In my opinion, on first examination, the layouts are fairly generic in their particular similarities, and the copy text and specifics different enough as to possibly not be a clone but rather just a site with a similar design.
However, that changes when we see that the css file has been copied exactly. That makes a much stronger case that they may have started with your design and altered it just enough to seem to be different.
What is written in the first paragraph is used way too often to excuse plagiarism. The probability that starting with a blank HTML page and working honestly you will end up with a design that similar to somebodies else one is very, very close to 0 even for simple pages like this one. Completely the same menu item width, pixel by pixel the same drop shadow, same fonts, same widths etc. There are literally at least millions of variations of a design similar in style with various small subtle differences, there are too many tiny decisions to be made (with many outcomes being pretty much equally good) to make similarity that close just possible by chance and to make 3 or 4 differences plausible evidence for this work being original.
Has the term plagiarism been used before for lifting layouts? Copying to be sure. Look and feel though aren't copyrightable, though yes, copyright is different from plagiarism.
As I tried to make clear, that the css file is stolen straight out, that's clearly plagiarism/theft of that file. And even though the file lacks a copyright notice such notices are no longer strictly required.
The layouts of course look very similar because they are both using the same css to set everything up.
That all said, Helvetica/Arial in menu categories, Georgia as body font and 40px margins is something on a lot of sites. These are quite generic settings. There's not a lot of leeway possible for something like margins, there's a small finite range of reasonable settings. It's expected that many sites will have the same ones.
It's also exceptionally common to have a logo in upper left, section selections to the right, a bar at the top, and text with margins below it. This is a completely standard web layout.
Even seeing everything here exactly the same but with different text, sections and css files, it would no longer be certain to be cloned, but entirely possible to be just another person using a standard web layout with the same settings.
How many typewritten letters have I received with 0.5" or 1" margins? A lot. Sent a lot too. Margin settings are not intellectual property at all, neither is font selection, especially when choosing completely standard web fonts in the same way that is used by many sites. Even if someone did peek at their css and "steal" their 40px setting because they like those margins, it's not theft to do so. Stealing the entire layout by copying the css file, yeah, that's a problem though.
Let's assume I also decided to design a site with the same core layout - a bar on the top with the logo and the menu, content on the bottom, that's not unusual as you point out, but already a coincidence. However, I have to decide on the height of the top bar - is any value between 40 and 60 objectively better than all the other ones so that everyone deciding on this kind of design would settle on the same one? Next step, I decide on a drop shadow below the top bar, again a reasonable coincidence. Again however, a graphic program will typically require to specify the color, the opacity and the radius of the shadow with thousands of combinations possible that look almost the same aesthetically so there is no reason people would pick one over another very often. Then you decide for the color of the highlight of the button, again, there are hundreds of colors that give almost the same effect visually but they "picked" _exactly_ the same one. It's the same with many other small nuances, font size, line height, border color, link color etc.
Even if there would be just 10 rational choices in each step, with 20 steps (both values way underestimated) that's already 10* *20 possible combinations. If you create a design in a space of a 20 dimensions and a total of 10 trillions of possibilities having differences in say 3 of the dimensions cannot serve as a defence. Hence almost always when people bring this argument up a closer examination shows little signs of plain old copy-paste beyond any reasonable doubt, just like the example with google analytics people point out below.
I'm not even sure what you are claiming at this point. We all agree that there was copying in some direction with THIS particular example since the css files are identical. And who knows, maybe they both independently copied from a third party like a library of layouts. But I am presuming C copied from B here and not C and B from A. Regardless, the fact it is identical is far more than coincidence.
As far as using the same web layout as far as having header footer menu and columns it's not even a coincidence, it's just a standard layout. It's not a coincidence that someone else has a red car, they are very common.
I will address the issue of whether a layout that looks similar is definitely a copy. I don't agree with that.
