Mozilla rips off Metalab, issue apparently resolved within the hour

http://blog.metalabdesign.com/post/437932602/metalab-goes-open-source

by dzlobin • 16 years ago

158 125 16 years ago

blog.metalabdesign.com

taitems2• 16 years ago

When I first saw the tweet I thought it was just a backyard/bedroom operator doing it for free. It is open source after all. But when I read that they tendered for the project and were turned down, that makes me really angry.

I hope they reach an agreement where Metalab is reimbursed for the entire amount of their initial quote.

midnightmonster• 16 years ago

> an agreement where Metalab is reimbursed for the entire amount of their initial quote.

Why on earth would/should that happen over a few mockups? It's not that Mozilla asked Metalab to do a bunch of work, claimed it sucked so they wouldn't pay, and then used it anyway. No: Moz decided not to hire Metalab, and someone ripped off some existing work of Metalab's for some mockups.

Now, I think that was an inexcusable thing to do on the part of whoever did it, but even if it was actual Mozilla staff, I just don't see why Mozilla ought to pay Metalab for not working nor hire them unless they happened to be the second choice. (Because the first choice--assuming they were responsible--has got to go.)

taitems2• 16 years ago

Because the person responsible (not knowing who that is just yet) directly stole their images, violated their copyright and their intellectual property. Instead of tying things up with lawyers, mediation and strongly worded letters, why not simply pay what was quoted for, and forget it ever happened?

whalesalad• 16 years ago

Hmm from the looks of it it doesn't seem like they're actually using the design anywhere? As far as I can tell the image from Metalab has been placed on a public wiki.

dirtbox4• 16 years ago

For Mozilla's sake, I hope it was the design team they hired that did the knockoff rather than an inhouse designer. Although it's probably too early to jump to conclusions at this point.

anthonyb3• 16 years ago

If they did, how would they know which site to knock off? Unless it's either a bizarre coincidence, the Mozilla guys would have had to pass the mockups on to them. And they still had to upload them afterwards!

dirtbox4• 16 years ago

I'm sure there were more than a few designers who tendered an offer.

cscotta• 16 years ago

See here for four more comps based on the same layout: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Jetpack/FlightDeck

This is pretty shameful. These were all posted by wiki user Dandonkulous (Daniel Buechner; @dandonkulous), who was Metalab's contact in the article. These may just be comps rather than a full product, but regardless, they demonstrate that significant effort has gone into producing a nearly identical copy of the original Metalab design. That's disappointing; if these allegations are correct, I'm very disappointed in Daniel and those involved at Mozilla in creating this product.

Update: Mozilla has removed the screenshots. Here are three of them:

- http://u.phoreo.com/gn.png

- http://u.phoreo.com/1x.png

- http://u.phoreo.com/gq.png

Timothee• 16 years ago

Actually, there are still available through the history of the document you linked to. In particular: https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Labs/Jetpack/Flight...

lotharbot9• 16 years ago

Within minutes of your post, the screenshots were removed from that page. Looks like someone on the mozilla end is watching.

You can still see a screenshot at https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:FlightDeck_Editor.png as of this posting.

To the guys at mozilla: do the right thing. It's too late to bury this.

dirtbox4• 16 years ago

It's more likely the start of an effort to set the record straight rather than bury it. Or at least it should be.

DEinspanjer• 16 years ago

Aside from the rights and wrongs done by both companies, ^^ this sentiment is the one that really makes me mad. Mozilla gets notification from a company that they screwed up. Mozilla begins removing the objectionable material without delay. Mozilla gets flamed for "burying evidence".

I imagine this flame can't hurt as bad as the alternate one where people say Mozilla is just flaunting their wrongdoing by not taking the material down, but sheesh!

spoondan4• 16 years ago

I think this is a gross, misleading, and irresponsible reaction. The cited image is from the Mozilla wiki under a section entitled "Current mock-ups and screenshots". I cannot find any evidence that Mozilla has released a site or application with this UI. There is nothing anywhere to indicate that the design shown is "new", that it is in any way intended to be the final design, or that the stolen graphical elements will actually be used in the real product.

darrylring3• 16 years ago

I really have to agree. "Functionality Mock-ups" don't even remotely equal launching a stolen design.

wheels• 16 years ago

I suspect it went like this:

"Wow, the Metalab stuff looks great. Let's ask for a quote!"

