MetaLab recently blogged that Mozilla had used their design work without permission or attribution.
At issue are early mockups for one of the Jetpack developer tools that included design elements from the MetaLab web site. While the design direction being implemented does not utilize these design elements, we inadvertently included the early mockups in our blog post and video announcing the next phase of development for the Jetpack SDK.
We’ve since removed all of the early mockups from our web sites, and updated the videos and screenshots with the correct content.
We sincerely apologize to MetaLab for incorporating design elements from their web site in our early mockups and for posting them publicly without proper attribution.
We’re actively investigating how this happened to ensure that it does not happen again.
Tags: jetpack
When you say “We inadvertently included the early mockups”, you are not telling the whole truth. As can be seen here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:FlightDeck_Editor.png (until you remove the screenshot), what you call as “early mockups” are a pixel-by-pixel ripoff of MetaLab’s website. No web agency or department, internal or external to your organisation, has the right to steal a design like that. You can hardly call it an early mockup when someone of your team or the agency you’ve hired took the time to create pixel-perfect new buttons and icons to match the stolen interface.
Using terms as “design elements” and “early mockups” is perhaps your way to minimize the incident, but apologizing this way is simply unworthy for a company like Mozilla.
Shame on you!
Obvoisly didn’t do a good enough job at “removed all of the early mockups from our web sites” as demonstrated here – https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:FlightDeck_Editor.png
*Obviously
Cool. Way to step up, Mozilla!
Very timely too. I hope this clears a lot of the issue up for everyone.
I just can’t see why a company would want to pull images from the homepage of a site they turned down hiring. The public still does not know exactly who was responsible.
My site has probably been inspired by many things and UIs over recent years, and one most recent inspiration being Metalab.
I imported my old site’s PNGs that I had originally created in Paint Shop Pro into Photoshop. I then used a simple gradient, and just like that my site was too similar to Metalab which I had not known of before. The gradient was more similar than I was hoping, but it made me learn Photoshop over Paint Shop Pro, and how simple, automated and commonplace these built-in effects are. (My site was always considered unique in the past probably because I wasn’t using Photoshop effects.)
All the more reason that I couldn’t imagine actually pulling images and using them in anything.
Maybe only pulling something open-source like a special RSS icon, but not a company’s homepage.
This is like if the new nightly builds of Firefox took the buttons straight from Chrome. Even if it’s not the public release, it’s still out there and public building positive reputation from the talents of someone else.
That being said, more of an issue is being made from this than needs to be and I’m sure a more specific reason of how this happened will come forward. Mozilla’s blog post is missing the reason why it used Metalab’s images.
Thank you for being so great about this. I’m glad there’s at least one entity on the web that can act like an adult.
What a lot of crap.
“included design elements from the MetaLab web site.”
It was a complete rip.
You stole and got caught. Don’t need to sugar coat your apology to play down what you did.
Hi,
I’m not jim and that is not my email, but since it was auto-populated for me I figured I’d say hi for him.
I’m sure he really appreciates it.
Thanks,
Fake Jim
No, I am the real Fake Jim!
Hey me too! I can even see my other fake counterparts comment which awaiting moderation!
Regards,
Fake Jim (2)
Yeah, no kidding? Who is Jim and why is your form so broken?
And once you determine *how* it occurred will you let the salivating masses know?
Well put and good for you guys for not playing further into all the hype surrounding this. There was no reason for them to fly off the handle like they did and I would never work with them after how they acted. Good on you for quickly removing the source of all the rage and succinctly smoothing over the whole situation.
That’s worse than a politicians apology.
Totally understandable. If you all at one point considered going with MetaLab then it would make sense that you all would have made mock-ups based on their site.
Duly noted that MetaLab accepted this apology. Why can’t the rest of the tech industry work like this?!
Great – you’ve removed the screenshot.
Why did we make a big stink?
This really rubbed us the wrong way. There is a big difference between being inspired by a design and outright theft. I’ll admit that a great deal of our work is heavily inspired by other designers. In fact, it would be downright impossible to find a designer whose work isn’t at least somewhat derivative of others. I spent months deconstructing Apple’s aqua buttons when I was first learning Photoshop, and our whole team is constantly scouring inspiration galleries for interesting new interface trends. But something happens when you recreate something on your own: it grows organically. You build your own style and invariably create something new – even if it’s just a minor evolution. When you copy elements outright, you don’t gain anything from the experience. You don’t grow as a designer, you don’t build on the style, and you feel shitty about it. Not to mention the fact that you will undoubtably get busted at some point, and even publicly humiliated.
Says Metalab:http://blog.metalabdesign.com/post/440371465/the-great-mozilla-debacle
You need a license to publish other people’s material, not an ‘attribution’.
Your working knowledge of IP law seems to be almost non-existent, which is pretty worrying.
Did you pay metalab for ripping them off? I mean, you asked for a bid on the job then took the design as your own. I don’t care how it happened I figure you owe them about 4 grand along with your “sincere apology”.