Seriously, what's wrong with Zynga?

Tiny Tower vs Dream Heights
these bingo games
Mob Wars vs Mafia Wars

How can one of the most "successful" companies in our industry so blatantly rip off other companies so often? I understand different mechanics and themes going in and out of popularity, but it's something else altogether to so closely copy the concepts of other games.

This raises an important issue for our club. How can we protect the ideas in our games? When I get a chance, I'm gonna go talk to our free school lawyer and see if she has any advice on things. I think it would be important for groups to draw up a sort of NDA for their teams. Or at least a sort of "code of conduct." Again, at this stage we shouldn't be specifically business oriented, but we do need to be mindful of the fact that our pet projects could become products.

Lol. Apparently Zynga read my post and this what they have to say.

Pretty much, "Yeah, we're not gonna stop copying people, that's our business. We're just gonna change the chat system and call it innovation."

Edit: They just make the hate too easy.