GracefulFlavor

If you enjoy stories about a small, angry company that rips off other another company’s design property, modifies it slightly, calls it their own and then threatens lawsuit against the company from whom they stole, you’re in luck.

Daring Fireball turned me onto the story of how LogoMaid, a shop that sells company logos and graphics for few hundred bucks per, ripped off Dan Cederholm’s SimpleBits logo, modified it oh-so-slightly, then threw it in their online logo catalog for sale for $199.

The LogoMaid knock off isn’t an exact replica, but it’s clearly an unabashed rip-off.

Cederholm’s logo is on the left; the LogoMaid rip-off on the right. (Image courtesy of DF.)

This issue came to a head during a Flickr discussion after Cederholm spotted the knock-off logo in LogoMaid’s online catalog and posted it to his Flickr account. From there, as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber says, things get weird.

You’ll have to read the Flickr comment thread yourself to appreciate the utter inanity of LogoMaid’s “defense” of their actions, but the upshot isn’t hard to summarize. Paul Viluda, the brains behind LogoMaid, makes an appearance in Cederholm’s Flickr comments and not only defends his knock-off logo with tactics as nonsensical as The Chewbacca Defense, but then has the nerve to threaten to sue SimpleBits for ripping LogoMaid off.

The comments on Flickr (and Digg) turn into armchair lawyerin’ and not much more, and there are plenty of arguments that most art is derivative and there’s nothing new under the sun. On Flickr it seems that Viluda might have taken some time to create sock puppet Flickr IDs to get “corroboration” from “other parties” to side with his story.

Talk about mistake on top of mistake.

From my perspective, this is all unbelievably stupid on LogoMaid’s behalf. Any business owner/manager worth his salt would have simply apologized to Cederholm and removed the questionable logo from LogoMaid’s catalog. Problem would have been solved, LogoMaid would have been out one measly logo, and it would have done the right thing and protected the organization’s goodwill in the process.

Instead, Viluda chose the path of temerity, and now this story is on high-visibility sites like Daring Fireball and Digg. It’s obviously here, on GF. The damage done to LogoMaid’s image in the eyes of the internet and potential customers is astronomical. That goodwill will take forever to rebuild — if it ever is rebuilt.

The internet is a conversation, Mr. Viluda, not just a place where you sell and people shop. There’s never been a medium with a more rapid and unforgiving set of checks and balances. Your in-your-face tactics weren’t the answer here, just like they’re not the answer in 99% of minor business disputes.

You had everything to lose and a single logo to gain.

You couldn’t have handled this more poorly.