Crafty HIB - Is there any point in copyrighting your designs?

Your on a bit of a fine line with regards to that, in terms of cards copyright is very difficult to prove as many many stationary companies copy each others designs.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

this may help but be warned its not the easiest to understand in places.

as long as its not identical, in terms of everything in it i dont think that they have grounds to prove, just search around for other companies with something similar so that you have a point of reference. - try confetti or quality printing (i think thats what they are called)

if you can find similar then you will put doubt in there mind to the point where they cannot prove that they were the origional creators of that type of stationary.

Http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/copyright_myths

there you go, read point one.

As far as I'm aware, any creations you design and make are subject to copyright. If someone then steals your design completely and passes it off as their own then thats a breach of copyright but you will need to then prove who copied who! The problem is, there are so many designs out there, that sometimes you may create a very similar design without realising it. Its all very complicated so I just make sure that if I have a design to do, it comes from me and ONLY me and not just a variation of another design I may have found on the Internet.

Nat

Thank you! Thats interested then, I'm still unsure as to whether she would be able to do anything though, I think what I got from that it has to be an exact design that was purposely copied. Its no special design or anything so I'm pretty sure there will be a lot more out there, I'll do some research. I did wonder if the copyright thing could just be a threat? Are you allowed to claim that you have copyright on your work if you don't?

Thank you! You have all been so helpful! I felt awful that this stationer was accusing me of copying her and threatening copyright action against me! I hate the thoughts that she has gone right the way through my facebook page checking every design and probably will continue to check but I'm sure it stems from jealousy anyway so I am just going to ignore her rather than get into an argument about it.

Hi Sarah-Jayne

Starstruck talks sense in that there are only so many ways you can use ribbons/card/embellishments. Had a similar thing to you last year (wonder if it's the same person?!) - I got very upset by her accusations and knew that I hadn't copied her, after all there's no sense of accomplishment in just reproducing someone else's work is there?! I ignored her and I haven't heard anything since. I did however have photos of some similar designs of mine which I exhibited at the same show as her, which was the first time I'd met her.

Perhaps she is just not very busy - I certainly don't have time to trawl the internet checking other people's designs! Good luck with your business, by and large it's a very friendly industry to be in, though there are always going to be one or two not so nice people around who will try to put you down or chip at your confidence, just ignore them! x

How can you do this though as you'd never know every single website to look at so even without copying something on purpose the chances of there being another design out there the same is pretty high unless the design was totally totally unique.

It's the same with jewellery because there are only so many ways beads can be put together but there are obviously the creations that are extremely different.

I don't see how things can truly be copyrighted. Take Tesco 'copying' Kate Middleton's engagement dress. Tesco created their sapphire dress only after seeing Kate wear it and sold it as 'Tesco replica of Kate Middleton's engagement dress' so it's the done thing when it comes to clothes, shoes, bags etc.

When it comes to stationery especially diy type designs where elements are put together from ready made pieces, diamontes, shapes etc then it's entirely possible that someone sometime will have a design the same or nearly the same.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Hi, Another thing you can usefully do is put photos of your designs on a CD and post it recorded delivery to yourself. Don't open it when you get it, just file it away. It will be there as a date-marked record of your designs at that time should you ever need it. Hopefully just being able to say that you have recorded proof of all your designs would be enough to fend off any later claims that you had copied someone, or the other way round to prove that they had copied you. I do it from time to time when I've introduced a set of new designs.

She cant just take legal action, copyright is not criminal law but civil so firstly she must send you a very polite and direct letter stating that you must stop advertising that product and stop selling that design. even afterwards i dont think a court would take up the case as it is very difficult to prove.

To be honest, copyright is very difficult to prove with actual designs. You can copyright the photograph though. As a florist, it is impossible to make your actual work copyright - if someone wants an all white rose hand-tied bouquet with white ribbon, what can you do to make it any different to another florist who, somewhere in the country, is making the same thing for another Bride and how would you know? There are only so many different ways you can make a bouquet just as there are only so many ways you can make stationery.

You can, however, copyright your photographs. This is different to copyrighting your designs. If you take a photograph of your work and place it on your website and someone lifts that actual photograph from your site and places it on their site and claims it to be their work, then that is breach of copyright because they haven't asked your permission to use your photograph. It's also contravening Trade Descriptions because you are not allowed to pass off someone else's work as your own.

Theft of photos from other people's websites is unfortunately rife and it's normally done by people who have just set up in business and don't have enough work of their own to show on a website. I've had a few florists who have stolen my images from my site and passed my work off as their designs. After involving Trading Standards, who are very keen now to stop this happening and clamping down on it, the problems were immediately resolved. You need to prove that the photograph was taken by you and that no-one else was involved in taking the photo -i.e., with the help of another photographer in which case the photo is joint copyright (so I was told by Trading Standards). You have to be able to show the original photograph i.e., not just an image on a computer with a date on to prove when you took it. I keep master copies of all my photos in my portfolio just in case and also a photocopied version of my website in a sealed envelope to prove it's mine.

I agree with others (it is a difficult thing to prove). What I want to know is why she was looking at your designs, maybe she was looking for inspiration for her own stuff. I think things do tend to follow a trend, so anything made to look "now" can look like other things...

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I am curious to know what this offending design looks like ?