[asks for, gets quote]

"Crap. That's way out of our budget. But we do love that style of design."

"Hey, design intern, can you 'shop some of our content into their layout to serve as a functional mockup until we figure out what we're going to do for the real design?"

[intern shops in content, mockup gets posted to wiki, internet drama ensues]

The infraction really seems to be that this is public. Knocking off other sites for purposes of internal mockups and basic functional blocking seems totally sane.

lotharbot9• 16 years ago

It's a current mockup of a UI that appears to be copy-pasted directly from the website of a UI design company that put in a bid on this very project and was rejected.

At best, this was a gross and irresponsible move by Mozilla. And if it's not planned to be in the final product, it's also misleading.

darrylring3• 16 years ago

It doesn't say UI, it says Functionality. And it doesn't say Final Product, it says Mock-ups.

dschobel• 16 years ago

Sure, but borrowing so liberally usually merits at least a credit to the original artists.

That's just common decency in the artistic world.

spoondan4• 16 years ago

Sure, but contacting Mozilla to tell them you'd like the images removed or a credit would be a reasonable reaction. Writing a sensationalist blog post accusing Mozilla of "stealing your design" in their "new design" is, in my opinion, a more serious violation of common decency.

dzlobin3• 16 years ago

I don't see any other mock-ups or screenshots there, that kind of leads me to believe this was the possible working 'goal' for the developers, not just a brainstorm.

spoondan4• 16 years ago

It's inappropriate to make public accusations based on assumptions. Fortunately, one doesn't need to operate based solely on assumption, since asking for clarification is easy.

wooster• 16 years ago

Really? Because it looks to me like an employee of Mozilla claimed copyright on images plagiarized from another's work. The Mozilla wiki has a very clear copyright policy:

"All contributions to MozillaWiki are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC-BY-SA) version 3.0 or any later version."

https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozillaWiki:About

Which I would expect Mozilla employees to know about and abide by.

As full disclosure, I've hired Metalab in the past.

boucher• 16 years ago

Yeah, but the appropriate reaction was to talk to anyone at Mozilla before writing a public blog post in a fairly transparent attempt to get some free PR.

spoondan4• 16 years ago

Mozilla employees ought to know the policy and understand how it applies to what they do on the wiki. On that we can agree. But when one fails to follow the policy, and in the absence of any other evidence, is it reasonable to assume that they willfully did so?

Hg• 16 years ago

I'm not sure that it's fair to say that Mozilla ripped off his design. The images were uploaded by a single user to a semi-public wiki. It's not as though the whole of Mozilla decided on it.

xelipe• 16 years ago

I completely agree. I've had my work repurposed, many times, even by notable members of certain programming circles. It is funny when it happens, as in the case case of Microsoft/Plurk but this guy comes off as a classic case study of a douche to demand some sort of public apology and reparation. I mean, the folks responsible for the Mozilla site took the design down as soon as they were notified of the issue, in a timely manner as required by the DMCA. As stated, Mozilla is a big company with a large number of resources, like interns and offshore programmers that don't always do the right thing. The truth is that situations like these are simply used a the PR stunt.

I actually want Mozilla to steal my content, edit it for me, sexy it up, blog about it, tweet it out, etc. just as long as they send me some Google juice.

allenp• 16 years ago

"That said, it was used in their launch video as well as their blog post announcing the product."

Actually the stolen graphics were used in a real product - the marketing. The moment they used these graphics externally to drum up interest they crossed the line.

marbletiles• 16 years ago

What app are they using to read their mail? It's purty

mikeyur2• 16 years ago

I believe what you're referring to is the image of the estimate. That's a screenshot of MetaLab's invoicing app, Ballpark.

http://getballpark.com/

mimosin8• 16 years ago

I can't believe Mozilla would do such a thing, but as a designer I am on Metalab's side, it is unacceptable that any company would do such a thing. Mozilla needs to issue an apology and pay for the design if the intend to clear in any way what they have done. It is also sad that a talented team like mozilla's couldn't come up with an idea of their own or at least pay for it. On another note, is there a way for Metalab to take legal actions towards Mozilla?

brandon27211• 16 years ago

Andrew Wilkinson is constantly freaking out over design similarities and rip offs. In some cases, the designs are not even close. In others, such as in this case, they are very close. In either case, I don't think that these constant public tantrums are ever effective at accomplishing anything positive.

