Labmate copied my portfolio website

Question

I'm a PhD student (very early on in my degree) in a relatively small lab. Over the last few months, I've spent a significant amount of time and effort designing my personal webpage to show my CV, publication preprints, etc. I tried to give it a unique style, and I'm proud of what I achieved.

Today I visited the personal website of a more senior PhD student in my same lab (same PI), and noticed that it was essentially a copy-and-paste recreation of my own website -- same HTML/CSS/JS, just with the name and details (publications etc) edited. My website is credited in an HTML comment, but few if any people will see this.

I feel a bit violated -- I never agreed to this, and there are lots of freely available templates for websites -- I don't know why this student had to use mine. I don't want visitors to think now that my website design is plaigarized from the other student's. That said, I don't want to sour my relationship with my labmates or PI or create conflict unnecessarily. Am I off base -- is this sort of thing acceptable in academic circles? How, if at all, should I navigate approaching this colleague?

Answer 1

I get that you feel violated. But ask yourself what your options are. Your first option is to get your lab-mate to change his/her website design. I do not see any way that would not create friction, as your lab mate can argue that simple designs can be copied without violating your rights. Your lab mate is probably wrong on this as you spend a lot of time on the design. But you would argue this point. I do not think that you look good in this scenario, even if you are in the right. The second option is to accept the copying as a form of flattery and publicly express that you feel flattered. Your lab mate might feel a bit embarrassed at having been exposed publicly but cannot complain since his/her website contains a reference to your design.

I cannot see any negative consequence of your lab mate using your work, other than the feeling that you should have been asked for permission. I do not share your fear that casual visitors will feel that you were the one who copied. If I were to see an instance of this, I would assume that Ph.D. students in this lab are working together with a common template for their websites, which would reflect well on both of you. In fact, without digging, I would assume that your website was done from a free website template floating around the internet, since Ph.D. students should spend their time more productively. (I am hypocritical as I played a lot of xconq and multi-user games with other students in my time.)

You might even talk to your supervisor telling him/her that since people are copying your website, maybe your's should be the template for the whole group. Even if the supervisor does not agree, I think you would look good.