Right. And doing it in a vague way (not specifying WHICH illustrations they supposedly own the copyright to). Most of us who have looked at the illustrations side-by-side see their claim of owning copyright to be unfounded, for lots of reasons:
1) None of the illustrations in Flat UI are identical to LayerVault's illustrations. Derived works? Maybe. But under the law, that's okay.
2) Looking at illustrations from the Noun Project, and color palettes from Google and elsewhere, we see the same similarities that we do between LayerVault and Flat UI. If Flat UI is guilty of copyright infringement as LayerVault asserts, then LayerVault is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement from elsewhere.
3) Copyright isn't even the right legal vehicle for this debate. LayerVault could conceivably deem its icons to be trademarks, and show a likelihood of confusion when compared to Flat UI's icons. But LV using an icon set as a trademark would be unprecedented, and difficult to argue. (And even if that were the case, the Noun Project could just as easily claim LV infringed on their trademark.)
Overall, if LayerVault is claiming they own the copyright to illustrations used in Flat UI, they're flat-out wrong. And that's where the problem comes in - filing a fraudulent DMCA notice is bad business.
1) None of the illustrations in Flat UI are identical to LayerVault's illustrations. Derived works? Maybe. But under the law, that's okay.
2) Looking at illustrations from the Noun Project, and color palettes from Google and elsewhere, we see the same similarities that we do between LayerVault and Flat UI. If Flat UI is guilty of copyright infringement as LayerVault asserts, then LayerVault is most certainly guilty of copyright infringement from elsewhere.
3) Copyright isn't even the right legal vehicle for this debate. LayerVault could conceivably deem its icons to be trademarks, and show a likelihood of confusion when compared to Flat UI's icons. But LV using an icon set as a trademark would be unprecedented, and difficult to argue. (And even if that were the case, the Noun Project could just as easily claim LV infringed on their trademark.)
Overall, if LayerVault is claiming they own the copyright to illustrations used in Flat UI, they're flat-out wrong. And that's where the problem comes in - filing a fraudulent DMCA notice is bad business.