What Andrew did accomplish in this case was that he ensured that Mozilla will likely not become one of their clients, even though it was clear Mozilla considered them to be a good firm, and would have possibly sent them work in the future.

The professional thing to do in this scenario would be to contact the parties involved to see what is going on and discuss the issue, including any concerns you have, directly and like adults. It's wrong to assume you understand someone's motivations when you haven't given them an opportunity to explain themselves, especially when you go on to type up a scathing blog post about them in which you publish private e-mail correspondence between yourself and the party that you are criticizing.

antidaily• 16 years ago

Weird assumption - that Mozilla liked them and would have given them work in the future if he would not have complained. Though, I agree that it probably could have been resolved out of the public's view.

brandon27211• 16 years ago

Why is it a weird assumption? Their blog post shows an e-mail from Daniel (the person they are lambasting) that says "Your company has first-class UI/graphics design chops and I will certainly keep MetaLab in mind when bidding out future projects that require such services."

mbreese• 16 years ago

No one is saying that they shouldn't have complained... what some are arguing is that they should have complained directly to Mozilla instead of the Internet at large. By making their complaint (valid as it is) so public, they've risked any possibility that they could get design work from Mozilla in the future. A quick email to say, ?Hey, we noticed that the design of this tool that's in development was copied from our design" would have done the trick. Instead of riling up designers online, this could have been handled much better.

flexeble• 16 years ago

This situation smears the good name that Mozilla has built in spreading the values of open source software. It is shameful for Mozilla to have put itself as a pilferer of design. Take it down and hire them to do the work.

jrockway• 16 years ago

There's a reason why everyone calls the Mozilla Foundation the "MoFo". This is the same entity that told Debian they couldn't patch security problems and still call the browser Firefox. Let's just say... a clue is not something the MoFo has.

kylebragger• 16 years ago

Wait, was this an actual site that was live, or just some screenshots/mockups?

nolanbrown23• 16 years ago

It was just a mockup.

dzlobin3• 16 years ago

"The material was used in both the launch announcement and video for the product, but the design has since been changed. Mozilla have apologised. A follow-up post from MetaLab is promised for tomorrow."

brandon27211• 16 years ago

This is now on TechCrunch.

This should be a wake up call to MetaLab's prospective clients and partners: If you do something that MetaLab doesn't like, they won't call you to talk about it. They will first hit Twitter and their blog and try to shame you in the most public way they possibly can, ensuring that the message is broadcast to millions.

lotharbot9• 16 years ago

"something MetaLab doesn't like"? That's a really soft euphemism to use in place of "use their images and design on mockups of a product after rejecting their bid to do images and design for that product".

Granted, MetaLab could have chosen a better approach. But don't act like they don't have darn good reason to be upset.

brandon27211• 16 years ago

My argument isn't that they shouldn't be upset. It's that they have handled a situation so poorly that their actions and consequences are worse than what they are originally critiquing!

Mozilla made a mistake by posting images that they shouldn't have posted. If they wanted that design, they should have coughed up the cash and gotten MetaLab to do the work. But publicly shaming a company to try and damage their reputation, including posting private e-mails for the world to see without so much as a courtesy call to the person you have a problem before you distribute a message which may reach hundreds of thousands, or millions of eyes is, at best, horribly short sighted and extraordinarily unprofessional.

thenduks• 16 years ago

The images that were used for the mockups on Mozilla's semi-public wiki were simply screenshots/mocks done by Mozilla that look like an entirely unrelated Metalabs design. Mozilla didn't get mocks of FlightDeck from them, turn them down and then use it behind their backs.

They probably just had some intern do a rough functional mockup in the same style and the kid went too far... Really, they took it down instantly and there were clearly no bad intentions... What's all the fuss? Why flip out and post on twitter and your blog about it instead of just replying to that email he obviously already had lying around and saying "Yo, you took our design man!" and the guy would have replied "Uh oh! Damn interns!"