Is using "0px 2px 5px #CCC;" as drop shadow settings proof of copying as you are claiming? Absolutely not. It is not some obscure color, it's GRAY. Gray drop shadows are very common. The assertion that the other settings are too particular or unique among billions of possibilities is completely absurd. You really think this is the only site with this drop shadow setting? I will bet you $500,000 it is not. Warning: I already checked. That is not surprising at all. 0px for horizontal offset is not just common but required for shadows coming from an above light source. 2px vertical offset is common as well. 5x blurring is common as well. The entire combination is common and obvious as well. But let's say some random site has 3px vertical offset instead. It's going to look quite similar to one with 2px. Is it a copy or not then? Can't tell from just that, it's irrelevant in fact. Two sites that look similar on the web, using generic common layouts, are not necessarily copies of each other. Even if they use a lot of the same colors and drop shadow settings and margins, especially when we are not talking about #CCC and not a color like #12dca9. It is also not uncommon to have white background behind text and a single pixel grey border. That is on thousands of sites. As is the light grey background. Google finds "background: #F9F9F9" on over 500,000 pages, many predating the existence of HM's domain name registration. Did they steal background: #F9F9F9 from others? Probably. I mean, why #f9 and not #f8. #F9 is a bit of an odd choice. HNM at least used blue for their masthead background. HM uses: #F60. Where have we seen that exact shade of orange before? Hint: it was "stolen" by HM from the top of this page you are looking at. This leads to another problem. Hacker is a common term. Hacker News is reasonably generic, but it is known as being this site. When I see a site that says "Hacker Monthly, the print magazine of Hacker News" and uses the exact same recognizable color scheme as Hacker News, I definitely assume that it is run by the same company. Only if I scroll down to the bottom do I see a "not affiliated" disclaimer. This is quite confusing given that it claims to be "the print magazine OF Hacker News". That is obvious confusion in the public, and the name, claim to be "of Hacker News", and exact color scheme match is a clear trademark violation.
There are lots of pages that use this particular drop shadow but there are also lots of other possible and very popular variants of this particular setting. I am not arguing any of the settings by itself is likely to be unique, I am arguing that once you have 30 or 50 decisions like that to make, each even with just a few reasonable possibile solutions, it is very highly unlikely two persons will chose the same combination of solutions in the majority of the decisions, even if the CSS to achieve the effect would be different, just because there are so many possibilities. And many decisions are much more arbitrary than the examples shown so far, like choosing the way you present the past issues of your magazine.
If we are sitting next to each other and are told to write down a random 50 character long string built from digits from 1 to 5 and we would end up having the same digits on 30 positions, with long subsequences being the same (= many decisions regarding closely related design parameters being the same), would you be more willing to attribute it to chance or to one of us copying from another?
The random character situation is a false comparison since that is not the case here.
What exactly are you arguing for? My original post makes that point that this is definitely a violation since there IS exact copying of the CSS file. And yes, the copied Google analytics id makes it 100% sure.
We are then arguing not about exact copying of text but about very similar layouts. I am saying very similar layouts are not proof of copying. You are saying they are. OK. That's your position, I have mine. The arguments you have used are weak and rather than concede any of them when their flaws are pointed out you just start making new claims. Therefore this could go on forever and never be resolved. So let's end it, all right?
I do understand you are fascinated with this particular case. Let's talk about that.
I've never seen anyone file a CSS file with the copyright office, therefore it's unlikely this CSS file is filed. That means that, while their copying is illegal and a copyright violation, any lawsuit would result only in actual damages and not statutory damages, per US copyright law. (We'll assume this case gets filed in the US as claims with parties in two different countries are nearly impossible for small concerns to prosecute.) There are no actual damages though, so it's a pointless waste of money to pursue a case.
So what to do? Name and shame, what they are doing here. That's the best approach since they are 100% certain there was copying going on, and any reasonable jury would see that, therefore there is no risk of a defamation claim, they are stating facts.
Is this sufficient? I say no. Who is the person who lazily copied the CSS file rather than be a pro and write his own? His name should be disclosed publicly and he should forever be blacklisted from the industry. That's the way to do it. Who is their layout guy that checked in this file? They need to state his name and particulars so everyone knows to avoid him. His career needs to be over, permanently. That's how to stop the widespread thievery going on. If The Hacker News Magazine will not disclose the name of the person who did this and fire him immediately, The Hacker News Magazine should be boycotted, along with all its affiliates because such behavior can not be tolerated in our industry of creative professionals. If THNM agrees to fire him and disclose his name, and redoes their layout to be original work, then their inevitable CEO apology could be considered sincere. Without firing and disclosure though, any apology would just be an admission they are only sorry they got caught stealing, and such apology could not be considered sincere.
The random character situation is a false comparison since that is not the case here.
It is a useful model of the situation, you have 50 (lets say) decisions to make (border color, margin height, number of images per row, ...), each with 5 (lets say) equally likely outcomes (#666 is quite as good and popular as #777,#888,#555,#444; 1.0em like 1.5 em,0.5em,2.0em,2.5em; ...). All I'm saying is that you cannot explain that many visual and conceptual solutions being the same with chance alone, since that is an event with very low probability if you honestly perform each decision by yourself.
