March 2007

Dan Cederholm, a well-known designer from Salem, Massachusetts, stirred furious debate within the online design community yesterday after he accused LogoMaid, a less-than-reputable logo creation service, of stealing his work. He discovered an alleged ripoff of his SimpleBits logo being sold on the site for a paltry $199, grabbed a screen shot, and posted it to his Flickr account.

It’s not an exact copy, obviously, but enough elements are similar to warrant serious concern. The four brackets, surrounding a cube-like object split into sections — it’s all there. Aside from the colour palette, there isn’t very much original work in LogoMaid’s version. If you could even call that originality. A quick overlay of Cederholm’s logo with LogoMaid’s makes the supposed plagiarism all the more obvious:

In situations like these, one would expect the offending company to squash the matter as quickly as possible, right? Surely they have nothing to gain by furthering any bad publicity and angering an entire community in the process, right? Right? Well, somebody should have sent that particular memo to Paul Viluda, owner of LogoMaid. Adding his two cents to the Flickr comment thread, Viluda accused Cederholm of stealing their work and threatened him with a lawsuit. He then apparently created a number of fake users to defend his position.

Predictably, word of the situation has spread quickly. John Gruber, of Daring Fireball fame, posted a quick write-up on the matter and the story hit the front page of Digg about two hours ago. People have started jumping on the bandwagon, pointing out other examples of LogoMaid’s intellectual property theft, including an extremely obvious copy of the Apple logo.

Unfortunately, LogoMaid is not the only site out there suspected of peddling stolen designs and “borrowing” the work of talented, hard-working designers. It’s a problem that has plagued those in the creative arts since the beginning of time and it affects everyone. Writers, painters, photographers, designers, illustrators — no one is immune to the threat of less-talented people leeching off their work.

Fortunately, as Gruber points out in his post, the solution is an easy one — Shine the light on these vermin. The more people who speak up when these situations are discovered, the harder it will be for thieves to profit from the hard work of others.

During Parliament’s recent two-week break, I encouraged all Canadian citizens to get in touch with their local Member of Parliament and express any concerns, questions, or comments they may have. Considering the amount of mudslinging happening within the House of Commons at the time, I suggested anyone writing to their MP tell them to just sit down, shut up, and get on with the business of governing this country.

At the time, I took a dose of my own medicine and wrote to my MP, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, Bev Oda. Yesterday I received a reply:

Dear Mr. Gilham:

Thank you for your recent email correspondence.

I appreciate very much your desire that government act toward improving people’s lives. Together with my Cabinet colleagues, I have been working very hard to ensure the budget presented by the Minister of Finance on March 19 acts to help all Canadians.

In terms of my own constituents in Durham, the two week adjournment of the House of Commons fortunately allows me to spend more time with them and to directly hear their concerns. I also often send out newsletters and fact sheets soliciting feedback as a means to ensure I hear what my constituents are thinking. We will begin preparing a report to constituents on the budget once that information becomes available.

In the meantime, thank you again for being in touch. Please do not hesitate to contact me any time with questions, concerns or advice.
Sincerely,

The Honourable Bev Oda, MP (Durham)
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women

I have to give Oda a lot of credit — she makes a fairly impressive effort to keep in touch with her constituents. Every few months, we find a new postcard, letter, or survey from her office in our mail and she’s often seen participating in a number of community events. From the wording of her e-mail, it looks like she probably sat down and wrote it out herself. In a world where citizens are increasingly disconnected from the people governing them, it’s nice to see someone as busy as Oda taking the time to reply to a few e-mails.

Even if she plays for the wrong team, politically.

Twitter, the brainchild of Obvious, has been hailed as everything from “trivial and useless” to a “fun little tool,” and it has been making massive gains in popularity as of late. The site allows users to quickly and easily update their friends, and any other random contacts who may wish to follow them, on their activities using a web browser, IM, or text message.

Some people, however, have been scratching their heads, asking the question, “What is Twitter good for, anyway?” With the glut of IM programs, RSS feeds, blogs, chat clients, and e-mail, what place does Twitter have in the online world? Tyme White, ever ready to comment on the web’s changing landscape, has posed that very question over at 9rules and is gathering a steady stream of answers.

When I first heard about Twitter in 2006, the idea seemed fairly trivial to me. Like many people, I was having a hard time understanding why someone like Evan Williams would sink his time and money into something that seemed so, well, useless. But, with the recent surge in interest (thanks, largely, to SXSW), I decided to log into my old account and see what Twitter is all about.

Now, after four straight days of using the service, I’m hooked and I’m not quite sure why. For all intents and purposes, I have no practical use for Twitter. Few of my local friends use the service and I haven’t enabled any of the cellphone-specific features. No, my experience is much more internal. David Seah, a fellow newcomer to the service, explained it pretty well:

[..] it does do one thing very well: closeness through shared environmental context. A big part of friendship is just hanging out and doing things together without direct communication. You can learn a lot about someone by just watching what they’re doing; Twitter is a kind of virtual version of that.

By “Twittering” with your online contacts — fellow bloggers, friends, family, readers, etc. — you become part of a stream of consciousness, a global passing of notes. It may seem silly, but you really begin to feel a sense of community, as disconnected as the medium may seem.

A number of other bloggers are exploring this new phenomenon as well. MG Siegler has explored Twitter’s potential as a source for breaking news, Charlene Li has examined where the service is headed, Corey Clayton wonders if Twitter has potential for newsroom use, and Kathy Sierra wrote up a great look at the addictive properties of Twittering. Now it’s your turn. What do you think of Twitter and its popularity? If you’re a current user, what attracted you to the service? If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, why not? Let me know.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, feel free to check out my Twitter profile and add me as a friend.

The new blockbuster movie 300, which earned $70-million in its opening weekend, has come under fire from Iranians who claim the movie, which depicts a bloody battle between Greeks and Persians, insults their culture and feeds a growing animosity toward Iran.

Despite the fact that the movie has not, and probably never will be, released in Iran, Javad Shamghadri, cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the film tries to “humiliate” Iran. Iran’s largest newspaper, Hamshahri, said 300 is “serving the policy of the U.S. leadership.”

Are you kidding me?

300 is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name which, in turn, is very loosely based on the battle of Thermopylae, which took place in 480 B.C. In that battle, a group of 300 Spartans faced off against a large Persian army and held it off at a mountain pass in Greece for three days. Are we really to believe that a movie, based on a graphic novel, based on a very loose and stylized representation of a historical event that took place 2,487 years ago, is supposed to be an attack on modern-day Iran and its values?

Give me a break.