Week 3:Legal and IP Frameworks – Comparing Different Case Studies, Media Use and Equity Ownership
Weekly Learning Objectives
By the end of this week you should be able to:
- Research and analyse the basic pitfalls of illegal practice;
- Imagine and communicate the key areas that may infringe copyright or require IP protection in relation to a chosen designed object;
- Manage your independent learning effectively.
Week 3: Lecture – Copyright Overview and Principles
Lecture Introduction
This lecture explores copyright overview and principles, and is presented by Alec Dudson, Kevin Poulter and Jonny Mayner. There will be case studies to highlight copyright issues.
We will ask the following questions:
- How do we become aware of naming and copyright issues?
- What are the basic pitfalls of illegal practice?
- What are the common areas of copyright process and the ethical and legal factors most commonly affecting graphic designers? (Model Release, children, ethics etc.)
Watch the lecture video below and make notes in your research journal. Reflect upon these ideas and use them as a springboard into your own investigations.
Lecture Podcast
Panel
https://twitter.com/KevinPoulter (Links to an external site.)
https://twitter.com/JonnyMayner (Links to an external site.)
References:
Tokyo Olympics: Logo Plagiarism Row (Links to an external site.)
Tokyo Olympics: Facebook Post (Links to an external site.)
Tokyo Olympics: Twitter Post (Links to an external site.)
Formula 1: Legal Battle New Logo (Links to an external site.)
Zara: Bassen vs. Zara
Designs opposite don’t seem dissimilar to lots of pin-badges seen most days online ????
Anish Kapoor Owns the Rights to the Blackest Color Ever Made. So Another Artist Made His Own Superblack—and Now It’s Even Blacker
“It’s like a black hole or a void in a bottle.”
Who’s liable for the injuries caused by (what was at the time) the blackest black?
Check your trademarks®™
Reflection
Copyright issues tend to reach the public by stories on the news or social media, hyped-up as a warzone between two global giants or, as described in this weeks podcast, a battle between David and Goliath and sometimes presented with an underlying message as a playground fight…fight…fight…!
I suppose it would only be seen as a real issue to those involved, those faced with the possibility of winning a case, or losing everything.
Avoiding issues with copyright especially, come down to either common sense or having a bit of pride in what you do, I couldn’t knowingly reproduce other work, I’d feel like a cheat. If someone pointed out that part of what they saw was a close to the bone (unintentionally!), I’d change it for my own reasons, not through fear of ending up in court.
As designers we take influences from all around, one source being other designers or we take a look through design reference books and studio portfolios, we might keep a scrapbook full of little bits we see but they’re to use as starting points, not to scan in and print out, why would you want to do that?
Experiences I’ve had with dodgy-dealings on copyright or design ownership are pretty scarce.
The first professional occurrence came at my first job as junior designer when a lot of unpaid pitching was going on for work from our County Council. They needed at least three submissions and we all knew it would be the cheapest who would win but the studio designed it and the boss priced things up. We didn’t win, we were too expensive.
However, it was our design which ended up out in public. They chose the cheapest agency to work up our proposal, nothing happened…
Another occasion, I was interviewing candidates for a junior position and one interviewee showed us a piece of our own work! He had been working in the repro-dept at the printers and decided anything he’d had on-screen he could claim as being part of its design process. He handed over the samples and left.
“Imitation vs. inspiration
“Don’t be a designer who creates work too close to that of another. You have to make sure you are creating something original and not derivative.”
The issues on a larger scale, such as the Tokyo Olympics and the F1 from the podcast, are different entirely. They get seen, shared and shamed worldwide. In the same way that trolls on Facebook come down on people ‘who are wrong’, brands, the bigger the better, get pulled up when someone somewhere spots the slightest similarity.
I admit these two cases aren’t slight, but in both cases there’s no likelihood of confusion of brands and if it weren’t for social media, would they have even been noted?
It’s easy to imagine the process leading to the F1 logo without 3M’s; the f, the 1 and the reference to a racetrack (perhaps). But the Olympic logo makes no sense as to why it’s like it is. It’s a cap T, but what’s the rationale behind the triangle bottom right, it doesn’t do anything? For me, that is where the issue of possible imitation lies, if this hadn’t been there would there have been an issue?
I think you know if you’re ripping something off, so as I said earlier, common sense or pride should stop you going too far. Or, if you genuinely believe your design is fair use of the original (see The Associated Press vs. Fairey), you need to be prepared for something depending on how successful your fair use becomes.