I have an average high speed Internet connection and the 4 images you have on this post take forever to load the first time.
Turns out you're loading giant images (with original dimensions in the neighborhood of 1421x1352 and a filesize of 2mb) into an <img> with dimensions in the neighborhood of 570x542.
If you only need an image of size 570x542, please resize your images for the web and use those resized images in your post, rather than 2mb originals. This will help people load your page much faster and have a more pleasant experience reading your post.
They also appear to have failed to change the Google Analytic account number:
" var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-160215-2']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
"
Normally I'm pretty pro-code-reuse, but that is just lazy-sauce.
This very thing happened when I was working at $LAST_COMPANY. Another company took our entire site design, fiddled with it a bit and published their site. The didn't change the Google Analytics and we found a new competitor because they showed up in our Google Analytics reports.
Hmm, so someone ripped of your site, and just enough of it is different, that it's probably best to just shrug it off and keep working on your site.
But wait, there is a comment in the CSS that clearly shows that they ripped it off! This changes everything!
Actually, no, it doesn't. This is a distraction. When something weird/awkward like this happens it's probably best to leave it out of the conversation. It would be different if rather than a comment it had been some non-trivial code that directly added functionality to the site, or improved the look and feel. But this is debugging material.
BTW I like Hacker Monthly but I don't currently use it, because I'm already fairly comfortable with how I consume articles here. Keep up the good work, though!
Ripping off a site's look and feel is not generally illegal, it's just scummy. However, that (irrelevant) comment in the CSS shows that it is at least somewhat a derivative work, which is often illegal.
I think it's only scummy if it sets out to confuse users as to which site they are on. Changing both the font and the color scheme would seem to make that less likely.
Otherwise, emulating decent look-and-feel is often a good thing: it is how we come to better designs and users with predictable expectations.
It doesn't matter if the resulting design is a common form if there is evidence the file was copied then the copyright in the file itself is demonstrably infringed.
Plenty of sites have generic layouts that are clearly "inspired" by other sites. But blatantly re-purposing an entire site's code goes too far. You are right to call them out.
Will this fiasco harm your business? Probably not. If anything, enjoy the extra boost in traffic and sales.
Weird. The most common refrain here about copyright violations is that it isn't theft since nothing has been taken from you and you don't have any less than you did before.
Does that only apply to content creators outside this community?
It's impossible to speak authoritatively for a large community with widely differing opinions, but it appears to me that for a lot of people, the distinction of whether or not a copyright violation is immoral or not is dependent on whether the instigator is actively profiting from the violation.
If you download Game of Thrones to watch on your laptop, there is a long and circuitous argument we can have about exactly how much you're harming HBO, but it's pretty clear that the only thing you're gaining is the ability to consume the TV show you've pirated. If your business's web site is based on someone else's code without proper licensing, and that design is presumably a factor in customers choosing to patronize you, you now have a tangible financial gain that is owed (at least in part) to a copyright violation.
It's a flawed analogy, but this is less like downloading an episode of Game of Thrones and more like selling bootleg DVDs of the show.
These arguments have been repeated endlessly for years. Instead of rehashing them yet again on this thread, why not read all the points one can possibly raise by searching the HN, Ars Technica, Reddit, Slashdot, Torrent Freak, Usenet, etc. archives?
This community almost universally finds copyright infringement to be fine, but plagiarism to be not-fine. There is nothing inconsistent in this position and, while you don't have to agree with it, it's an entirely reasonable opinion to hold.
In other words, if you redistribute stuff without permission, it's generally not that heinous, but if you take credit for it too, you'll get severe looks of disapproval.
> This community almost universally finds copyright infringement to be fine, but plagiarism to be not-fine.
What about software? I can't think of any example, for instance, where this community reacted to a story of a GPL violation by almost universally saying it is fine.
The fact that the GPL uses copyright law is just an implementation detail. In practice, it really turns copyright on itself. In general, when somebody infringes on a normal copyright, they are making some work more accessible. When somebody breaks the GPL, they are making some work less accessible, because all the GPL does is ensure that anyone can practically and legally modify and redistribute the software in question. If we imagine a copyright spectrum where the default copyright is x and public domain is 0, then the GPL is -x.
So opposing copyright in general but supporting the GPL is actually an entirely consistent and rational position.