I would never work with Metalabs after this, some one on my team makes a boo boo and emails out a screenshot that he hacked together in photoshop and BOOM my reputation is ruined because Metalabs flies off the handle. No thanks.

auston• 16 years ago

here is "something MetaLab doesn't like" - http://blog.metalabdesign.com/post/380958383/how-to-send-ema... - although they did not name anyone, it's still pretty pretentious IMO.

They're entitled to their own stuck up persona though, they do amazing work. When you're that good, who cares about good sportsmanship!

Semiapies12• 16 years ago

Welcome to the non-hacker business world, where people react badly when you rip them off.

jkincaid• 16 years ago

Here's the comment Mozilla gave to me:

"Mozilla is now aware of a post by MetaLabs that shows a Mozilla developer copying prior design work. The mockups they cite were an early proof of concept created by cut-and-paste, never final designs. Mozilla respects the hard work of all designers and at no time meant to plagiarize original content. The in-progress designs for the Jetpack SDK’s IDE are available here (http://flightdeck.zalewa.info/) and following initial sign-off on the proof of concept, the IDE was developed entirely independent of MetaLabs’ work."

daleharvey• 16 years ago

azaaza just posted to twitter

"Just got off the phone with MetaLab, glad to have quickly reached an understanding. Expect to hear from them soon."

http://twitter.com/azaaza/status/10253138540

seems a shame for metalab to jump so quickly on mozilla in that way, mozilla havent been the golden boy in the geek crowd for a while but their labs are putting out some awesome stuff.

Semiapies12• 16 years ago

Seems more of a shame for Mozilla to have done this, even by simple negligence.

guelo• 16 years ago

http://twitter.com/azaaza/status/10253138540

Aza: Just got off the phone with MetaLab, glad to have quickly reached an understanding. Expect to hear from them soon.

dzlobin3• 16 years ago

edited the title, kudos to the Mozilla team for their quick work in getting the story straight

ynniv2• 16 years ago

This is probably the mock-up that almost landed you the gig in the first place, but obviously that isn't going to happen now.

And you've undoubtedly convinced a few additional CEO's that absolute secrecy is the best way to operate. Let people participate in works-in-progress and someone is sure to get their knickers in a twist. This is also why more companies don't open source their tools: they expose themselves to patent infringement suits when anyone can read the code.

The proper recourse would be to email someone, or wait to see if your designs showed up in the final product. I mean, you aren't going to forget to check the theme on the latest version of Firefox.

Semiapies12• 16 years ago

"but obviously that isn't going to happen now."

It hadn't happened. The deal was off.

Why do people try to convince designers that they should accept being ripped off in hopes that some of the people ripping them off will throw them a bone?

ynniv2• 16 years ago

Why do people try to convince designers that they should accept being ripped off in hopes that some of the people ripping them off will throw them a bone?

You are talking about an internal mockup, not a released product. There is no justification to say that anyone was "ripped off", nor would Mozilla be "throwing them a bone" if they were to re-approach later after re-allocating more funding. My comment that this will not happen now is not to suggest that MetaLab should have been secretly hoping for a deal to happen anyway. However, their untempered response to the situation portray's them as unprofessional. I would not reconsider working with a firm who acted this way.

brandon27211• 16 years ago

Did MetaLab design the Campaign Monitor website?

http://www.getballpark.com/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/

ispivey• 16 years ago

They look awfully similar, but no; Campaign Monitor's site was designed by design firm 31Three before Ballpark was launched:

http://www.31three.com/portfolio/#campaign_monitor

http://newism.com.au/blog/post/90/building-campaign-monitor-...

brandon27211• 16 years ago

Maybe this 31Three company needs to put up a blog post accusing MetaLab of "ripping off" their design. They could even put up comparative screenshots to show the obvious similarities, and could encourage their followers to contact MetaLab to register their displeasure. The directors of the company could also spend the day on Twitter publicly forwarding links to the blog post to their colleagues.

Seems like a great way to get some free publicity!

csspixel• 16 years ago

Their homepage now redirects to http://blog.metalabdesign.com and rest of the nav links are not working anymore. Good job, make your website completely unusable for a bit of PR.

grinich• 16 years ago

They were TechCrunch'd and threw a static page up on S3.

rksprst• 16 years ago

Anyone know what software they to make/send their estimates? As well as the CRM they use? The message screenshot I take is from some CRM tool?

