored vids.

Anyway, that site fizzeled out and I still wanted a site that had a magic theme. So i came up with the one being discussed here.

It has taken me 3 years to find the time to develop it and has had many different styles in that time applied to it. Recently, i had more time to work on it and decided to completely revamp the look of it.

I wanted the new look to be “web 2” kinda thing - next gen design and very eye catching. And i came accross EE in my travels.

EE as you know was re-dev by Jesse BC, it totally caught my eye. I emailed Jesse and told him i thought it was a work of art and that i was disecting his code to learn more about how sites like that are designed. We corresponded one more time with general pleasantries and it was left at that.

I still had EE in my mind when it came to sitting down to re-dev the new site look. It’s curvey, well structured and pleasing to the eye.

And, as is obvious to you all, i copied the design in its entirety. I did not go wham bam splash - copy the code ad hoc and thats it, i disseminated it and used tables, slightly different CSS and created an exact version of it using a different method to acheieve the same results. That part alone took me 2 weeks.

I’m never as stupid as to copy a site design and simply leave it color for color, layout for layout, function for function and style for style. My goal was (and still is as i will explain later) to adapt and evolve it into something other than the replica that has been stumbled upon - into something more fitting to the site genre and theme, but at the same time being totally inspired by the original creation.

Whilst i cannot subscribe to Picasso’s quote that “Good artists copy, great artists steal” or that imitation (or mimicry) is the height of flattery, I do however firmly believe that is it perfectly fine to be inspired by something or someone.

When I buy a tutorial DVD on a magic trick, the buyer of the DVD is, by definition of the purpose for the release of the DVD, is perfectly allowed to copy that trick, use it for himself and perform it to others with the moves and patter that the tutorial has imparted. But doing so is the most basic thing that a performer could do.

A more accomplised performer, a more learned one, would take that trick, the slights, the moves, the patter and performance model - and disseminate it, break it down, change the plot and the patter, adapt them and evolve them all until he can safely say “I own that trick”.

That process takes a lot of time, alot of time. It took me 3 years once to create a 9 phased routine where a signed playing card fairly placed in the middle of a deck, becomes the top playing card with the click of a finger. This was after buying a tutorial showing 65 different methods to accomplish this. I took the very best methods, changed things, and made it my own.

And this was to be the case with the EE rip that has been stumbled upon before that very same process was complete on the website being disscussed in this thread. If whoever stumbled upon my site yesterday, seen it in around 2 or 3 weeks time, absolutly none of you could have turned around to me and said i have created a replica of EE. I’m just not that stupid enough to do that.

But, unfortunately for me, someone did stumble upon it - and it has caused an unending massive amount of abuse into my inboxes. I have received threats of violence - along with the lesser insults that are more tolerable. And not one of the senders had the decency to leave a genuine reply address - only stuff like .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and similar. Had they left a proper reply addy, i would have taken the time to apologise to them and explain my actions in greater detail.

But apologies to them are not worth much when you consider who it REALLY is that i should be apologising to.

Yesterday morning i contacted Jesse BC the EE site designer and explained in detail what i had done. I offered genuine, sincere and heartfelt apologies to him - and i would like to imprint on you all that these are indeed genuine feelings of remorse.

Jesse was very kind enough to accept my apologies and whilst it is great to see he has loyal supporters defending him, it is to Jesse that my peace has to be directed to.

Rick Ellis also contacted me concerning the issue. And to him i offered the same details and apologies with the same genuine feelings of remorse. Publicly - I am very sorry Rick, Jesse for what has happened. I have learnt ALOT from this.

I pointed out to both Rick and to Jesse, that no-one has a monopoly on curved designs, colors, layouts, features, functions and styles - or generally available underlying code that achieves such design results. Sure, Rick is perfectly correct in saying that i cant just grab a copy of the site, graphics, CSS and bung it up as a replica - but i sure can be inspired by what i see, by what i study, and make it my own in *different* way.

Well, this reply is approaching nearly 6000 characters, so i guess i will be going. But before i go, i would just like to thank Jesse for being so forgiving and the only two people - Jim and Andy - that emailed me, *politely* asking me to explain my actions. The others that emailed me with abuse, I hope you read this and this issue can put it its box and sealed up.

Thank you to anyone who reads this and understands.

Patrick 😊

Being humble and remorseful about the situation is good Patrick.  I’d say if you take action to make things right by coming up with an EE inspired site, and not a pixel for pixel copy and thieving the icons, then people will let you be and you can put this incident behind you.

