We contacted the plagiator a few days before we posted this article. We politely explained the situation and asked him to switch back to the former design, which we knew was still around (it could be accessed at test.(his domain).com). We didn’t get a response.

Apparently some readers began writing messages to the plagiator. We never intended for this to happen. But for all we know these messages seemed to have been polite enough, which we appreciate greatly.

Then after Oliver posted his experience (see his comment above), we also received an email. Quote: “We actually just used a wordpress theme, and obviously it is based off of your site… it will take me a couple of weeks to find someone else to redesign and relaunch.”

I assume that readers kept sending messages to the plagiator. Yesterday, after we asked him where he found the “wordpress theme”, he told us that it was actually created by his designer. He also told us that he changed the design back to the former one. Quote: “… we are going back to v2. Sorry once again about this. I’ll make sure my developers are of a higher moral quality before hiring to do a project.”

Thanks guys!

I might come across totally strange, but … :
You are doing a very good job, you could just try to be proud of having people creating a copy cat. Just keep your focus on improving your outstanding work. To think (write and care) about those copy-cats gives you the wrong focus and you might waste your time. Even worse you help them to gain popularity.

BTW: I understand your frustration.

Cheers, MAnfred

now whether that “designer” is anyone other than the frunderful owner/proprietor/chief architect of the company is open to debate :)

So they stole the styles and graphics, but not the source. Still stinks, but it’s not like they broke into the server or anything.

And while I’m fine if your sarcastic presumption of “I’m sure CC is really worried” is correct, I’ll bet it’s not if CC is even half of a business person.

Fact is, I like what I see w/ Things so far, but for me, other progs currently do better. I’m eagerly awaiting one that will bolt ahead, which is why I’m waiting for Things news. The main beef I have is that if there’s time for a lengthy update about somebody poaching the website, there’s time for even a small update about Things since it’s the “Things Blog”, not necessarily the “Cultured Code Blog”.

This rip-off – hats off to being able to see some kind of humor in it. It’s flattery, yeah, but… – definitely had one laughter after the other in regards to their stupidity, especially about not renaming a thing, keeping the same colors PLUS a full link. LOL… – and yeah, push responsibility off to ‘your designer’, haha.

@Possible Future Things User: I’m sure CC is really worried you might go elsewhere. Throwing a tantrum is definitely a good way to motivate a software developer. Quality users like you are worth keeping! : )

They’re new slogan is: “Products from Web Developers for Web Developers.”

The site is completely broken.