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Comment by kamakazizuru | Hacker News Reader

am I the only one who doesnt find the sites that similar after all? Or to put it another way - neither of them seem particularly unique (fixed header, slider on top, broad sections and large footer) compared to many marketing sites these days?

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Nope, I'm with you. I've seen much more obvious plagiarisms. Although it's obvious that Kintek were more than a little inspired by infinum, and indeed some items look copied as is except the color change, the rest looks like any other bootstrap / grid based marketing site template. They might have pushed the "inspiration" part to the limit, and might deserve the post for not being too original, but I'm sure you can find thousands of sites that have similar elements and statistically, some of them copied from someone else. And I'm sure infinium were also inspired (even subconsciously) from other designers.

Almost every other site today has a dark header, a Mac screen / laptop carousel, slide scroll / parallax / infinite scrolling and a 3 column grid using the same icon fonts, dark 3 column footer with links, partners / as seen on techcrunch / customer logos in gray emboss. everyone has it. Although it's clear they copied, you could find sites that have these elements that didn't copy (or copied from someone else). So it's just the number of similar elements that is annoying, not each element individually IMHO.

no, if you go to the home page, the first advert in the 2nd page says "100+ projects".

then from the article they link an early mockup of the clone site, it says right there "100+ projects"

Styles, like fashion, follow trends. But the similarities on these sites go well beyond just similar trends, especially once you're beyond the main page. The copy on the "Services" page is probably the most damning:

  We provide a wide array of software design and development
  services -- from Mobile applications and Web applications
  to User interface design, Quality assurance and Digital
  Strategy -- we're a trusted partner helping you develop
  your business.

  We provide a wide array of Award Winning design and
  development services -- from Digital Strategy, QA and UX
  Design to iOS, Android, and Facebook Apps, Responsive
  Mobile Enhanced Websites, Ecommerce and Business
  Automation Tools -- we're your trusted partner in Digital.

I don't think anyone honestly believes those sentences were written independently of each other. Look at them in their context on the page, and the plausibility of coincidental design similarity goes even further out the window. This was clearly a copy/paste/edit job.

That's not good enough; it's too common. Sentence structure can't be copyrighted, just as common design elements can't be copyrighted. Show us HTML or CSS blocks that are exactly the same or slightly tweaked on both websites.

Have you even looked at them? The top banner has rectangular links that are the same, as do the 3-column icons and the footer.

It's not "damning" because that sentence structure, in particular, can't be copyrighted. It's "damning" because it is one very obvious part of a larger whole which, compounded, make it very unlikely that these two sites were developed independently. You could argue that Kintek changed it just enough to make it not plagiarism or copyright violation, but that's not exactly the point.

Hash both the images that are used to create that curved hero unit thing they both have. They both come out as e6a486ac74a59aaa1abefec33de40c55

By "damning", are you referring to the parroting of the silly use of capital letters?

- The scrolling animations on the header are exactly the same.

- The curved/depressed backgrounds behind the hero image (fairly unique) are the same shape and style.

- Page sizing is the same.

- Color scheme is the same, with blue swapped out for red.

These are just from glancing quickly between the two sites. Combined with the overall similarity, the fact that the scrolling animation is exactly the same is the most damning evidence that they deliberately copied the other site.

Also, compare http://www.infinum.co/services with http://kintek.com.au/showcase/ - specifically, the "home > showcase" nav.

Sure. But I've seen these design elements all over the web before. Infininum is just as guilty as Kintek when it comes to copying.

Your sentence is made up of letters and symbols that are used in hundreds (thousands, millions) of books and writings around the world. How dare you copy them. Come up with your own alphabet.

(My point: It's not the individual elements that matter. It's the unique combination. Infinum may not be exactly trend-setting, but unless you can find a site constructed with the exact same combination of design details, I say that Infinum is nowhere near as guilty when it comes to copying.)

