Pirated Lim Kok Wing University website

Panda ThiefWho said piracy only belies in audio, video and software. Heck, we even got it for websites. Ever thought no one would dare copy a mutli-national corporation or large organization’s website (not leaving out small-medium as well)?

Well, on the Internet today anything is possible. Even similar or how some may call it, pirating of a website. It’s not the first case to happen and it’s involved big names to lesser known names. One of the recent ones in the international scene was from 31Three; Original VS Pirated. The most recent local case involves pirating of Lim Kok Wing University’s website.

In the design community, we all know how wrong it is to copy a web design and what makes it worst is if there’s no innovativeness to the copycat. We’re looking at a similar design and the only thing differentiating from the original is the content or context.

Yes, users of pre-made templates have similar templates but I wouldn’t consider them copycats. Pre-designed templates are general libraries of web designs fit for any business. Therefore, this is a totally different category on its own.

Lim Kok Wing University Website v6Coming back to the issue of the Lim Kok Wing University (LUCT) website being pirated. Take a good look at what the Version 6 of the LUCT website looks like. Besides it being just a university, LUCT is a design school where they teach about concepts and basically train graduates to come up with ideas be fitting their clients.

Copycat websiteAfter you’re done with that, I’d like you to have a look at this website. Then let’s play a game, how many similarities can you spot from them. If you can spot 10 of 10, I’m pretty sure we have a copycat here.

In the Low Yat forum, we’re debating who copied who – pretty obvious to me. Now, as a web designer I could go on all day long about this but I’ve got a better idea.

Question of the day:
What benefit(s) or negativity do you think either one of them has from this?

p/s: No animals were harmed or involved in this post. :P

[tags]piracy, plagiarism, lim kok wing university, web design[/tags]

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