Podcast - Copyright Overview and Principles
This podcast was really useful, especially considering I have little to no experience of copyright in this context. I have read about copyright claims, including the Tokyo Olympics one, however more out of interest than education. I found the talk about Zara stealing from artists an interesting one - to steal a whole series of illustrations is a bold move. This got me thinking - surely stealing a whole set of illustrations is far riskier? Why would a global brand like Zara open itself up to lawsuits in this way?
Another point I found interesting in the podcast was the idea that there are only so many ways to configure things - for example the letter F in the Formula 1. It made me think about the Situationists view that there is nothing new to design, you can just put things together in a slightly different way. [1] This was interesting to me because I never would have linked the two ideas - intellectual property and art theory - but here was a lawyer echoing the sentiments of an artistic movement from the 1960's. I still don't know how much I agree with the sentiment but it's an interesting concept, that nothing is particularly new. It also might cause some confusion when it comes to copyright - is it fair to punish someone for arriving at the same conclusion alone, even if there is a finite way to do things?
It also got me thinking that because I have been an in-house designer for so long it is not necessarily something I have had to think about too much. The brand has ben set and the logos on the most part have been done. However, I then thought about all of the logos I have created for programmes under the umbrella of Catch22, I really haven't been doing due diligence in accordance with copyright. Although I have not been copying logos (obviously) I haven't been checking for similarities with other works either. This is definitely something I will be improving upon moving forward from this module.
A Guidebook to Intellectual property: patents,
trade-marks, copyright and designs
This was a particularly definition heavy bit of reading [2] this week, but it is so useful for moving forward with a career in design. It was interesting to see all of the different ways you can protect your work against infringement and the legality behind it. Before reading these chapters I didn't know there was any such thing as a unregistered design right, this is definitely useful to know and it will certainly make me keep better records of development from now on.
The content this week also makes you think about what you are putting out on social media - I have an illustration instagram and it hasn't crossed my mind that people could use my work for their own materials. It gives you pause for thought and this reading is going to help me learn both now and in the future.
Tokyo Olympic Games logo embroiled in plagiarism row - The Guardian
This was a really interesting read [3]. The particularly interesting part to me was Armin Vit saying “With a logo this simple and using basic geometric shapes, similarities are bound to happen. Anyone that says the Tokyo 2020 designer plagiarised the Belgian theatre logo has no idea what they are talking about, and is just adding adding noise to social media. It’s a coincidence and nothing more.” This echoes the sentiment from the podcast that initially made me think of the Situationalists, the idea that nothing that is created is new. I think this is really interesting in relation to copyright because if this is true, how can copyright ever really be claimed if there is only a finite number of ways to put information together? Like Vit said, the Tokyo is made up of so few shapes, there is only a certain number of ways these shapes can be arranged so it's not surprising this was similar to another logo.
Upon further research [4] I found that the Theatre Liege not being a registered trademark yet threatening legal action anyway interesting. It is protected by copyright, from research this week I know that you do not have to register something for it to be protected by copyright. This got me thinking what is the difference between Copyright and Trademark and what additional protections do you have?
Because legal ease is not my forte I decided to go right back to basics to find out the answer - Patents, Registered Designs, Trade Marks and Copyright for Dummies. [5] It was really helpful in laying out the main differences between copyright and trade mark. The main differences are:
Trademarks need to be registered, copyright is automatic
Trademarks need to be used, copyright does not
Trademarks can be renewed, copyright has a finite life span
So it seems that main benefit of a trade mark is the ability to extend it as long as you're using it, not have it expire after a certain number of years. I thought the level of protection on a trade mark was higher than a copyright so this piece of research was extremely useful.
It seems to me like copyright can be accidental or deliberate and can be avoided mostly through common sense and due diligence.
Workshop Challenge
Select a designed object and highlight the key areas that may infringe copyright or require IP protection.
The first thing I decided to do was look at some copyright cases I have heard of before and found interesting. The one that immediately came to mind was the case of Brian Duffy suing the Hard Rock Cafe over the use of images of David Bowie.