1) There are many references to the word "copyright" on this page (so it's not all about plagiarism), and the comments certainly don't hint that it's seen as "universally" fine. The post on attrition.org complains about "profiting off the plagiarism and copyright violations." [1]
2) Even if it were, I'm sure film-industry workers have a very different consensus.
Therefore, most people are just talking their book. Web graphics and css are terribly precious, but we'll militantly defend megaupload.com, who profited hugely from enabling copyright infringement, because we want nice things. It's only simple when it suits us to think it is.
Calling it "stealing" is political propaganda as part of an agenda aimed at poisoning any constructive debate about the future of copyright in the information age.
Language matters, especially in this context, where people go to jail for doing no harm whatsoever.
Copying and pasting a CSS file is much worse than torrenting television shows. Can't you see the obvious difference?
Years ago, I met with a potential client who was really upset that a competitor had hacked them and "stolen" all of their image assets and that's why they hadn't launched their site yet. After pressing on, they told me that the files were stolen, and were therefore gone from their server. I decided to pass on that project.
In retrospect, I probably should have offered my services to "steal" them back.
I think in that situation your design can be effectively stolen - if you can no longer use it, because someone else in your field is using it and your own use would look like plagiarism. They have it and, crucially, you can no longer use it with commercial effect.
You can "effectively" steal a design without the copyright infringing copy/paste. Example: the last-generation Kia Optima that looked just like the Mercedes E series.
I think your example only works if Mercedes created the design and Kia came out with it first. Kia probably wouldn't be bothered with Mercedes copying them.
To follow the car analogy, an exact copy would include the 3-point star logo, which would take you into the realm of counterfeiting which is illegal in an entirely different way.
If someone copied my sites' designs, I don't think I would be too bothered as long as I wasn't materially harmed. I can think of two possible ways I might be, though, that don't really apply to, say, torrenting movies:
1) Since the two sites would look the same, I could be mistaken for the copycat.
2) My users who go to both sites could be confused, possibly thinking they're related.
Those are two differences I can think of, though I don't particularly support torrenting, either.
The main difference would be that that logic is generally applied to products which confer the consumer with no external benefits.
On the other hand, using someone else's copyrighted material and passing it off as your own, using it as the public face of a venture, that's deriving massive benefits from its use.
If you read carefully, you'll find that there hasn't been a claim of copyright violation. The accusation is "ripping us off", and it is made in front of the audience that both sites appear to serve.
They have not made a formal claim of copyright violation, they have not involved lawyers, they have not sent a cease and desist (to my knowledge).
They did use the word "stole" but they used it in a casual, non-legal sense and followed up with an explanation of exactly what they mean. It's completely different from a sustained propaganda campaign that explicitly tries to equate the crime of theft with copyright violation, which is what the MPAA and RIAA did.
Censuring them for using the word "steal" in this case is just nitpicking. That's why no one's doing it. It has nothing to do with "only applying to creators outside the community"
Funny enough I just read this article and thread and moved on... While googling for some stuff, I ran across this site:
http://nerdinthebasement.com/
Looks exactly like BOTH yours and the offending site, just a color change... I don't think there's anything special about the design that would warrant calling wolf, other than the fact of the CSS comment showing he did actually rip the design...
What I'm saying? I don't know. Designs are designs, nothing revolutionary about this one... Shrug it off, and move on.
You must not have an eye for design. The original and plagiarized sites have identical typography and proportions in the navigation. The link you pasted looks only somewhat similar.
If you believe you have a case, and it's worth your time (and money) take $300 and go have a lawyer draft a letter tell them to cease and desist.
IANAL (see above) but if it's a 100% clear cut case of IP theft, and you have some ownership of the IP that's been stolen, I think you can even file a DMCA takedown request to whoever is hosting their material.
I think everyone is blowing this out of proportion. 90% of the time that I've contacted someone about stealing my work, I send them an email and let them know and they promptly pull it down. You probably don't need a DMCA takedown request. I guess if you want to teach them a lesson, which they definitely deserve to learn, then go ahead and sue them.
