Sometimes near similar looking products hurt your brand, while other times it is a bit of flatery.

Kinda cool that people can get logo's for $10
http://www.webdesigntalk.net/showthread.php?t=117937

Even cooler that they grabbed the sample and used it with word sample in the background, instead of paying for a non sample.
www.seoscene.com
When you work dirt cheap clients work much harder to rip you off.

Coolest of all, Google AdSense ads are showing my image banner next to their logo hehehe :)

I guess that is sorta like attribution?

As time passes more and more content is developed to emulate other content which ranks well or is widely scene. While on some fronts it may compete it also probably offers a cheap marketing channel so long as there isn't much click fraud there.

When you are new to the web you have to start somewhere, but it is usually better to be overly simplistic and plain than to emulate the design of someone in the exact same field as you.

Admitidly I am a big fan of the buy a logo and slap it on a somewhat defaultish template style of design...unless you are designing a site selling web design services, but the word sample in the background is cheesy and the logo does not do much to add credibility to their site.