The March 27 letter to the editor "Andrew Tutt's Web site resembles Obama's" is really wrong. I was wondering why no one on The Chronicle contacted me.
Considering its esoteric nature, I can see why it would be difficult for someone not well versed in Web design to understand that this claim is simply untrue and complete rumor. The two Web sites use a navigation system that involves a complex variant of the "sliding doors" technique and an innovative use of CSS to slide a background image around.
Nothing about that is copyrightable, and indeed it is akin to something like "swap" in regular programming-such a common function you will find it in nearly every program.
To say that using similar typography (making the text look a certain way) is plagiarism is to say that all works that are meant to clearly or closely resemble another are plagiarism, which goes well beyond the definition of the word. The goal of the Web site is to invoke that spirit of hope and optimism in Obama's campaign, and using Georgia font rather than Verdana or Arial for certain aspects is not plagiarism in any way.
In regards to background elements, it's relatively clear that the header image on the Web site uses a Blue background. Other than that, there is no legitimate reason to believe that anything about it is taken from Obama's Web site. And that's simple: it's because it's not. Simply looking at http://www.andrewtutt.com and the Obama Web sites, and looking at the CSS files themselves, should be enough to put this to rest.
Andrew Tutt
Trinity '09
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