I don't understand this instant knee-jerk reaction to call the lawyers out and bandy about the idea of a lawsuit. Public shame is powerful, and is often much more efficient than the legal system at solving the actual problem.
well, the internet is as the biggest unofficial open source project ever, just because you can do view-source on ever website there is. copying parts (even big parts) of a site you like is not only common practice, but also great for innovation. just imagine how the web would look like if tim berners-lee would have chosen a flash like technology for the web? (my guess: we would not have the internet, we would live in the microsoftnet (as they are great in getting market share in closed source economies))
yes, they could have worked a little harder to give their site a little bit more "originality", but other than that, it is the internet way.
i have cloned (parts of) hundreds of websites, any my websites (and parts of it) were cloned even more often, even before github.
i see a distinction, but a too strict interpretation of copyright is bad for the web and innovation. i'm glad there (still) is a view-source option in every browser, and i'm glad people still use it.
view-source is how i started into webdevelopement in the nineties (remember, there was no github), and i'm glad people still use it (i do).
I agree that View Source is good, and stumbling on that option is how I started to learn HTML as well. What people are saying here is that View Source->Copy->Paste->Profit is bad. View Source->Learn->Reinvent->Profit is fine.
This is a straightforward copyright violation. Why is it an issue requiring public shaming? Issue a DMCA takedown notice of the entire site to the site owners and also to http://www.directi.com/ which appears to be hosting the site (via orderbox-dns.com) I think. Then watch the sparks fly.
Please don't listen to this person's call to use something like the DMCA. You've done the right thing, calling them out. Honestly, Hacker News based magazines (like Hacker Monthly, which I subscribe to and enjoy) cater to a very niche market that, I suspect, will hold far greater respect for pointing out their obvious stealing of your design/layout/whatever than you pursuing a legal recourse of action.
I, for one, applaud Hacker Monthly's response and actions. Had they pointed out their sending a DMCA takedown notice, I would have lost respect for them. You're doing the right thing. Stay the course! We're behind you all the way.
I found someone that copied one of our websites because they copied it so exactly that they included the corporate logo in the footer, which had a link back to our corporate website. I noticed the odd referrer URL in a click through to our corporate site.
I am not familiar with hackermonthly but they seem to "reprint" material that was popular on HN. Is all that content actually correctly licensed to be used in that way? Just wondering how those logistics are working... contacting all the individual authors, working out the terms &c.
With Hacker Monthly, I believe all authors are contacted and for permission. I think compensation is even provided, perhaps in the form of a free subscription?
You must be new here. That's the whole point. So that regulars who don't have time to read HN every day can get a curated weekly list of the best content we may have missed.
The HN readership does not hold one consistent set of opinions, so pointing out the irrationality of the behavior of the group would seem to be a waste of time.
Does Hacker Monthly obtain the rights to republish all the articles in their magazine? They probably do not need permission from Y-combinator, but they certainly need permission from the original article authors/owners. If they are not getting permission, it seems that they are stealing too.
Every single one? Including the author of the css for your website?
Edit: Yes, as per your reply below, this comment stemmed from an eruption of confusion on my part. It (the confusion) is now contained and slumbering happily in the depths of my brain. I extend my sincere apologies.
I think the biggest problem is not the stole per si. But the biggest problem is that a company trying to make a similar service ripped the competition design.
It's so sad that someone inside the hacker culture has to go through things like these. Why stole a code?
I sort of understand how this happens in industries that have few IT or media skills, but to be that stupid when running a hacker magazine site is far beyond simple lazyness or plagiarism and is striding boldly into the boggy marshland territories of true incompetence while wearing nothing but lead stilettos and a hat saying 'Bite Me' and sporting a cologne made of alligator pheromones.
You are welcome. You can have it if you like. I found it in a dank crevice next to a bewildered field-mouse, whilst searching forlornly for my missing marbles.
Sites look similar, but how different is this from using the same Hacker News orange colour scheme and aggregating stories directly from Hacker News?
"Hacker Monthly is a print magazine version of Hacker News — a social news website wildly popular among programmers and startup founders. The submission guidelines state that content can be “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity.” Every month, we select from the top voted articles on Hacker News and print them in magazine format."
"how" it happened was clearly someone opening up a text editor and copying this man's hard work. It's a shame that this was so blatant, I hope the OP at least gets a good formal apology out of this.
I'm actually a bit surprised by the reactions here. Since when is css copyrighted? Where are the numerous lawsuits against Pinterest "clones" for having a grid layout etc.?
Sure, it's a shame, but css, like html and javascript, is not a protected source. It's run client-side. Would you rather just receive a image/png from websites?
EDIT: I know someone who've experienced something very similar (with css prefixes obviously referring to his site rather than the microsoft.cn clone).
Works authored in CSS, HTML and JavaScript are all protected by copyright. Lawsuits for code theft, including in webpages, happen all the time. Ask any web host, they have to take down pages after getting DMCA copyright infringement notices about stolen HTML all the time.
