A while ago I read this article on TheNextWeb showing a site copying the complete idea of an OSX piece of software. The writer was hating it.. but in fact this happens all the time..all over the internet!

One example is the technology blog TechCrunch vs. the technology blog TheNextWeb. Look at the sites:

• both white’ish (TheNextWeb became white recently if I’m correct)
• both have a big banner in top with the featured posts
• both have nice bloggy square banners on the right
• they just have the same appearance..

Of course all blogs look the same.. but this are three typical things.. I can ramble on about both having all these news articles below each other, both having pagination on the bottom of the page, both being coded in html..

The point I’m trying to make is.. everything (digital) on the Internet gets copied: movies, music, blog articles, designs, javascript, open source code, blog design, program design, etc..etc.. The question is: what about it? Is it bad? Should we stop it? Does it make things better (like with open source code)? How far can we go? Do we steal a blog design or a complete program? Is turning an OSX app into a WebApp copy-ing or innovative?

Interesting stuff that is keeping people busy for a long time..and probably will..