• The Sincerest Form of Flattery?

    Posted on April 28th, 2005 by and currently 3 commenting.

    I know we’re all in this together, but I must admit when I stumbled on a website for a company called Brand Identity Guru, I was more than just a little flabbergasted to discover that they had, well, “ripped off” a section of our website. Is this reason for concern? You be the judge.

    Go to brainsonfire.com and the click on “THE FIRE.” Go ahead and proceed to take the test. Take it once, read the questions and answer all NO and then take it again and answer all YES. Now go to brandidentityguru.com and click on “Play the Brand Game.” Again, choose all NO one time and then choose all YES.

    Should we be flattered that another company in the same industry liked our idea enough to use it, or should we be appalled that another company in the same industry (which, really, is an idea industry) isn’t being original?

  • http://www.livejournal.com/~twootten Trip

    This is illegal, if i’m not mistaken, and I worked in webdesign for a year and a half. I would encourage you to do something about that, like at least ask them whats the deal with it.

  • http://brainsonfire.com/blog Spike

    Thanks for the comment, Trip. I actually called and spoke with their president, who proceeded to tell me that “there are no more original ideas” and that we “don’t own the hangman game.” in other words, he’s refusing to budge. We spoke with our lawyers and while there are creative infringment issues, we feel that it would be a waste of time, money and energy to fight this. So we chose to reveal their ways on our blog.

  • http://brainsonfire.com/blog Spike

    UPDATE: Sent Brand Identity Guru another email on May 25, 2005 and have yet to receive a response.