Grid layouts, pinning images, etc. are ideas. Ideas are not protected. The concrete implementations of them are. You can clone Pinterest, but you can't do it by stealing their JavaScript and CSS files. You have to write your own.
Yes, it does. In the US, all copyrightable creative works (which includes CSS files) are copyrighted by default as soon as they are created. The system is opt-out, not opt-in.
Having something open source doesn't remove the copyright, it just permits usage. Likewise in this situation. While you can see the source, it doesn't mean that you can just copy the source and use it yourself as it is copyrighted and the creator can choose to let others use their work as they see fit.
Uh, so what? It's an incredibly basic design. It's not as if it's some blatant ripoff of an extravagantly designed theme.
They changed the logos and such (so it's not as if they are pretending to BE you), and made the colours their own. I'm not quite sure what you're mad about?
I would disagree with the concept of ownership of any kind of design work. Especially in the case of code considering how one-dimensional CSS is, there's really only one or two ways to build a site like this anyway.
There are lots of free and premium themes to build a "basic site" like this, and anyone can get a license to use the design legally. Why steal from someone who isn't willing to license?
CSS is open source by default, but this doesn't mean there's no copyright.
I'm not talking about current U.S. copyright legislation.
First off, I don't agree with the concept that anyone has the right to 'own' information in the first place (especially lines of code).
It isn't 'stealing'. It's not as if they have deprived hackermonthly of their site. At worst they copied.
I'm not sure what you are saying in regards to CSS being 'open source'. My point was that between syntax and formatting standards, CSS has very little creative control (in terms of the actual writing of the code). Sure you might decide to do 4 space indents, choose one line rules vs. multiple, etc. But usually there is a best way, or most standards compliant way of structuring and styling the design.
What I'm saying is two people coding the same design could easily produce nearly identical code, with the only differences being small irrelevant differences in formatting.
Get over it. This happens everyday a thousand times over. Provide a better service that keeps users from going elsewhere. Keep innovating to keep the competition one step behind.
Heard of Pinspire? The Samwer brothers have used the copy game over and over again to get mad rich.
It's not worth your time getting upset. Look at it as a form of flattery and move on. Your time is better spent on making your site better than bitching and/or attempting to get them to stop.
A case of "some guy stole my mySpace color scheme!" it's worthy of a 'get over it', not this. You're copying ideas and possibly code from a working business to use in your own business and gaining from it without acknowledgement or permission (this last part is key). Public shame IS a proper deterrent, posts like this is the way to go.
Why are you on here complaining about it? Do something. Hire a lawyer and get it fixed. If you think it's as clear-cut as you make it sound, skip the lawyer and take direct action.
Moaning to a bunch of grumpy programmers is only going to get you advice like that.
More effective than spending 30 minutes to take the site down with a DMCA? This is exactly what they're supposed to be used for.
I don't see how giving them a whole load of PR, links and stern looks is going to fix anything given that they're unscrupulous enough to copy swathes of design and code.
A lawyer probably isn't worth the time or money to them. I know how they feel. We constantly have people ripping off our website and design work. Sometimes the best method is just to call them out on it and honestly, they deserve to be publicly humiliated for stealing someone else's work and claiming it as their own. Maybe if more people publicly speak out people will learn that it is not ok.
It specially sucks when you are the one that created something and put all of your effort into it and then see someone outright copy your work and use it as their own.
So what?? I don't care!! both of you bringing value that I like. So I don't care how your sites been designed, and sure you have being taking/stealing/inspiring from others, so its not like you are innocent, as none of us is.
So they went a short way and copied (not stole [1]) your code. So what? Please, steal from me! If you can take my ideas and make them better, I still can go back and see what I haven't seen before and learn from you, execute better next time. World is not a sum zero game where all ideas has been done and we just wait to die. We constantly progress! There will be new ideas to pursue.
And besides, what you gonna do now? You already cried and waste people's time on reading and commenting on it. Are you gonna sue them? Take a legal action? Burn your or your investors' money? What do you expect in return? Apology?? If there were go one step further and use search and replace on html and css and replace variable's names and classes, etc, would that satisfy you??
[1] arguably, nothing has been stolen from you, as of this moment, visiting hackermonthly.com I still can see the code and design being healthy and all OK.
However, that changes when we see that the css file has been copied exactly. That makes a much stronger case that they may have started with your design and altered it just enough to seem to be different.