I agree wholeheartedly with Kaufman. I'm probably the least competitive person you'll ever know, thus I suggest that Brad and Matt both provide links to each other's site and maybe to other comic creation sites.

Frankly, I think SC has no competition whatsoever, and I'm not just saying that because Brad is such a cutie :)

I believe, like Kaufman, that anyone who visits the various sites will see and decide for themselves where they want to express their creativity.

On a side note, probably a third of my comics themselves are variations of jokes I've heard. You can call that plagiarism if you want... whatever. My goal was to use the characters and try to make people laugh, which is what SC is all about.

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“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1945)

I started this cool band called "boorite blows." It's a fanless one-man band.

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What others say about boorite!

I suggest brad offer a link to the other site, but then just have it go right to a picture of his butt.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

I suggest matt change his many, many donation fields so that they pay directly into brad's pockets.

He could steal the coding for it from here.

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Dad was flammable

Hey, now. If we condemned everyone here who ever copied an elaborate idea and passed it off as his own, then we'd.... well we'd all be OK actually. Never mind.

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What others say about boorite!

People seem to be wondering what my reaction is, so I guess I should make things clear despite not really wanting to be involved in this.

Create A Strip is too ridiculously similar for me to be able to believe it was a coincidence. Layout changes have been made over the past few days to obscure it, but I remember what I saw before and the alterations just seem deceptive now.

Matt emailed me a week or two ago because Stripcreator users were bothering him. He asked for a resolution and I told him how I felt about his site. He replied that he would probably feel the same in my position but was very clear that the amount of work he had put into making Create A Strip overruled however I may personally feel about it.

Maybe this should be flattering, but it doesn't feel flattering at all. Instead it feels like working and studying for an exam for three years and then someone copies your answers at the last minute and sells them to the rest of the class. It doesn't mean that you do any worse on the exam, but it doesn't exactly put a warm feeling in your heart about all that work you did.

So that's my possibly very petty reaction. Hope that clears things up a bit.

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www.bradsucks.net

BTW, it is going well over there. A person called "Commander Awesomepants" has informed me that we should welcome competition, and therefore all my comics and posts will be deleted, and I will be banned. Caveat suxx0r.

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What others say about boorite!

You mean not when it works on your mates, mate? :D

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I am a Strange One/'His world is small.'/ 'I love hunting foxes - Ginger Bastards!'/ 'They weren't aiming at us, Not at my house' - Dead Prez/ The Pravda-Raï Party: Triumphing over Diversity

quote:

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On another note... Ekpyro desperately needs a hug.

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I don't know what everyone's problem with Ekpyro is. He seems like a nice guy.

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What others say about boorite!

I would thank you but i can't forgive you for creating the red robot who's name i can't bring myself type in the correct direction.

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I am a Strange One/'His world is small.'/ 'I love hunting foxes - Ginger Bastards!'/ 'They weren't aiming at us, Not at my house' - Dead Prez/ The Pravda-Raï Party: Triumphing over Diversity

Can I just say:

CUNTING ARSE BOLLOCK MOTHER-FUCKING TWAT SAUSAGE!

Do you know that some sites wouldn't allow that kind of free speech in their forums?

Ah, it's good to be home.

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Dad was flammable

I too had seen the original Create a Strip website a couple of weeks ago and was shocked by the similarities to Strip Creator.

The first, initial similarity is the name of the site itself: Strip Creator and Create a Strip. For as much as Matt would like us to believe that his site is made of his own original ideas, to start off, the name of his site is not very original. It would be like creating a band called "Sucks Brad" and producing similar music to that of Brad Sucks.

Matt proudly proclaims that he has spent the last year developing his site, however, Brad has devoted three times as much time and didn't have another site to base his work off of. It really doesn't matter if Matt designed his site based on other people's request to design something with more/different features. Regardless of his excuses, it is the end result that matters. I believe that Matt and/or these other people took ideas from Strip Creator. Ideas such as being able to edit/delete your comics only after you have donated, giving users member ratings, and having similar functionality and layout. It is far easier to create something when given a model.

Kaufman thinks that ideas are for everyone, and coming from someone who is an academic, I could understand why. However, this issue isn't like a thesis from which a hypothesis has been further developed, this is a site that has been replicated and mildly redesigned in an offensive, upsetting way. I don't think less of Brad for having a site that has been copied by someone else, however, I am angry that someone else has copied a site that Brad has spent a lot of time and dedication on developing.

