I think there is a difference about being inspired by ideas or concepts in a design and plain ripping it off completely. That for me is the big difference.
As for no harm done, I don't agree with that. A lot of 37signals audience and marketing is through their audience that loves to hear what they say about design amongst other things. Having a cutting edge marketing website and blogging about it helps to generate interest in what they do. For someone that didn't know 37signals is the original designer of that style of site, no credit would go to them. The guy from Curebit even stated that he was planning to write up a blog about how the testing goes... why should they get the credit and pageviews for reviewing the a/b testing on someones elses design?
Go read @allangrant recent twitter posts and see if you still feel sympathetic.
As for no harm done, I don't agree with that. A lot of 37signals audience and marketing is through their audience that loves to hear what they say about design amongst other things. Having a cutting edge marketing website and blogging about it helps to generate interest in what they do. For someone that didn't know 37signals is the original designer of that style of site, no credit would go to them. The guy from Curebit even stated that he was planning to write up a blog about how the testing goes... why should they get the credit and pageviews for reviewing the a/b testing on someones elses design?
Go read @allangrant recent twitter posts and see if you still feel sympathetic.