HK student: Viral Jobs tribute may not be original

A Hong Kong student whose viral tribute to the late Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs — an Apple logo with Jobs' silhouette — acknowledged his work may not have been "original," but maintained he never copied anyone's idea. Jonathan Mak contested claims his work was a ripoff of a similar design by UK-based artist Christ Thornley a.k.a. Raid71, saying he arrived at his tribute on his own. "I will not apologize for 'ripping off' Mr. Thornley’s work, because like others who have created similar pieces at around the same time (blatant copies notwithstanding), I have arrived at this design on my own. I do, however, wish to say sorry for not dealing with this as quickly as I probably should have, but I was struggling with how to word my response properly last night," he said in an Oct. 9 blog post. Mak's image, where Jobs' silhouette replaced the "bite mark" on the Apple logo, had gone viral shortly after Jobs' death was announced last Oct. 6. But he noted some people had accused him of ripping off photos such as that of Raid71. "Whether you take my word for it or not, the visual similarities of these images are irrelevant to the design concept, in my opinion, and do not merit the comparison," he said. But he noted Raid71's design "does indeed contain the very same idea." Still, he maintained he never came across Raid71's work when he was composing his tribute to Jobs. "Although it is impossible to verify it now that all this happened, I honestly did not come across his work while searching for terms such as 'Apple, Steve Jobs, logo, silhouette.' I did my best to ensure that the idea had not been done before," he said. Mak also maintained he had not made any money from this, and have only answered people who offered to donate all their proceedings to charities "with the condition of receiving a receipt or other confirmation of the donation." In the meantime, he urged the public to support Raid71's cause, after learning Raid71 is going through cancer treatment. — RSJ, GMA News