Bluefly's Eyefly Rips Off Idea, Steals Warby Parker's Product Photos

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Yesterday, we told you about Bluefly's new e-commerce launch Eyefly and how they jacked their under-$100 glasses-online idea from super-successful start-up Warby Parker, which was launched by four young business-school grads just last year.

Pretty typical tale of a bigger corporation co-opting an idea from the little guy, right? Well, it gets even more sinister.

Check it out: despite having the budget to hire well-known street style photographer Tommy Ton to shoot a gang of fashion industry insiders for its launch, Bluefly couldn't seem to spring for its own lookbook shots.

An eagle-eyed tipster points us to Eyefly's Charing Cross Road glasses page where, when you click on "Virtual Try On," the image used looks suspiciously identical to Warby Parker's Miles glasses image.

Turns out, despite being a larger corporation with waaay more money behind it, despite having enough cash to hire a star photog to shoot images for its homepage and marketing campaign, it appears that Bluefly couldn't spring for lookbook images—so they just decided to steal Warby Parker's instead.

Nice business ethics, guys—co-opt a start-up's business idea and then steal their images? Not to mention that Warby Parker gives one pair of glasses away to someone in need for every pair bought, so, basically, Bluefly is stealing from a charity. Aces.
· Miles [Warby Parker]
· Charing Cross Road [Eyefly]
· Everybody wants to be Warby Parker: Bluefly's Eyefly edition [Racked]