Ask HN: Plagiarism Horror Stories

The recently released, controversial iPad "Crush" ad strongly resembles LG's 2008 advertisement [1]. Yesterday, there was a post [2] from a YC backed company that submitted a product that, many say, looked like a carbon copy of Linear, and even in their own words:

> We, too, are fans of Linear and appreciate its user experience (UX). After speaking with a lot of people, we concluded that it’s top-notch. Consequently, we wanted to give that experience rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel. [3]

Too many "plagiarism" (alleged or real, not for me to judge) stories within a day, so I wanted to use this occasion, to ask for your plagiarism horror stories:

* when you were shamelessly copied

* when you accidentally designed something that looks very much like an already existing design

* when taking inspiration from someone else vs copying elements of design became murky at your job

* when someone asked you to copy a competitors approach and you felt conflicted, or you had to reject doing so

* when you were accused of stealing a design even though you haven't

* when following what works for others is just the name of the game ("stories" and "shorts" taking over Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and even LinkedIn within a matter of months, spreadsheet apps looking the same, etc)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40314122

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40290735

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40306240