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Comment by aviraldg | Hacker News Reader

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aviraldg

Why don't we, as a community, collectively agree to boycott copyright trolls? (and teach them a lesson in the process)

esp. when the target audience consists of developers/designers

EDIT: I tried to cross-post this on Designer News, but it turns out they're invite-only. Can someone do me the honour?

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We might want to see if they're actually trolls first.

While I know it's pretty de rigueur on HN to assume that anyone who issues a DMCA takedown is evil/a troll/an idiot who doesn't understand the internet, it doesn't mean that some of them aren't being filed because their copyright is actually being violated.

Until there's more evidence either from LayerVault that DesignModo has used their assets, or from DesignModo that they haven't - something beyond DesignModo just shouting "they're lying!" in any case, perhaps it's best to withhold judgement for the time being.

This would be much easier to do if they had included any specifics in the DMCA notice itself or in their public statements since then. Part of the de rigueur reaction is because DMCA actions often lack this kind of evidence.

Why don't we, as a community, put away the pitchforks until hearing from both sides?

Looking at the top comment in the thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5332398), it seems that DesignModo lifted some of their illustrations straight from the LayerVault site.

He only mentions that it looks similar - which isn't enough to file a DMCA takedown. When does it become problematic? When there's an identical icon in both sets, which I haven't been able to find so far.

Of all the links I have seen posted so far, I have yet to see anything lifted from their site.

I'd be much happier if we as a community learned to read, research and formulate opinions before picking up pitchforks.

Yes, we need to create a new DN. LayerVault really has proven they are not the right entity to be running it.

I see no reason why hackers and designers can't mix :)

this works too :)

^this.

They have proven to be an closed elitist circle and they go against the web openness nature of the web and development.

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