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I think these are the icons in question from LayerVault, DesignMode, and similar icons from Noun Project.

http://imgur.com/IH1osAD



And here's an icon from Facebook's new feed design:

http://i.imgur.com/h07jo3d.png


So they have taken down the whole project just because of three similar looking icons? That's ridiculous


And the colors used are exactly the same: http://pixxel.co/feed/layervault-issues-dmca-takedown


They are very similar, but not exactly the same - you could as well say that LayerVault used Google's pallete: http://i.imgur.com/JaR2foO.png

There is no doubt that the Flat UI was highly inspired by LayerVault, but c'mon, you can't restrict a certain style or color pallete from being used.


I agree on that. I mentioned the colors, becaue the parent comment said that it was only about 3 similar looking icons. The DMCA takedown request senders thought there's more to it.

It's true that all these flat UI themes are really similar, so It's really interesting how this will turn out and will the Flat UI repo will be brought back.


And the colors used are exactly the same

Google uses the same:

http://i.imgur.com/qJXJUaH.png


They aren't the same, and both appear to just use a tetradic collection of colours: http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theor...

It's impossible to pick a green in a tetradic scheme and not get a red, orange and blue to match it.


Last I checked, you can't copyright a collection of colours.


I'd disagree. IANA(IP)L.

However in order to win an infringement claim you'd have to show that they constituted a substantial part of a work and that the colours were copied and not derived from a third party source or coincidentally the same. The usual civil law test is the balance of probabilities.

I think a more likely claim is that the matching colour scheme were a trademark infringement, an unlicensed use of trade dress (jurisdiction dependent of course). AFAIK DMCA takedown notices don't work for trademark infringement though?


T-Mobile tried though - http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/04/beware-t-mobile-...


Trademarks are not copyrights.


I think they copy that from kuler from adobe. It is not the first time i see that colors for sure.


If we look at Webdings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webdings - TrueType dingbat font developed in 1997), there's actually a newspaper icon there that looks a lot like all of these:

http://i.imgur.com/uPUAttV.png


Thanks for posting this--I hadn't seen the side by side comparison. If this is what's being claimed as 'copies' of their artwork, then it's clearly an empty claim. The Flat UI icons look better, to my taste.


I'd love to see a "Family Tree" style layout from a GUI Historian, showing the development of different icons.

"Here's the eMail icon. This version was designed by Susan Kare".


That's a work of [philological][1] investigation, and I'd like to see something like that too. Could it be good project?

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philology


GUIdebook is old and pretty much abandoned but still interesting: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/


If so, this is almost as absurd as Apple's attempt to trademark an ellipsoid.


Is there any way they can all lose? I'm tired of seeing the same Fisher-Price icons everywhere on the Web.




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