They admitted that they copied Infininum's website specifically- http://kintek.com.au/blog/getting-egg-on-your-face/

yes they are similar - but for me theres a much bigger difference between similar / inspired design and flat out plagiarism - which this isnt.

Err, their color schemes are not the same. And stop glancing at it. I want to see something real that's shows deliberate plagiarism.

The color schemes are actually quite similar.

Where Infinum uses #333, Kintek uses #313131. Where Infinum uses rgb(34, 34, 34), Kintek converts it to hex and uses #222222. The only major difference I can find is the highlight color, which is obvious. (red vs. blue)

You're not alone. In fact, at first I thought their sites were standard Wordpress templates. I was kind of surprised they actually built them by hand. They both consist solely of what I would consider standard elements and layouts.

I am pretty certain that the Kintek website is a Wordpress site built using the Roots Starter Theme.

Based on the fact they use:

* Make use of both the Yoast SEO and Gravity Forms plugins, which are well known Wordpress plugins.

* Twitter Bootstrap

* Have an /assets/ folder which most likely rewrites to /wp-content/themes/themename/assets/

* Have a /plugins/ folder which most likely rewrites to /wp-content/plugins/

Did nobody asking this question look at this screenshot: http://www.infinum.co/system/uploads/2013-06/kintek/kintek-f...

Look at the area immediately below the fold.

It's one of the most blatant examples of plagiarism I've ever seen.

It's arguably worse than simple wholesale lifting of css, since they've carefully and deliberately redrawn distinctive design elements, and lifted half the copy as well

And this is a medium-sized design company, in a developed country. And it got nominated for an award.

Sure, the design has evolved a bit since it started as a direct copy, and the design wasn't that original in the first place, but I'm baffled by people suggesting the similarities might have been accidental.

Um, did you know that "awards" in the software industry are a sort of marketing gray area where companies pay a lot for a submission to some "organization" who then hands out "awards" and "nomiations" that can be advertized on websites?

"Awards" in many industries are marketing grey areas. In this case, though, it's just yet another free css design gallery: the only notable thing being that kintek probably nominated themselves, knowing exactly where their original design came from...

...where companies pay a lot ...

Hell, I kept getting spam regarding assorted awards my software "won" simply because I provided some sort of XML file indicating download details.

Have you seen this 2007 thing about the awards scam?

(http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards...)

> I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Some of them even emailed me messages of encouragement such as “Great job, we’re really impressed!”. I should be delighted at this recognition of the quality of my software, except that the ‘software’ doesn’t even run. This is hardly surprising when you consider that it is just a text file with the words “this program does nothing at all” repeated a few times and then renamed as an .exe. The PAD file that described the software contains the description “This program does nothing at all”.

That's pretty much the feeling I had... I would even say that it might be that kintek never heard of this guys, they just happened to have very similar idea that probably came from similar sources.

I don't think they look similar at all..

How many sites look like the Stripe landing page now adays?

Also, it's about 3am in brisbane at the moment, so you might not get a response for another 7 hours.

Looking at the code, it looks like the Infinum site is using a bootstrap base, but a fairly customized navbar, and that the kintek site is using something else... the structure of the markup is similar, but definitely different, as well as the difference in CSS classes.

Yes, there are similarities, but I have no reason to believe that one is a ripoff of another. They're both pretty bog-standard bootstrap-like marketing sites.

It may not seem like it is copied, but it definitely is. Take a look at the background image that gives that curved effect. They haven't just tried to recreate it, they've literally downloaded the same image and just used that.

If you hash both files on the original website and the new one, you'll see they both amount to: e6a486ac74a59aaa1abefec33de40c55

What more proof is needed? Haha

Yes, I just posted the same sentiments before I saw your comment.

while it certainly looks like the second one did indeed rip off the first, i'd have to say there's nothing at all about the first one that looks even remotely interesting or innovative to me. looks like a run-of-the-mill $20 wordpress template.

Yes

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