The world of design is becoming more and more dangerous with the increase of legal issues and ‘fair use’ policy entanglements. It was only two days ago that I tweeted about an interesting blog post on ‘who owns your portfolio’, and now another issue of copyright has been brought to my attention.
Last year I attended the Bristol Design Festival; a non-profit event that aims to promote good design in the West of England. The event was another massive success (it was its second year), and this year’s event is looking to be even better.
Apart from the brilliant atmosphere, excellent hosts and amazing examples of work on show, the event was made all the much better for me personally due to my participation in the Grafikea competition. This is a good bit of fun where you are invited to buy an Ikea Lack Table and modify it in any way you see fit, then try and sell it whilst it is on show for the week. My entry last year won second place, but now one of the other designs has come under scrutiny.
Photo Courtesy of Bristol Design Festival
The BDF organisers have been contacted by the world famous Campana Brothers of Brazil, insisting that one of the entries is an infringement of their copyright. They ask that the BDF “remove such photo…” and “…also ask that such a piece is destroyed and not reproduced again.”
Here is my opinion on the matter.
Personally I believe that the Campana Brothers don’t have a leg to stand on here. Firstly, it is not the Design Festival that has infringed on anything. The piece remains the property of the owner and creator, thus anyone exhibiting cannot be charged for infringement. That is like suggesting that you could take legal action against Panasonic for what appears on your television.
With regards to the photographs, the same issue applies. As the photographs are of someone else’s work, there is no problem with the BDF showing them. They own the photographs. As Flikr always states; you can upload and show photographs as long as you have permission of the owner to do so. The Design Festival does not own the table, but does own the photographs. No copyright issues there.
Then there comes the issue of the table itself. This is the tricky part. One can claim in this instance that ‘fair use’ comes into play. Like the Shepard Fairey case over the Obama ‘hope’ poster, the designer here has stated that the piece is inspired by the original, but has taken the work and adapted it in their own way. If they were not allowed to do this, then anyone who made a square wooden table could attack another manufacturer who constructs in the same style for copyright infringement. It is ridiculous.
The BDF website asks, ‘Can you copyright the age old art of rolling up bits of paper?’, and is asking for people’s opinions on this.
As the Design Festival is lacking in a comments section, I feel that there should be an outlet for people’s thoughts. I invite you all to comment your thoughts and feelings on this issue. What should happen to the Grafikea table? Defend or Destroy?
Tags: bristol design festival, campana brothers, copyright, grafikea, infringement, table
Nice article. I can see the similarity b/ween both pieces of furniture. But you’re right, BDF don’t own the piece so they can’t destroy it. The CB can shout all they want, but they’d be better off contacting the table creator and seeing what agreement they can come to.
As they say about (c) infringement: its a grey area.