Intellectual Property and Copyright Theft In Our Industry.

[signmeup]

i'd bet, even if the photographer got paid, he'd still be highly offended that his very serious photograph depicting the suffering of innocent people (genocide) was then converted into a fantasy graphic for a douchebag-mobile.

Good post. We are getting pretty insensitive to some pretty horrific things if this truck wrap with a pile of murdered human skulls is "cool".


Adrian

 

[bob]

Super old thread, but I'll throw in my two cents as a "millennial."

We don't give a second thought to copyright laws or intellectual property because frankly they don't apply in the digital world.

All the a priori laws established on copyright (as it pertains to original art) is based on the invisible hand of the "free" market. Supply and demand. If Bob has 5 apples, and John takes 2, there are only 3 apples left.

But that *doesn't apply to digital information that can be copied indefinitely without any loss of the original data.*

I'm not condoning anyone stealing, but I'm just trying to give a reason as to why people are so flippant about these laws.

Should someone be compensated for their work? Yes.

Should people be able to patent ideas and words? No.

Our intellectual property laws are broken. The proof of this is how little people even pay attention to them.

And mine as a certified free range old f@rt...

Finally someone who appears to actually understand that the copyright and intellectual property laws date back to a long distant time when those who held the rights also held the means of reproduction. Not so today and the bulk of these laws are rendered silly in the digital age.

Should someone be compensated for their work? Yes but only once, not every time that work is referenced in some way.

 

[derekw13029]

And mine as a certified free range old f@rt...

Finally someone who appears to actually understand that the copyright and intellectual property laws date back to a long distant time when those who held the rights also held the means of reproduction. Not so today and the bulk of these laws are rendered silly in the digital age.

Should someone be compensated for their work? Yes but only once, not every time that work is referenced in some way.

That's exactly how I feel.

Yes, you may be "stealing" someone's design.

But aren't you *still* making the end product?

That being said, in my business life, I would NEVER share any of the files I have gathered. However, in my personal life, if someone wants something and I have the ability to make it, I probably will. I know old timers that have used collegiate logos to make signs for their yard and whatnot.

Obviously drawing profit through commercial means is one thing, and private individual use is another. But still, I just don't feel like our current laws apply to the "copy and paste" era we are in now.

I mean really, the MPAA likes to tout their "You wouldn't download a CAR, would you?"

If we had the technology, hell yes I would. Wouldn't everyone?

Let's face it, the next industrial revolution we will experience is the automated one. Designs, drawings, and art will either become more open source, or people will have to take *extreme* measures to make sure no one uses their designs. And that hurts business. Say you are a musician. If you don't put your music on youtube or soundcloud for free, no one will hear it. That's just the way it is.

If things like 3d printing become more and more commonplace, things like logos for signmaking will be open source. It won't be a matter of whose design it is, it will be a matter of who can make the best one, with reasonable cost, and close proximity to the buyer. And isn't that what separates us already?

 

[Brian27]

As someone that actually has experience with copyright law (I have a copyright lawyer because my images are regularly stolen online) I can tell you a few things.

1. Just deal with it. It is now 2016 and if your put your images online and they're worth taking, they will be taken. It's just a fact of life. If you don't want your images used without your permission then your only options are to watermark them to oblivion or tell search engines not to index your images. We make custom products and take great pictures of all of them. Yet still, every competitor of ours including hundreds of Chinese manufactures on Alibaba and similar websites blatantly use our images. Some don't even bother to edit out our watermark. Some will email us trying to sell us products and attach our own stolen images. It's just the name of the game now and you have to pick your battles.

2. Even when someone blatantly steals your copyrighted work and passes it off as their own, you're still essentially screwed. Many people are under the impression that if I'm a photographer and someone steals an image from my site and passes it off as his own somewhere else, like his blog, then I can just make a few calls to the copyright office and let them know of his infraction and poof, he owes me thousand of dollars. It just doesn't work that way.

The cold hard fact of the matter is it's going to cost you way more to to enforce your copyright than you can ever recoup in court.

-First, you'd have to send them a cease and desist letter. You can do this yourself but it's much more effective from a lawyer. Assuming your lawyer won't immediately slap you with a $5000 retainer for the letter alone, it will cost you anywhere from $500-$1000 just for them to write and mail a letter. Still worth the trouble? If so, continue.

-After they ignore your cease and desist, you'll have to sue them. Now you definitely need a lawyer and you'll probably be in for a $5000 retainer right off the bat. Still worth it?

-You've reached the courts, lawyer at your side. Now, you need to prove damages. You must show that the theft of this image has somehow hurt your business and has caused a loss in revenue that you otherwise would have had if the image had not been taken. In this case, the guy using the image on his blog, that is not possible. Mainly because your business hasn't been damaged in any way and you could never prove that it has. Even in the case of the topic of this thread you simply could not prove that because this guy used his image without permission or payment, that Michael's businesses irreparably suffered. Even if the judge decided in your favor (which he wouldn't explained below) the most he would get is the rate at which he sells his images for. Now that he's $5,000-$10,000 to his lawyer, recouping $2000 hardly seems worth it.