DAVID BOWIE
I have decided to choose the image of David Bowie as my designed object for this workshop challenge. It might come as a surprise that my chosen object is the image of someone but there is no reason it shouldn't be considered as a designed object, Bowie cultivated this image, designed it to represent on the outside how he felt on the inside and this was a large part of his success.
The image Brian Duffy sued the Hard Rock Cafe over was this image from the cover of the Aladdin Sane album from 1973 [6]. The rights belong to Duffy Archive Ltd & the David Bowie Archive™ for the image and the David Bowie Archive™ have trademarked the red and blue lightning flash [7]. This is 2 violations of copyright.
The image was allegedly replicated in the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel in Palm Springs California several times. The case was settled in 2017 and the Hard Rock Cafe ordered to pay the estate of Brian Duffy $150,000 per violation or pay any profit or gain they may have received as a result of the copyright infringement.
This latest settlement however shows that Bowie’s image — even after his death — is as powerfully protected as it was during his lifetime. And with an artist as unique and distinctive as Bowie, for whom image was everything, that’s as it should be. [8]
I also looked into the rights behind David Bowie's music alongside his image. To this day the Bowie estate owns the rights to all of Bowies music and they do let people use it lightly.
Recently it was revealed that the David Bowie biopic Stardust would not be able to use any of his songs or his likeness - meaning even though the movie is about how he became Ziggy Stardust, the film is unable to use the likeness of him. [9] This begs the question - if his likeness and music can't be used, is this movie just a knock off story about a similar period in a lesser musicians life? Image and music make up the wild concoction that is David Bowie so why would something without this intellectual property be even vaguely interesting to a fan? Presumably that's who this movie is made for - fans of Bowie.
I also came across David Bowie's interesting use of Intellectual Property - In 1997 David Bowie and banker David Pullman raised $55 million by promising the investors income generated by his back catalog of 25 albums. These underlying assets included Heroes, The Man Who Sold the World and Aladdin Sane (albums made between 1969 and 1990). [10]
Bowie bonds were the first of their kind - using intellectual property as the underlying collateral. The term was ten years and initially cost $1000 each with an interest rate of 7.9% so it was a steady long term investment. Despite the ever changing music landscape, with the advent of streaming tanking the value of the Bowie bonds, they matured in 2007 without default. All of the to the income from the songs reverted to David Bowie. [11]
The next step I decided to take was to sort this information out into sections and investigate what the intellectual property protection around David Bowie truly means.
The album cover for David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane is iconic. It has been replicated, reproduced and paid homage to since 1973.
Copyright
The image on the album cover was taken in 1973 by Brian Duffy and the copyright is shared between The Duffy Archive & The David Bowie Archive.
The David Bowie Archive owns the rights to all of the music on the Aladdin Sane album and every other album written and/or performed by David Bowie.
David Bowie’s handwriting is also copyrighted., this typeface is the official font from Bowie’s estate.
Trademark
The red and blue ‘Flash’ Symbol is a registered trademark and unauthorised use is not allowed.
Bowie Bonds
In 1997 David Bowie and banker David Pullman raised $55 million by promising the investors income generated by his backcatalog of 25 albums. These underlying assets included Heroes, The Man Who Sold the World and Aladdin Sane (albums made between 1969 and 1990).
Bowie bonds were the first of their kind - using intellectual property as the underlying collateral. The term was ten years and initially cost $1000 each with an interest rate of 7.9% so it was a steady long term investment. Despite the ever changing music landscape, with the advent of streaming tanking the value of the Bowie bonds, they matured in 2007 without default. All of the to the income from the songs reverted to David Bowie.
Intellectual Property Disputes
In 2017 the estate of photographer Brian Duffy brought a lawsuit against Hard Rock Cafe for replicating the Aladdin Sane image (left) throughout their Palm Springs resort in California. The suit read “Hard Rock did not license the Photograph from Plaintiff nor did Hard Rock have Plaintiff’s permission or consent to publish the Photograph in its Hotel or Websites”.