Edit: Looks to be ballpark for both, can anyone confirm?

mikeyur2• 16 years ago

Both of the shots (estimate + 'CRM' - really just a comments section) are from Ballpark.

natfriedman• 16 years ago

Can anyone deblur that invoice? It looks like at least $20k for 47 hours of work.

bbatsell2• 16 years ago

Er, it's blatantly clear that there is only one number in front of the comma separating the thousands. It looks like $6,000 to me.

timdorr• 16 years ago

$6580 / 47 = $140. Sounds about right.

aresant• 16 years ago

"That said, it was used in their launch video as well as their blog post announcing the product."

If true, I think that's pretty conclusive that this goes beyond Mozilla "mocking up" a new design and they've got some egg on their face.

nnash• 16 years ago

I love Metalabs site design as much as the next guy, but I don't think that this is what Picasso meant when he said - "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Shame on you Mozilla, shame on you.

anupj• 16 years ago

good artists copy, great artists steal :)

matwood• 16 years ago

The Metalab guys should be happy about all the free press they are now getting.

Not saying that Metalab did this, but I wonder if there is a PR lesson here. Anonymously upload your companies design to a popular FOSS project and then pretend to be all dejected when you 'find out'. Air your grievance publicly and boom, instant PR!

scotty793• 16 years ago

Apparently Mozilla liked Metalab design so much that it was getting ready to actually use it in their product. Price happened to be too steep so they passed.

What Metalab should do is that it should contact Mozilla and tell them: "Look guys, we saw that you put much effort and actually introduced our design into development version of your product. We think it really looks great so maybe you should reconsider and purchase this design from us. We can give you discount on this."

Instead they went "This is mine. You have not paid to touch it. Don't touch it! Hey, everybody!!! They are touching it but they didn't pay me!"

Semiapies12• 16 years ago

Yeah, I know that price tag says $199.99, but since you walked out of the store with it stuffed in your pocket, I know you like it - how's $180? $160?

Hey, don't walk so fast, I'm trying to negotiate with you. Wait up!

scotty793• 16 years ago

From what I see is more like:

Why do you touch my apples? You said you didn't want to buy them for 10$! Stop touching my apples! Thief! Thief! Make him stop touching my apples!

Or maybe fitting the dress you said you didn't want to buy would be a better metaphore.

cristianl• 16 years ago

I'm late to this, and I wish I could avoid the gross generalization, but it seems that Hacker News has a bias against Metalab.

The comments on You're Killing Me, Zappos (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812729) could be boiled down to "You can design a shiny mockup, but you can't make a successful, money-making website."

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

Im interested in what Mozilla mean by: "the mockups they cite were an early proof of concept created by cut-and-paste, never final designs." (mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

According to the wiki history [1] they were added as late as 12th/16th Feb 2010. Admitedly posted as Latest Mock-ups and Screenshots but there are no other designs or alternatives proposed.

It's easy enough to call these concepts now: but without a complaint from metalab (which was handled poorly) would they have made it further towards "final design"?

1. https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Labs/Jetpack/Flight...

micrypt• 16 years ago

Jetpack Mockup Clarification & Apology to MetaLab

http://mozillalabs.com/jetpack/2010/03/10/jetpack-mockup-cla...

Semiapies12• 16 years ago

I remain amused/disturbed that so many people here sincerely believe that if they wrong someone else, the wronged party owes them a back-channel discussion to resolve things cheaply and quietly.

If you make promo material with someone's designs (after declining to pay), you should be very grateful if that person's willing to work it out without involving lawyers. A public apology and a promise to do things better is far cheaper than an attorney's billable hours.

If that person is kind enough to do all this quietly, then be twice as grateful for that person's kindness.

Mozilla and Aza Raskin have understood this better than their defenders - when you're in the hole, stop digging. No excuses, no defensiveness. Fix your mistake, acknowledge that you were wrong, explain your error if it was innocent, and apologize.

pixeltodesign• 16 years ago

MetaLabs propose a design for Mozilla. Mozilla steals design. NOT COOL especially since you have the resources to afford something like this.

petemerrill• 16 years ago

Wow. This is disgusting. Even I create my own content and o own a small social network (2780 members). Unnacceptable. I'm speechless. http://www.thirdie.com

Mozilla rips off Metalab, issue apparently resolved within the hour

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