This is the case with the vast majority of copyright theft now days. It's simply not worth enforcing because the lawyers and court costs are beyond extreme it's almost never worth it unless your a deep pocketed corporation with lawyers waiting to sue people for the smallest infractions. Besides, is most cases a well written cease and desist solves the problems. I've had my lawyer write 7 in the last 5 years. Every time the person has complied instantly even though I would never pursue legal action because it'd be a massive waste of time anyways. In reality, filing DMCA complaints with Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wordpress, Godaddy or whatever host the website uses, and having their content either removed from search engines or removed from the host's servers, is a far more effective strategy than lawsuits.

3. This wrap fails squarely inside fair use and transformative.
-He's not selling the actual artwork. He's selling the wrap and merely made the graphic for his client which is much different than him selling 1000 copies of this image on tshirts.
-He transformed the orignal image and completely changed it's meaning and purpose.
-He added additional value to the artwork
-The original image only takes up a fraction of the entire graphic.

All of those things combined without a doubt put his new artwork inside the transformative category. If you're still not convined, try searching for the "artist" Richard Prince. Or, go here: http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691257/richard-prince-instagram-photos-copyright-law-fair-use

I don't condone theft of original work. Especially since my company is the victim of it every day. However, to me what this guy did is hardly a crime worth such public shaming and people should really take the time to learn a thing or two about copyright laws before they scold someone else for something they know absolutely nothing about.

 

[noiz]

Thanks for your post Brian 27. I admit that I haven't read this entire thread...which I intend to do now...but some points that you brought up are happening to me right now too. So thanks for giving me some things to think about.

 

[Dennis Schaub]

Everything is copyrighted or trademarked. With enough time and lawyers, we could all be prosecuted. Would be nice if we could all just play nice.

 

[IslandSignWorks]

I think there's a distinction to be made between malicious, and cheap/lazy when it comes to copyright. Some shops are happy to screw someone out of their work if if makes them a buck. I put that in the malicious camp. Some may be ignorant of the laws or undersold the project to where they can't afford the cost. Those folks go into the latter camp. We happily pay for stock photos or vectors if that's the right image for a customer. A month of stock image membership is easy to expense even in a smaller project. I don't see that much royalty image theft in the industry up here. We have two locations and are very busy, so I see a lot of the work going up even if we don't win it. If theft is happening, it's at the lowest level, guy-in-a-garage.

I think a bigger problem is customers, not professionals. People lifting artwork from other shops' artwork proofs. Customers who price comparison shop around are happy to take our proofs and send them to competitors or online vendors who just rip them off for $0.25 less. I used to do free design proofs as a lost leader to win the work, but not any more. After the 3rd or 4th time I saw my design work rolling around on a truck or hanging in front of a business I said NEVER AGAIN.

 

[stickasteve]

It's 2018, and looking back on the subject, I'd say this whole thread taught a lot of people a LOT of things. Hope everyone is doing well.

 

[John Miller]

People use Google Images as their photo source every day. Half the stuff you see on wraps on this site can be rounded up if you do an image search long enough. It's become almost commonplace for me to get artwork from clients with Corbis or istockphoto watermarks on them or poorly photoshopped out.

While you're at it ask how many people have commercial rights to all of their fonts? If you look at the EULA on lots of free fonts they're free for personal use but cost for commercial use.

It's just going to become a bigger and bigger problem. The idea of Copyright law and intellectual property are laughed at by most people and not even considered stealing. I know PREACHERS who don't think anything about using Limewire to download music. Stealing something physical people can understand, stealing something digital is beyond most people's grasp.

stealing something physical people can understand, stealing something digital is beyond most people's grasp. Until someone steals something digital from them, then it is somehow easy to understand. Simple, buy the rights to something or design it for yourself.

 

[James Burke]

stealing something physical people can understand, stealing something digital is beyond most people's grasp. Until someone steals something digital from them, then it is somehow easy to understand. Simple, buy the rights to something or design it for yourself.

Yep...but look how deeply it is steeped in our DNA. So let's go back to reel to reel or cassette decks...you know...when people "stole" the top 10 countdown off the radio...or when they "stole" their favorite song off the radio after calling in to request it...or when the Xerox made it possible to magically scan (steal) a book or other work....or when VCRs, TiVo (and now DVR) made it possible to steal television programs.

Then we hit the 90s. Do you remember the coronary that the RIAA had when Napster burst onto the scene? And right on up to today with piracy via YouTube, Vimeo, etc...need I say more?