The suit ended in 2017 - Duffy’s estate asked that the Hard Rock Café either pay any profit or gain they may have received as a result of the copyright infringement, or pay statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.
I think David Bowie’s image was as important to him as the music he produced. He broke gender norms, expressed every version of himself and was always unapologetically him so it is only right that his image is protected as fiercely in his death as it was in his life.
I then decided to put this altogether in an editorial form...
After further research I found that French graphic designers Julien Sens and Nicolas Damiens has transferred famous musicians handwriting into a typeface, including John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and David Bowie. [12] I thought this would be the perfect tribute to the late Bowie, to write about his genius and intellectual property using his own handwriting.
Final Workshop Challenge
Reflection
I found this week both hugely informative and very interesting. Not only did I learn about a lot of different intellectual property factors I had no idea about but I was also able to research someone I find interesting in a new way. The reading while dense was really informative and the lecture really helped with my basic understanding.
The workshop challenge stumped me at first, I could not decide what to research, until I sat back and thought what part of this interests me - I just happened to be listening to Life on Mars at the time. I am pleased with my final piece - once I started researching intellectual property in relation to David Bowie reams of information came out, for example the bonds, the hard rock cafe lawsuit and the handwriting font I used in my final piece. I actually prefer the Helvetica version, I think the Bowie handwriting reminds me too much of comic sans but I like the homage to Bowie too much to change it now.
Given more time I would look deeper into this, try to find out more about the estate of David Bowie and the different ways the strict control affects the music industry and beyond. In regards to my design I would like to integrate the text more with the graphics, they are too clearly two different pages currently so I would look at the layout more.
Overall, I still have a lot to learn about intellectual property but I feel like I certainly have a basis after this week. Now excuse me while I go to listen to David Bowie's full discography...
References
[1] The Art Story. (2021). Summary of Situationist International. Available: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/situationist-international/. Last accessed 15/6/21.
[2] Jacob, R., Alexander, D., Lane, L. (2003) A Guidebook to Intellectual property: patents, trade-marks, copyright and designs. London: Sweet and Maxwell.
[3] Alderson, Rob (2015), ‘Tokyo Olympics Logo embroiled in Plagiarism Row (Links to an external site.)’,The Guardian [online], 30 July. [Accessed 28 March 2019]
[4] Tucker, E. (2015). Tokyo withdraws 2020 Olympics logo after plagiarism allegations. Available: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/09/01/tokyo-withdraws-2020-olympics-logo-plagiarism-allegations-kenjiro-sano/. Last accessed 16/6/21.
[5] Charmasson, H J. A., Buchaca, John. (2009). Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks For Dummies. Germany: Wiley.
[6] Kenneally, T. (2017). Hard Rock Cafe Sued Over Use of David Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ Portrait. Available: https://www.thewrap.com/david-bowie-aladdin-sane-hard-rock-cafe-lawsuit/. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[7] Duffy, B. (2021). Copyright. Available: https://www.duffyarchive.com/copyright/. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[8] Ellmore, D. (2017). Copyright dispute over David Bowie image ends. Available: https://dawn-ellmore.medium.com/copyright-dispute-over-david-bowie-image-ends-7fa58546b47. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[9] Rose, S. (2021). A Bowie biopic with no Bowie songs? Stardust isn't the first to try. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/11/a-bowie-biopic-with-no-bowie-songs-stardust-isnt-the-first-to-try. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[10] Chen, J. (2020). Bowie Bond. Available: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bowie-bond.asp. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[11] White, G. (2016). David Bowie: Musical Innovator, Financial Innovator?. Available: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/david-bowie-bonds-banking/423627/. Last accessed 20/6/21.
[12] Yalcinkaya, G. (2018). Kurt Cobain, David Bowie and John Lennon's handwriting feature in new typeface series. Available: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/10/kurt-cobain-david-bowie-john-lennon-handwriting-typeface/. Last accessed 20/6/21.
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