Thursday 16 April 2015

Copyright

Copyright logo
In this lecture we learned about how highly important copyright is within the industry, and how it would benefit us all individually throughout our careers. We were introduced to the intellectual copyright law, which holds intellectual property rights, helping us to protect our work from other people who may want to use it without permission. This can be held over anything physically created, and it is very important to remember that things like ideas cannot be copyrighted, only physical things. The act of a copyright is formed from lawyers or the owners rights for the intellectual property to not be touched, altered or reclaimed.


Copyright is an automatic right, meaning anybody can claim copyright over something of their own to protect it against others. The main types of protections include:

  • Patents - idea based things such as inventions
  • Trademarks - used for logos usually
  • Designs
  • Copyrights
If a design is not copyrighted within the industry, it is technically available for anybody to use which could be devastating for the actual artist. Some examples we looked at within our lecture included the case of Mary Katrantzou, a fashion designer who creates work usually for big brands like Topshop, whose fashion designs were stolen and recreated by Primark. This designer creates beautiful and detailed graphic prints for clothing items, however credit was taken by the company Primark who virtually 'ripped off' her designs and sold  their own versions which were of incredibly poor quality in every possible way. The results are shown below:

Found here - example of her design poorly copied
and printed in poor quality onto garment


Another example of an artists work being stolen and used like this was the case of John Tenniel, famous for his illustrations for the classic Alice in Wonderland, whose illustrations were used and placed on pottery for the company Whittards. In this case, because the artist had died, the rules varied. If an artist has been dead for 70 years, anyone can use their work and make a profit from it also. Here are the examples of this work: 

Original illustration of John Tenniels

His work being used on produce


You are able to buy and sell intellectual property, so in many cases larger and more popular companies will sell their work to high street brands. 

After researching the subject further, I discovered using this site that a piece of work must meet 'minimal standards of originality' before it can be officially qualified as copyrighted. 

Also at times, copyright will not forbid all. In some countries, rules vary. 

Factors I found on the same site that may affect the terms in which copyright may alter include:
  • the purpose and character of ones use
  • the nature of the copyrighted work
  • what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken
  • the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
Copyright is important to me within this industry, because although I am currently just a student and will not need to consider using copyright, I will need to be careful when looking at other artists work for inspiration and reference. It is important to research which artists have had their work listed under copyright acts. 

I found some more information on the importance of intellectual property ownership. This is important because I now know that a property can belong to more than just one person. You could illegally steal work from a whole company. I have found researching the importance of copyright very beneficial towards my practice because it is very important I keep this information in mind for now and the future, as for now I need to appreciate other artists wants, and in the future I may need to copyright my own work. 



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