And Google copied the search engine from many others before it.
Ebay wasn't the first Auction site. Amazon wasn't the first site to sell books. etc. etc.
So Andrew Dumont, let me get something straight.
It's not alright for sites to copy ideas but it is perfectly alright for you to copy images/tables from the economist, put them on your site/blog and pass them off as your own?
Link to original economist article; http://www.economist.com/node/21525394