It seems to me that people are mainly focusing on the differences between the two sites, such as the quality of art or the poor interface, when they should be thinking about how they would feel if they were in the same situation as Brad.

It was a flat out bone job, and the best he can do by way of an apology is stare at his feet and say "Uh, I really worked hard to do this, and uh.. it's, yeah, similar, but.. uh.. it's not the same.. honest."

Which is baloney.

I'm releasing a CD in the spring. Most of the songs are covers, and I have obtained permission to record and release my arrangements of each of them from the original artists. This is ok. It keeps the artists work fresh and permutating as a piece of music - and if the cover artist's CD sells - puts a few bucks in the original artist's pockets.

What I would NOT have had the unmitigated gall to do; would be to record an artist's entire bleeding CD, add a few notes here and there that weren't on the original, put my name on it and release it and say - "Oh.. sorry.. it's not the same thing" - when they called me on it.

That being said: Like most cheap knockoffs, the best way to make them go away is to not support them.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Ideas such as being able to edit/delete your comics only after you have donated, giving users member ratings, and having similar functionality and layout. It is far easier to create something when given a model.

Create a Strip does not allow users to give members ratings, but instead it allows users to rate the comics, which then affect an overall average for each member, which has been around for many months on CAS. Most people here seem to think that everything at CAS was only created after SC did it first, which is not true. For instance, CAS had "user pages" featuring recent comics by users and other various data before SC. This is not a problem, I am only pointing it out to show that CAS does have many original features.

However, this issue isn't like a thesis from which a hypothesis has been further developed, this is a site that has been replicated and mildly redesigned in an offensive, upsetting way.

I guarantee you that if you had all of the source code of CAS and SC juxtapose, you would notice that they are (assumingly) vastly different, as neither programmer of these sites had access to the other's source code. I can also guarantee you that if you take all of stripcreator's graphics and images, and all of Create a Strip's, none of them will be the same as the other's. This is because Create a Strip was coded and designed from the ground up without stealing anything from stripcreator. That is what matters. The similarities between CAS and SC stop at the basic idea of creating comic strips through a web browser interface, and the generic web page layout that they vaguely share.

If Brad has a serious problem with Create a Strip, I would like for him to email me so that we may discuss whatever may need to be discussed. I have emailed Brad, and I did not receive a reply. I assume that this means he has no interest in discussing Create a Strip. If this is the case, then there is not much more than needs to take place. I firmly believe that any debate over this should happen between the webmasters of the sites. Many stripcreator users have come to CAS demanding answers, and while I have tried to take the time to give answers, I don't feel that discussing this issue amongst the users is going to get anyone very far. I know that, at least on CAS, the users come to the site to use it for what it is meant for, which is to create comics. They don't want to be thrown into a flame war between the users of the site they are visiting and the users of some other site that they may not have ever heard of before.

This shouldn't be a battle at all. This is a relatively simple matter that I am interested in resolving with the actual creator of the site. If he is indeed upset, but wants no further discussion or resolve, then so be it. There's not much else that can be done.

Yes, there is.

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Batman created by Bob Kane

Once, I said this on the forums at CAS in reguards to involving users.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

So Matt doesn't want us talking about stripcreator on CAS but he can come over to stripcreator and talk about CAS. Typical.

Freedom of speech is nice, isn't it, jackass.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

I don't think this is an argument over the source code. This is an argument over the end result, which is a cheap immitation.

I'm not a programmer, so there is no way I could look at a side-by-side comparison and figure out how close two sites are in the way they accomplish the final look and feel. If I picked up a book on php and started coding with the goal of eventually making a site that looks like another site and somehow managed to get very close to it, would I still be copying even if I had twice as many lines of sloppily-written code? As far as the end user is concerned, yes.

As of about 2 minutes ago this was the official number of comics:

183,861

So Matt, dont come here telling us we dont create comics. We do. We create a whole shit load. Dont even bother dispute that we dont, and that we sit around picking on "poor little comic websites" like yours. If you want to continue, then your right. Thats your buisness. And if there is an arguement, it should be between the webmasters. But do not come on this site and make it look like we are the big bad wolf, trying to blow your house down.

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"No obscene images." I guess I'll just have to settle for saying cocksucker a lot.

Here is a list of the features of both sites, some changes have been made to both sites, but I am listing features that were around before, or after this discussion started.

