Is stealing work a form of flattery?

We’ve seen a number of AgencyNet rip-off sites but this one is ridiculous. Look familiar anyone? This is a crappy rip-off of our ORIGINAL award winning AgencyNet site. Boo on them for stealing.

urip-off.jpg

  • http://www.alexanderradsby.com Alexander Radsby

    Wow, that’s really bad. What will you do at AgencyNet about it?

  • DMS

    I’d say it was time for AN to redesign anyway.

  • Garrett

    Wow, that sucks. losers…

  • Jason Stonebraker

    If imitation is the highest form of flattery, outright stealing simply shows a lack of originality. You can’t argue with their taste though. :-)

  • http://lesterlin.com lester000000

    I just found this website http://libertyweb.info/ who stole ALA webdesign. It’s ridiculous. Guys, why do that ? Lazy ? So stupid !

  • http://www.jayemsee.com jayemsee

    sorry this is upside down :)

    ıpǝɹɔ ǝɯos ɯǝɥʇ ǝʌıƃ

    ˙spnolɔ pǝddǝɹd ʎlɹood puɐ ǝpısʇno sʇsnƃ puıʍ ɥdɯ 06 ɥʇıʍ dn oıpnʇs ǝɥʇ ʇǝs oʇ ʇɥƃnoɥʇ ǝʌɐɥ plnoʍ oɥʍ – ʎɐʍuɐ qoɾ ɹǝʇʇǝq ɐ pıp ʎǝɥʇ – llǝʍ o ˙ɹǝʇʇǝq ʍouʞ ɹo ǝɹɐɔ ʇ,uop sʇuǝılɔ ǝɥʇ ɥɔıɥʍ uı ‘ʇǝʞɹɐɯ sɐǝsɹǝʌo ssǝlʇuǝlɐʇ ǝɥʇ ʎllɐnsn s,ʇı

  • larissa

    @jaymesee – I had to turn my laptop upside down to read that. :-0

  • http://www.ronaldbeach.com Ron

    It is not even a good rip-off and they are putting themselves out there as web designers.

    Wicket, here is a blog especially for you. http://maxthegoldenretriever.com/

    I hope that everyone has a chance to enjoy the weekend with their family or friends.

    Ron

  • http://www.thebigwordproject.com Lee

    lol blatant copycats are ridiculous! I know we all get inspiration from other sites but the fact that designer’s don’t even try to put their own creativity into a design is sad.

    After we launched The Big Word Project, within a week we had our first few copycats, with pretty much the same design. Now there are loads of copycats appearing.

  • http://www.qydo.com Tim

    It’s not even a good rip off. The original is much better…especially w/ the animated staff hard at work.

    You might consider adding a rel=”nofollow” to the anchor around the image…right now he’s taking from your blog’s good name too. Check his inbound links in yahoo;)

    @jayemsee…How did you do that?! Especially in a comment:)

  • Don

    Easter is a time of new beginnings…Wishing you a very Happy Easter!

  • Marcel Doornbos

    Pffff I hate Rippers. Everytime someone makes a VERY cool design they just rip it, And sometimes Sell it to other people for much money. Well They will get caught at a time, and then get a big bill for Copyright Ignorance (or how you call it in English :) , I’m Dutch ;)

    Well Happy Easter.

    Marcel

  • http://www.onclickstudio.com Pavel Pichardo

    what a shame!

  • http://elliotjaystocks.com Elliot Jay Stocks

    It’s an interesting question, Larissa. Check out the comments here for some interesting thoughts.

  • http://www.bencline.net Ben

    usually I’m inclined to brush of most blog posts about site rips, as a lot of sites out there hang in the fuzzy grey area between heavy influence and pure rip-off. this however sadly is one of those blatant rip-offs, sorry to hear. maybe get jayemsee over there to kick their arses :)

  • http://www.proofhq.com/html/blog/?p=29 ProofHQ – Product Blog » Blog Archive » Design Rip Offs

    [...] Meek blogged about rip offs here, citing a direct but “crappy” copy of the AgencyNet web [...]

  • http://www.fubiz.net Fubiz

    Beautiful template wordpress!

  • Ross

    I once worked for a web design company where my boss pointed me to a website and told me to copy it’s design. When I tried to explain why that would be a bad idea she didn’t understand and when I tried to tweak the design a bit, to differentiate it from the original she got annoyed. Thankfully I don’t work there anymore.

    Outright ripping off someone’s design sucks. It’s one thing to be inspired by a design but completely another to rip it.

  • http://aronil.com aronil

    Hi Larissa… this reminds me of ndesigns post, he also had the same problem. Honestly it’s terrible, i can’t stand it when people copy bit for bit. sure it can be argued that it means one is good, but i still think they should use it as a means of inspiration and see how an artwork can be improved rather than rip it off straight.

  • http://www.prefabrike.net prefabrike

    Thankfully I don’t work there anymore.

    Outright ripping off someone’s design sucks. It’s one thing to be inspired by a design but completely another to rip it.

  • http://www.chrishutchcroft.com Chris Hutchcroft

    Imitation is definitely a form of flattery, and sometimes you just have to accept the rip-offs. It sucks when the rip-off is being used for something that goes against your own morals or intent, but I guess that’s why lawyers will never go broke.

    Your AgencyNet side design rocks, it’s almost like surfing the site while playing Sims.