It was a choice between "Rome, Sweet Rome: Ancient Lessons in Design" and this panel session. I hate having to miss good stuff.
I find this panel quite interesting because it calls out something that most of us who have spent some time on the Web already now. Much of great design or usability has been borrowed ("filched") from other sites. The panel session is replete with examples of major companies borrowing each other's designs.
Opinion is definitely divided as to what level of borrowing is permissible and ethical. Color palette? Navigation? Layout?
Interesting question: can HTML/CSS be copyrighted? The analogy just used was "you cannot copyright a quarter note or an eighth note in music, but you can copyright the melody they are used to create". Sounds sound on the face of it, given that HTML/CSS is a programming language.
Difficult question.
Posted by artandscience at March 8, 2008 08:45 AM