[u]Stripcreator's main-page:[/u][list]
[*]A list of the most recent comics by donors
[*]A list of the most recent comics by non-donors
[*]A list of the comics created in the past 24 hours
[*]A side-bar with a list of recent updates to the site.
[*]A main title bar with a link to the main page, forums, login and strip creation.[/list]

[u]Createastrip's main-page:[/u][list]
[*]A list of the highest rated comics
[*]A side-bar with a list of recent updates to the site.
[*]A main title bar with a link to the main page, forums, login and strip creation.[/list]

[u]Stripcreator's forums:[/u][list]
[*]Several different forums about the running of the site, general discussions, comic showcasing and comic contests, listing the last user to post in the relevant forum and the total number of threads/posts in each forum.
[*]Links to threads display the creator of the thread, the number of replies and the last user to post to the thread with a date and time-stamp.
[*]Posts display the users name, their number of posts, number of comics and rating, also, comics can be posted in the forums.
[*]A small window at the bottom displays the users that are currently online.[/list]

[u]Createastrip's forums:[/u][list]
[*]A few forums about the running of the site, also one titled "General Discussion", the forums list the last user to post in the relevant forum and the total number of posts in each forum.
[*]Links to threads display the creator of the thread, the number of replies and the time and date of the last post.
[*]Posts display the user's name, their number of posts, number of comics, number of points and rating, also, comics can be posted in the forums.
[*]A small window at the bottom displays the users that are currently online.[/list]

[u]Stripcreator's comic creation page:[/u][list]
[*]A 3 panel comic, consisting of several elements, two characters with text balloons that can be altered as "thought" bubbles or "speech" bubbles. A background, and yellow narration bars. Panels are set up using pull down menus and text windows.[/list]

[u]Creatastrips's comic creation page:[/u][list]
[*]A 3 panel comic, consisting of several elements, two characters with text balloons that can be altered as "thought" bubbles or "speech" bubbles. A background, and yellow narration bars. Panels are set up using pull down menus and text windows.[/list]

[u]Stripcreator's personal user pages:[/u][list]
[*]User can create comics that are displayed on their own "homepage", complete with a profile, a list of favourite users, a pull down menu to navigate to other time-stamped comics by the same user and a link to a page displaying user info.
[*]Comics can be rated and reviewed individually, as can the user.[/list]

[u]Createastrip's personal user pages:[/u][list]
[*]User can create comics that are displayed on their own "homepage", complete with a profile, a list of favourite users, a pull down menu to navigate to other time-stamped comics by the same user and a link to a page displaying user info.
[*]Comics can be rated and reviewed individually.[/list]

I tried highlighting the various similarities with red text, but the entire CAS section was just annoyingly red, so y'all can print this out for yourselves and tick off the copycat parts.

There is probably stuff I haven't noted here, feel free to point out my ignorance. I tend to OWN UP to my mistakes.

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Dad was flammable

Don't forget the exact copy of the "Who's online" footer!

:]

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

quote:

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Don't forget the exact copy of the "Who's online" footer!

:]

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:|

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

Now I'm I don't think the issue of copyright or intellectual property rights apply here. But then, I don't know what legal comeback Stripcreator has (if any) I'm not a lawyer. This is a grey area.

An analogy to my view on this situation is that Atari should be demanding a public apology and tens of billions of dollars from Apple and Microsoft for stealing their Windows/Icons/Mouse-Pointer user interface idea. But it can't, because unless they iout-and-out stole/poached Apple's code, copying by imitation isn't illegal.

I've avoided giving an opinion, because I'm not usually this certain. But my opinion is that Create a Strip (CAS) is an inferior copy, poorly designed and will fold within 18-30 months. Sorry, but there you go. Mid-long term, Stripcreator will emerge stronger.

Now, it may well be CAS adapts its entire business/technical model and attracts more users within the next year and a half and proves me wrong. That remains to be seen. I honestly hope it tries harder.

Currently, by my reckoning (i.e. every time I log on to CAS) most, if not all, of the active members on that site are current or former Stripcreator users!

99% of them are there purely to take the piss out of CAS!
(Except boorite, whose strip about the Scrub-Bot and the Turd was a modern classic)

As an aside, some of the original regulars still around today from Stripcreator might be able to tell me what Stripcreator was like back in the early days and whether it was as lumpy as CAS.
So in summary: I'm not bothered about the similarity/rip-off factor/legal implications. Sure, it would be justice served if Stripcreator perhaps got a mention as inspiration. but ultimately, I don't think it will matter by summer of 2005. Unless the concept is picked up on by Disney. In which case, file the law suite now.

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Please replace the handset, and try again.