Ripping off Apple icons... legal?

[mulletman13]

I checked out a couple Vista screen shots, and found their "revolutionary" QuickSearch to be a bit familiar.

Granted, the idea to search metadata/everything is fine... it's expected and a necessary advancement, however when they rip off the icon thats entirely different.

Here is a quicksearch bar with a Spotlight bar mirrored and laid on top.

hrmmm :-\

 

[Jschultz]

I checked out a couple Vista screen shots, and found their "revolutionary" QuickSearch to be a bit familiar.

Granted, the idea to search metadata/everything is fine... it's expected and a necessary advancement, however when they rip off the icon thats entirely different.

Here is a quicksearch bar with a Spotlight bar mirrored and laid on top.

hrmmm :-\

My spotlight magnifying glass points to the left?

 

[mulletman13]

Yeaa, the image is mirrored, but the pixels line up ... =(

 

[Jschultz]

Yeaa, the image is mirrored, but the pixels line up ... =(

Whoops, missed that part!

Yeah, it is kind of scary, isn't it? Oh well. Here's to leopard!

 

[killuminati]

Well it is a magnifying glass, I think it is kind of a universal symbol for searching.

 

[desenso]

Well it is a magnifying glass, I think it is kind of a universal symbol for searching.

Agreed. Microsoft's stem is longer anyways

 

[GoCubsGo]

Agreed. Microsoft's stem is longer anyways

Totally! Thank god I was worried they stole some idea!

 

[NewbieNerd]

Whoops, missed that part!

Yeah, it is kind of scary, isn't it? Oh well. Here's to leopard!

CHEERS!

 

[Abstract]

Well it is a magnifying glass, I think it is kind of a universal symbol for searching.

Actually, it isn't. It is the symbol for "zoom" though.

MS copied Apple. They probably use Macs once in a while to see the strong points of OSX, and either stole the symbol knowingly, or subconsciously did so without realizing it. I'm hoping the latter is true, but MS really could have copied it.

And the tilt of the magnifying glass isn't universal either, as they don't need to be at an angle to signify anything. It's weird that the magnifying glass is tipped at the same angle, but in the opposite direction.

 

[iMeowbot]

The old Windows find dialog had one too.

It must be a conspiracy!

 

[killuminati]

As much as I hate microsoft, I have to say that what you guys are saying is ridiculous. I'm sure if I had nothing to do with my time, I could look around OS X and find something that they 'stole' from microsoft.

Who cares if windows has the same search icon as macs, maybe if they stole the mail icon for outlook I could see why it would be worth discussing but really.

 

[MacFan782040]

The old Windows find dialog had one too.

It must be a conspiracy!

Ugh that picture is so ugly.

 

[steveedge]

Copyright

Icons like all other "original" images are controlled by copyright, so to know the answer to this dilemma, one would need to know if the "original" icon in question were copyright protected.
It may seem silly as a user of these apps that contain the image, but if you created the original image, it wouldn't seem so silly.
However, all these companies know this "fact" so it is very unlikely that any of them would use an unlicensed image without permission....unless they just like to gamble

 

[mulletman13]

Yeaa, a couple hours after posting this I realized it was kindof stupid to post about.

Cheers to posting while under the influence