Hi a question about copying a web site design?

This would only be okay if the site was clearly marked with a creative commons lisence. Most site designs are copyrighted, even if they don't have a statement explicitly stating that. And even if it was legal it's never cool to steal someone else's work. Even if you change it a bit, it's still their work.

Instead, you might want to search for open source templates - they are released free for people to do what they want with. Always check the terms of the creative commons lisence.

It is okay to be inspired by other designs and to borrow parts of them and modify to suit your needs. For example, if you liked the navigation menu on a particular site you could borrow the code and change the design to suit your site. The question you need to ask yourself here is whether it would be obvious to a viewer that your design was taken from the other - if people can tell then it's probably too much of a copy.

Some people are really particular about protecting their work - I've even heard of sites saying that it's illegal to view source on their site because the code is all copyrighted.

It might bring you some problems but if you have the psd and show them that you made from scratch and that the other layout is not the same you wont have any problems just keep the psd close or it will be alot harder to do this

Best Regards
Henry Jorge

A simple graphic image of the page before it was a webpage may not be enough, you better be able to show concept drawings, steps in the design processes, etc. because I can take any web page and make a PSD file of it....

I will not go into the details here, but all you need is one person to make claims that are not even true, and a judge that believes it, and you can loose a lot of money and time. I have personal experience in this with a company I had worked for before. It's not pretty, and IMO not worth the risk.

Heck from my own personal experience, getting sued over something and having it thrown out because it was not a real claim cost me personally over $5,000 in legal fees, and that doesn't count the lawyer that handled about 75% of the work that an insurance company paid for. Not to mention over a year to get it thrown out, the whole time having it hang over your head....

-Greg

With a million websites out there, there will be some probability that the designs would be similar. A common three column layout would possibly be almost identical.

You could however follow Greg K. tips and add more custom graphics from a design inspiration. Although it is not still fool proof as some design elements would have possibly a similar look as well. So it really is better to have all your source and drafts with you, and ask permission whenever you can...

I think the whole legal question/how to get away with it is irrelevant because the bottom line is that it's extremely rude, disrespectful, and uncool to steal someone else's work. If you don't want to make a design yourself, there are tons of free and open source templates available to work from. Use them.

The only time it would be appropriate to copy a site design is if you were just doing it for practice, to learn the techniques, and weren't planning to put it on a live site.

Stealing web design is not okay.

Megan's right, and it's not just bad legally to copy verbatim. It's also not going to help a designer grow in ability.

• It's fine to study how stuff works on a site;
• It's fine to borrow ideas from sites (this sort of thing happens in the software industry all the time);
• It's fine to borrow colour schemes (don't just look at Web sites for this though, the best design I ever did was based on a shirt);

Your best bet is to look at several sites you like, then work on your design without looking at them again. You'll find that your own touch will appear in the new version.

Quote: Stealing web design is not okay.

Actually, I just realised, this is something the music/film industry has everyone brain washed about: copying other people's work is not theft, it's copyright infringement. It would only be theft if you deprive the owner of their work.

That doesn't make it right of course, but copyright infringement is nowhere near as bad as theft.

Okay, so stealing was the wrong word there. Point remains - it is not cool to copy someone else's work!

I whole heartedly agree...