Copyright ~ or a right to copy?

The debate between a knockoff, inspiration, and copyright is often discussed quite vigorously in blogland.  Just recently we have seen a whole host of bloggers addressing brand copyright infringements due to The Coveted scandal.  {See here, here and here for further information}

It is an interesting, ongoing debate because there are so many areas copyright can apply to ~ obviously, as you well know, pretty much anything produced by anyone can be under copyright protection.  Personally as an artist, I feel very strongly about copyright and issues of art theft, but somehow am left completely muddled as to how I feel about fashion theft.

This confusion is mainly because I adore some designer fashions such as Jimmy Choo shoes, but never in a million years could afford them.  Knockoffs are my saviour and yes, I am guilty of owning not one but two “Frada” handbags.  But when we release a work {whatever it may be} into the public eye, how much copyright control do we have?

When I was contemplating this, it struck me that there seems very much to be a public sentiment these days of the audience’s “Right to Copy” which for the most part tends to disregard the laws of copyright.
  

I do not want to do a “Technology is bad” rant, but it does seem that with the advent of the internet and the ease of access to so much original work, increasingly the general public ignores rules over taking images, sourcing information and even just giving credit where credit is due. 

Of course, as a bloggers, if we wish to keep our reputation and integrity we must give credit.  There are no two ways about it.  But what about protecting your own work? 

For myself, if people want to use content, {i.e. ideas, photographs, text} from my blog Depict This! I wouldn’t have a problem with that if they give me some credit; linking to my blog at the very least.  In my opinion the best way, however, is to be polite and ask before using ideas and images.  

I made the mistake once of not doing that, and was absolutely mortified when the owner of a blog I greatly admired contacted me and asked me to take down some images I had reposted even though I had credited the work to her and linked her blog in the post.   I immediately took down the images and wrote the owner a letter of apology as well as explaining things on the original post.
  
That experience taught me a valuable lesson that sometimes crediting work just isn’t good enough.   And I think that is true of designer fashion and knockoffs as well.  It’s all well and good for my Frada bags to pretend to credit Prada but what about the return for the original designer’s work?    

If an artist/designer is trying to sell their pictures or clothes and a copycat steals the work and tries to sell it to the same market, then that's not really fair on the original owners because they do not get the return for their work.  And giving the original artist/designer credit may gain them some exposure, but let’s face it, that market exposure probably will not be worth as much as the sale of their original piece.

And here’s a kicker; couture designers are selling to a particular market that would probably not go near a knockoff with a ten foot barge pole.  And the knockoffs are selling to a market that can not afford the original products.  So technically the markets, although in the same genre of fashion, are not actually aiming to sell at the same target audience.  

That being the case, both parties have a return and in the end I think that’s why I am okay with knockoffs, although other people may not agree with me because of deeper copyright issues.  
When it comes to blogging, in my mind it is not fair if content is stolen without credit because then the 'return' for the content {blog exposure or more readers} is not passed onto the original owners who worked on the content.  Naturally, this principle also applies to blog branding.

But the fact of the matter is that once we put our work out there, there seems to be little we can do to control how it is used.  Disabling right click save on images doesn’t work all the time {my tech geek hubby popped that bubble pretty quickly!} and there doesn’t seem to be many ways of controlling your public content, although watermarking images does offer some protection.

We can deal with larger cases of copyright infringement, but even things like Anthropology ripping off smaller designers seems to be happening relatively frequently.  It seems to me that it’s no longer just the public audience exercising their right to copy, but also larger corporations.  

Sadly enough {and not everyone may agree} it seems that the moral to the story is:  Once your work is published, it’s free game.  So be prepared for it to be borrowed, copied, or worse, stolen altogether. 

Yes, it’s a bit of a doom and gloom~ish conclusion, but we can do something about it.  We can support our fellow bloggers by asking before using their content, and by never forgetting to credit, link and generally acknowledging the hard work that they do.   It might be a small step, but it can make a difference.   

xox,
bonita
 
 
Inspiration for this post  ~ Thanks to Britten from What She Should Have Worn for writing this post: Copy Cats and inspiring my thoughts on the topic of copyright.

P.S. ~ All images in this post are linked to the original source.  Please click on the pictures to follow through.