Dbrand doesn’t appear to be the only accessory maker Casetify stole from. Evidence suggests it ripped off an X-ray design from iFixit too. It copied an X-ray image of the iPhone X, flipped it, and slapped it onto a case for the iPhone 15 lineup. Dbrand has already sued Casetify for stealing dozens of its Teardown case designs.
Casetify has been found stealing from iFixit too
Last week, Dbrand made a shocking revelation that renowned smartphone accessory maker Casetify stole its case designs. The designs in question were the Teardown skins it developed in collaboration with popular YouTuber Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything. The skins show the internals of the phone on the outside.
Zack and Dbrand have made these cases for dozens of phones since December 2019, when the project was launched. They painstakingly tear apart brand-new phones, scan the internal structure in high resolution, edit the image to remove imperfections and polish it, produce prototypes, make adjustments, and finally mass-produce the cases. The whole process takes almost a full day of work for a single design before it hits mass production.
Unsurprisingly, Dbrand’s Teardown skins have been selling well. Casetify decided to compete against it with its own “Inside Out” line of smartphone cases. However, instead of doing all the hard work itself, the firm simply copied Dbrand and Zack’s skins. Too bad that it didn’t notice—likely never took apart a phone to check its internals—the easter eggs the latter parties had hidden in their designs. Casetify copied those too and was caught red-handed.
As you might expect, Dbrand sued its rival for blatantly stealing its copyrighted designs. After keeping mum for a day, Casetify released a statement saying that it “has always been a bastion of originality,” even though there’s enough evidence of it stealing Dbrand’s work. Meanwhile, Dbrand dug out another piece of evidence against it. This time around, Casetify stole an X-ray image from iFixit.
Casetify flipped the image and passed it on as an original work
After Dbrand exposed Casetify, the latter quickly removed all Inside Out cases featuring stolen designs from its website. Along with those, it removed an iPhone X-ray case. It turns out that featured a stolen design too. As pointed out by Dbrand on X, the company seemingly tried to sweep it under the rug during the chaos following its lawsuit, but it couldn’t escape the eagle eyes of the internet people. Time will tell how big of a blow this blatant thievery proves for Casetify.
Dear @Casetify, using stolen X-rays of phone internals doesn't make you a tech genius; it makes you a copycat. How about investing some of those "cutting-edge" profits into supporting Right to Repair or wheelchair advocacy? Or is that too original for you? https://t.co/q4RiteEKbf
— iFixit (@iFixit) November 24, 2023