In the case of the Obama Hope poster, there couldn’t have been more exposure of an image. Initially independent of, but with the approval of the official Obama campaign in 2008, it came to represent it, meaning worldwide exposure and likely increased fame for its creator, artist Shepard Fairey and proclaimed by Guardian reporter Laura Barton as having “acquired the kind of instant recognition of Jim Fitzpatrick’s Che Guevara poster, and is surely set to grace T-shirts, coffee mugs and the walls of student bedrooms in the years to come.”
The original mixed-media stencilled portrait version was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its National Portrait Gallery in 2009, but later a photograph by Mannie Garciawas was revealed by the Associated Press as being the base for Fairey’s design. The Associated Press sued for compensation and Fairey sued for a declaratory judgment that his poster was a fair use of the original, they settled out of court in January 2011. However…
In 2012 Fairey pleaded guilty to destroying and fabricating documents during his legal battle with the Associated Press. He claimed to have used a different photograph, but then admitted that he was wrong and tried to hide the error by destroying documents and manufacturing others. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years of probation, 300 hours of community service, and a fine of $30,000.
Ironically, the Obama Hope poster has been imitated immeasurably since…
You can even make your own: http://obamapostermaker.com/
References:
Quote – Kaitlyn Ellison: https://99designs.co.uk/blog/tips/5-famous-copyright-infringement-cases/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster
Resources
Read | Watch | Listen
Below is this week’s list of materials. For the full module resource list, please refer to the Course Hub. We encourage you to also go beyond and carry out your own independent research into themes delivered. Do not forget to use the Ideas Wall to share new ideas and thoughts.
1. Jacob, R., Alexander, D., Lane, L. (2003) A Guidebook to Intellectual property: patents, trade-marks, copyright and designs. London: Sweet and Maxwell.
2. Alderson, Rob (2015), ‘Tokyo Olympics Logo embroiled in Plagiarism Row (Links to an external site.)’, The Guardian [online], 30 July. [Accessed 28 March 2019]
3. Kevin Poulter https://twitter.com/kevinpoulter
HAWRAF Challenge
Select a designed object and highlight the key areas that may infringe copyright or require IP protection.
HAWRAF Admin
Share three resources that you find particularly interesting/useful from the HAWRAF Google Drive (http://bit.ly/_HAWRAF_)
This is a hell of a lot of work to show your agency has closed… I wonder how much work the individuals involved have had off the back of it?
Workshop Challenge
Select a designed object and highlight the key areas that may infringe copyright or require IP protection.
Tizio Desk Lamp
An example of good industrial design, how has a design so innovative managed to stay unique for so long?
Designed by Richard Sapper for Artemide in 1972, the Tizio uses a transformer located in the base that powers a halogen lamp through rods and press button joints. These carry the electrical current without the need for cables. With the adjustable counterbalanced arms you can position the light source without the need for springs found on other angle-poise lamps.
I’ve scoured the internet this week looking for imitations of the Tizio lamp but there’s nothing which could be seen as a ‘copy’, not even in Ikea.
The lamp combines a set of innovations so obviously simple:
- No wires – the electricity is reduced by a transformer to a safe level then is sent through the lamps own frame to power the light
- No tension wires or springs – the hinged sections of the lamp are counter-weighted to balance perfectly in any position
- Halogen light – no big deal these days but back in the 1970’s they were only for cars
Unique-at-the-time and prime targets for use in different designs by rival companies, but even now, with advances in technology and manufacturing techniques, there’s no real rival for this product.
Two other lamps use the same technology are the Dove Table Lamp by furniture designers Mario Barbaglia & Marco Colombo for PAF Studio in the 1980’s and the Fase articulated lamp from around the same period.
The closest to the Tizio in terms of how it looks is the Fase. It’s in the same industrial style as the Tizio, where the Dove is more sculptured, but it only has the single movement. Perhaps this was they way around the existing patents filed for the Tizio? There isn’t much information available for either the Dove or the Fase.
Sapper worked on his design independently, until he had a suitable prototype to show Gismondi.
“When I switched it on he immediately saw the potential of the thing,”
Tizio Desk lamp
Richard Sapper – Artemide 1972
Prize Grand Prix Triennale XV 1974
Gold Medal Triennale XV 1974
Gold Medal at Bio 9 Ljubljana 1981
Selection Compasso d’Oro 1979
Included in the Permanent Design Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Patents and copyright revisions
References:
Images by Richard Sapper – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12226349
http://richardsapperdesign.com/products/1970-1980/tizio
GOV.UK – Intellectual property and your work: https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview
1843magazine, – https://www.1843magazine.com/content/lifestyle/peter-york/tizio
Richard Sapper, Edited by Jonathan Olivares, Phaidon – https://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2016/june/06/how-clutter-inspired-richard-sapper-s-design-classic/
