this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023

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Dbrand is suing Casetify for ripping off its Teardown designs - The Verge (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 179 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Dbrand has a really strong case here IMO, since they pretty heavily edit the internals and add a few easter eggs, which are still visible in Casetify's final designs

Dbrand discovered Casetify allegedly copied 117 different designs, down to the many digital manipulations it made to the images. Dbrand says it holds registered copyrights for each of these products, all of which were registered before Casetify’s product launch.

Also, TIL:

Disclosure: The Verge recently collaborated with Dbrand on a series of skins and cases

[–] [email protected] 136 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The Easter eggs showing up is pretty solid evidence

[–] [email protected] 85 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Map makers used to do this to catch people ripping off their work, looks like dbrand made a solid decision in doing the same (though probably not intentionally)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I'm still bummed I can't take a vacation to Frisland :(

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

These are called fictitious entries. Dictionaries and encyclopedias do this too.

[+] [email protected] -19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah fuck dbrand but I think they have a good open and shut case here

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (3 children)

What did dbrand do? I thought they were well liked

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some people get all butthurt over their irreverent marketing style

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not what I was talking about but hey you do you

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Their marketing is just incredibly childish and brash. Doesn't personally upset me, but it's certainly never made me want to check out their products.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough, I've heard good things about their quality and customer service (being great about replacements and technical issues) but there's lots to choose from. There are others you can go to for the products

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Their cases are of spectacular quality. They maintain great shape after years of use. My oldest in current service is 4 years old.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I've personally had a few terrible customer service experiences over the years, to the point that I stopped buying from them. I've had years of experience selling phones, applying screen protectors, and skins, and sometimes d brand sends you one that straight up doesn't fit. And even with pictures (I had one that was too small for the phone, hard to argue with that), they refuse to acknowledge it was the product's fault and refuse refunds.

I never got one but their airpods skin was ridiculous and close to impossible to install and they basically posted a snarky response saying how even though the product is perfect and the customers are all idiots, they'll try to make it easier to install for our tiny brains.

So I don't really care that they have an "attitude" with advertising. I care that that attitude also permeates throughout all customer service experiences, and that they have this idea that they can do no wrong to the point that they refuse refunds to people who deserve them.

So I'm not buying from them ever again, but I can't deny they have a case here. That's all I was saying, but the redditors yet again confuse the downvote button for the disagree button, but hey, they're probably also the ones defending d brand so no surprise there.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

This is definitely shitty.

Related: JerryRigEverything just came out with a video about this and titled "I got robbed" and called it theft a bunch of times. This is copyright infringement, maybe trademark infringement, but not "theft" or "robbery". No property or money was taken from any party such that they no longer have access to it. It's important to be accurate about this.

Edit:

Here is a list of all the media I've found surrounding this that falsely claims stealing, theft or robbery:

Techlinked "dbrand was ROBBED" https://youtu.be/2yEE34BeBnA?si=i0oKsJRV8CQUs4P0
JerryRigEverything "I'VE BEEN ROBBED" https://youtu.be/byfWscC87Vg?si=XJosK1Ubor5fWueW
Engadget "Dbrand is suing Casetify for allegedly stealing its casd and skin designs" https://www.engadget.com/dbrand-is-suing-casetify-for-allegedly-stealing-its-case-and-skin-designs-221012321.html
dbrand "Casetify stole our products. Now we’re suing them." https://twitter.com/dbrand/status/1727721586856222893

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I havent watched it yet but now I will not watch it for the blatant baiting.
Thought it was about the bunker he was building...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I didn't watch it so I had no idea it was about this but the thumbnail and the click bait title made me unsubscribe from him.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Intellectual property" as a concept is designed to trick people into thinking copyright, trademark, and patent infringement are equivalent to theft. It's an incorrect and pernicious use of the word "theft".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You're getting downvoted because people don't like the way the real world works.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

For anyone struggling to follow this:

Dbrand makes stickers. These are edited scans of the inside of a laptop. Casetify has pretty brazenly copied that edited version. They swapped it around in a way that doesn't even make sense, as the fans vents would be... in the middle of the bottom?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It's not a bug, it's a feature: fans are there to warm up the battery when you type outside in winter

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Dbrand, the device skin company known for trolling brands like Sony and Nintendo, is waging a legal battle of its own.

The company is suing rival Casetify over claims it blatantly copied Dbrand’s Teardown device skins and cases, which are made to look like the internals of whatever phone, tablet, or laptop you’ve purchased them for.

In March, one user on X (formerly Twitter) pointed out that Casetify appeared to be reusing the image of the same internals across different phone models, which means they didn’t accurately represent the insides of each device they were sold for.

“If CASETiFY had simply created their own Teardown-esque design from scratch, we wouldn’t have anything to take issue with,” Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz tells The Verge.

That’s why, instead of issuing a cease-and-desist order, Dbrand is hitting Casetify with a federal lawsuit in Canadian courts, where the company is based, and seeking eight figures in damages.

Dbrand is also launching a brand-new set of X-ray skins across its entire portfolio today that are rather different from the Teardown ones — they’re black and white, captured at 50 micron resolution by a lab called Haven Metrology, and show details that wouldn’t be visible simply by removing the back cover of a phone, laptop, or gaming handheld.

The original article contains 830 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

My favorite part of this was X “(formerly Twitter)” even when a bot is most efficiently paraphrasing it’s still necessary to waste two words to clarify that stupid apps name.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Casetify has always felt shitty to me.They sell 45$+ cases with ugly customization and shitty print quality. Now this plagiarism too. Lol

[+] [email protected] -48 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I guess printing a correct headline of “sued for copyright infringement “ isn’t click baity enough. Because that’s all it is. Dbrand is lucky they haven’t been sued by the board manufacturers for creating an unlicensed derivative work (which is what the case art is, just as the photo of a sculpture, even stylized, has been deemed derivative - especially when the reproduction is intended to represent the original).

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

wtf stupid take is this? I bet you are so brilliant, so smart, that you have successfully managed to point out a hole that dbrand's lawyers have completely missed! I'm sure the investors totally had absolutely zero concerns about that and never mandated some form of investigation... I'm sure dbrand has taken no action at any point to verify that their business dealings do not go afowl of the law. Thank GOD for brilliant people like you, showing the companies the way.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

If only these multinational brands had consulted this random guy about copyright law instead of trusting their lawyers. Idiots are muckin about blind.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Dbrand is lucky they haven’t been sued by the board manufacturers for creating an unlicensed derivative work (which is what the case art is, just as the photo of a sculpture, even stylized, has been deemed derivative - especially when the reproduction is intended to represent the original).

I think "lucky" is an overstatement but this is an interesting point and could be the knockoff company's defense ie:

we couldn't have infringed their IP because they don't own the IP

But I think this line of defense would open both case makers up to a suit from the phone manufacturers. Dbrand is well familiar with IP issues with hardware OEMs though so I don't know...