Good luck.

I agree with Stephen Slater.

I look forward to seeing it once you feel comfortable calling it your own.

best
Andy

Many thanks for the kind replies.

I will keep you all informed on it’s progress.

I have a tight schedule this week with the kids going back to school after the summer hols - and will get on it at any time that allows.

Regards,

Patrick

Hi

I’m quite disappointed.  I’d even say shocked :o and saddened ;’(

My surprise is really more to do with how crap the site looks when you have copied such a great product to start with. The electric blue just STINKS…..

I’ve copied a few designs in the past and have made heavy duty changes to them to fit what I was doing - the end result has usually been double the time and effort than what would have been required if starting from scratch.

If you’re going to borrow designs - at least make the next iteration an improvement on the past. Please!

Cheers

And stills online…what a shameless !!!!!!!!

One thing is to do it a “inspirated layout” or copy the only layout structure (with tyou dont have creational/technical neurons) ...another thing is a pixel-by-pixel copy!!!

And buddy, dont quote Picasso to justify this. He was a creation genious, not a thief.

Haha, that’s shocking. And even worse, the kids are on holiday again at the moment so if this comes back up he’ll have a tight schedule again next week!

Wow can’t believe I missed this one. Regardless of what Rick or Jesse have said about this to me it just looks like a blatant theft of the ExpressionEngine site design.

I’m not entirely certain I am right in saying this but I think that the icons on the site are licensed icons so I surely hope that you sidesteal paid for their use if that is indeed the case.

Trying to blow us all away with magic information just doesn’t do it in this case I’m afraid. I myself am a magician amongst many other things and I see in absolutely no way how any of that information about magic was even in the slightest bit relevant.

I know that tying down designs on the internet is a very difficult thing to do but it really disheartens me when it happens as you have literally just taken someone else’s work and passed it off as your own and in doing so you have ruined the original look. I have seen a few sites now that have done this to the ExpressionEngine site and have actually got quite a lot of traffic to their sites because of this fact. I find this simply deplorable and something that I really think needs to have some legal standing thrown behind it. If you were to take a music track and copy it to the same extent that you have done here then you would have all sorts of legal proceedings brought upon you so I don’t really see the difference as to which medium - audio / print or web is used should matter.

Please please please change your site enough that it becomes your own really soon as this kind of thing just makes you look bad and no-one really wants that now do they?

Best wishes,

Mark

Also above you mentioned that you changed the site into using tables instead so that you had changed it enough. From what I saw (very quick glance) of the source code it looks pretty much the same to me. Not good and not clever.

Sure anyone can copy a site design to the tee and have lots and lots of traffic come in because the site looks so nice but you are also equally going to get a lot of traffic and hate mail because of what you have done.

Even if you can’t design a really good site for yourself then creating something which is your own is 3000% better than copying someone else’s work and you could always pay someone to make a design for you. There are plenty of good designers out there who could have taken the design of your site on for you.

Sorry but I just don’t see this as being the right thing to do. You say you are a magician. I definitely am a magician myself and I would never ever do what you have done with magic tricks so please learn from the magicians code and apply this to everything in life as it is a good code to live by.

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Folks,

Apologies for it still being up there - the DB’s are locked and have been since the ‘incident’ took place. It is not functional for anyone to use it until i complete the design.  I did write a candid and honest hearted reply to that thread and i see some others have made some posts.

Basically, its my own personal hobby site - and just in the last few weeks i have had enough time to come up with my own design - i attatch a pic of where i am going with it.

It should be up this week some time. If you can wait just a little longer I would be grateful.

I did actually log into EE last week to post I had finanally had enough time now to do this, but refrained because i wanted to suprise you all with it.

Sorry Mark that you didnt find my explanation relevant. I include a pic of where I am with it.

Do please give me some feedback.

Much much better. Coming up with your own design will win way more people over than taking someone else’s any day.

I commend you on changing it over. Will be nice to see when it does get swapped over.

My problem with the explanation was that it was totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. Let’s say it was a perfume site that had been copied. Telling everyone about how you love perfume and how you started out with perfume still doesn’t get around the fact that you copied someone else’s site.

Glad to see that you are taking all of the comments seriously though and re-designing the site. Do let us know when it is up and running as the new version though. I would suggest though that perhaps you (as a sign of respect) maybe put up a holding page in the mean time? If your site doesn’t work at the moment anyway then perhaps this would be the best thing to do? Just a thought though.

Looking forward to seeing your new design in the flesh when it is ready.

Best wishes,

Mark