People are so accustomed to the "free mentality"...like the air we breathe, that they're absolutely dead to the concept of IP. Mention any word of "ethics" and people will scream bloody murder.


JB

 

[Bobby H]

A bunch of comments in this thread sound like a whole lot of half-baked rationales and justifications to steal and plagiarize the work of competitors. Any sign maker who is into trying to make theft seem OK should just find something else to do for a living. And that's me being nice. I have far more vengeful things I can say towards artwork thieves.

Given our industry has more than its fair share of IP thieves and sleazeballs, along with many deliberately "ignorant" customers, legit sign companies have to do what they can to protect themselves. You might be able to lower your guard a bit with a longtime customer. But most Johnny come lately types will not hesitate to share your shop drawings and art with rival sign companies and want those sign companies to act like total whores, plagiarizing your artwork and under-bidding the job. Those fake clients will claim they didn't know any better. But if that was the case why did they visit the legit sign company first before going bargain hunting. Liars.

There's lots of really nasty things that can be done to get back at the gutter trash thieves and fake customers. One tactic is polluting any PDFs you give the fake customer. Password protect it at the editing stage. But convert any vector art inside into low res raster form and screw it up with water marks, textures and other garbage so there's nothing of value left inside. Another more sinister tactic: LIE about the dimensions you display in the artwork. The work you put in surveying job sites has a LOT of value. Fake sign companies really love not having to do any of that work themselves. So make them pay dearly for that when they "win" the job. Or display as little geometry info as possible. Don't include artwork set to a valid scale. Maybe even distort it. Ensnare the artwork into a maze of sliced up clipping masked groups. It's easier and faster to totally wreck a client sketch with a lot not so visible damage than it is for a fake sign company to try to re-build it. If I have a feeling one of my sketches is going to get aped by a local rival I have a lot of tools at my disposal to make the lives of those hacks a living hell while they're trying to steal the job.

 

[Gino]

Sounds like you've been burnt numerous times.

Rather than going to all that trouble in so many ways, isn't it just easier not to hand out FREE artwork, in the first place ?? Why tempt your so-called fake sign shops and customers ?? Unless you know the customer, nothing should leave your premises, other than a written quote. Don't be a fool and give away your work, until after the green has passed your palm.

 

[Bobby H]

It hasn't happened in a long time, but I've been burned a few times. Anyone who works in the sign business long enough will have to deal with others who try to steal/plagiarize their work. As I said in my last post you have to do what you can protect yourself. But that doesn't mean following the same approach with each customer.

A decent number of our customers are repeat, long-time customers. I usually don't have to worry about anything when dealing with them.

New or one time customers are much more likely to be price shopping and trying to get a lot of free leg work out of the "good" sign company they hit up first. It's more than just trying to get design work for free. Survey work has value too, be it building measurements or survey work on an existing sign cabinet for replacement faces. You might have to send a service truck out there to the site to get accurate measurements among other details.

Depending on the type of project it may be necessary to take certain steps, some of which can risk making the would-be customer walk out of the door. That can include charging up front or taking deposits for design work. Or it means giving a "ballpark" estimate on that face replacement job, pending an actual sign survey. If a given customer is going to be price shopping a job it's best to give that customer as little info as possible that rivals can re-use. Make the fake sign company send a service truck (if it owns one) out to the site to get details for their competing bid.

The steps I mentioned at sabotaging the contents of client PDF sketches are not hard to do. It doesn't take more than a few clicks in CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator to convert vector objects into raster-based ones. It's not hard to bake patterns or other garbage into pixel-based artwork so it can't be easily auto-traced. In a perfect world the customer would have to visit the sign company to see a printed sketch and proposal and not leave the premises with it. In reality we often have to email proposals and sketches. So the proposals and sketches can't contain too much detail, much less artwork that can be extracted and re-used by competitors.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Wow....10 years later and this is back

 

[ABF Graphics]

I'm new here, I thought it was stickied. I've seen both ends of the issue. One of the other forums I go to is the Sportslogo.net forum, which has an active community of people designing alternative logos and uniforms for sports teams. One of the most active threads deals with stolen artwork, something I've seen with my stuff. Most of the time the artwork is found on super sketchy webpages offering to sell the designs on shirts. But sometimes it gets used by people who should know better.

On the flip side, at work we have customers bring logos that I'm pretty sure were taken from elsewhere. It's hard to ask someone "Did you pay for this?" when it's already incorporated into a logo. We have also seen original artwork created here go elsewhere. We had a customer ask for a number of options for a shirt design. The versions we sent back to him were all watermarked except for some images done late in the process. He took those, went to a competitor, and asked for a price. THEN he came back and wanted us to beat the competitors price.

We also live in the era of Getty Images, who are quite happy finding public domain images, watermarking them and charging anyone using them including the original photographer.