in the big scheme of things, whose gonna know? unless your mass producing a piece exactly I doubt there will be trouble. btw, when there are trends in whatever ring, pendant etc. I believe most artists are influenced a bit. thats how a trend starts?
good luck,
Kent
1 Like
Just joking but show me an ethical lawyer!!
2 Likes
Thanks so much to all for your comments. I am not going to make the piece that was in question. There are myriad other pieces I can make that arenât copies.
Some of you on this thread are of same mind as myself. Copying is how we learn, how we are taught and the outcome is our interpretation of it all. Design is love!!
Others have a more severe response like âno copyingâ period. This response derives from a different part of the psyche I dont understand.
Be giving, make money or not. Its a big world out there, plenty of room for us all, to learn, grow and create. AE
1 Like
Yes to what your saying northeastnelly!
1 Like
Hi. Iâm a new member and read your comment. I was curious about your statement regarding nature canât be copyrighted. I agree, in my personal (not professional) opinion. I donât see how ânatureâ can be copyrighted. Did your instructor claim to have a copyright on ânatureâ or was the copyright based on the style in which she âused natureâ to produce her works? Sometimes copyrights are all about process, procedures, and end results and not on each individual item used. I know copyrights can get very tricky. Anyway, I was just wondering. Thanks! Have a great day! 
Donât reproduce someone elseâs jewelry. Period. Those of you who are pushing the narrative that copying jewelry is acceptable outside of an educational scenario are mistaken. It is not morally or legally acceptable to infringe upon someone elseâs art. The fate of your infringement will lie solely upon a judge and jury if your case goes to court. What you think might be slam dunk evidence may work against you in a court of law. So copying âjust a littleâ can get you into some very hot water. If you knowingly copy something, then sell it⌠depending on how much of it you sell and the period of time you sell it in, you can face hefty fines and jail time. Copyrights are no joke!
Copyrightâs are in place for a reason and are valid the moment a piece is created. Furthermore, if a piece or a collection is registered with the copyright office⌠the date of creation is legally documented from a government agency. You would have to prove in court that you created the art before the copyright registration holder. Even derivatives of a persons art are protected within their copyright registration. The registered creator is the ONLY person who can legally duplicate their own art. I would encourage each of you to copyright every piece of art you create, individually and before it is published. Itâs expensive, but worth every penny if someone infringes upon your work.
It is possible to be influenced and inspired by other peopleâs work and not copy it⌠itâs your job to figure that out as an artist. And if you canât figure that out⌠come up with an idea that someone else hasnât. The reason people copy is because itâs easier than putting work and effort into a new idea.
Bottom lineâŚIf you think no one will find out about your copying and if you think YOU wonât get copied think again. Itâs not a matter of if, itâs a matter of when. Protect yourselves.
1 Like
In one word on copying someone elses work. DONâT!
If you think that you can get away with it, you are so damned mistaken.
Lawyers are in business to prevent this from happening.
If you get caught; âvisiting hours in prison are limited to maybe one hour a weekâ. If you do get caught, donât come crying to us.
One fellow who told me that he was actually copying someones jewellery designs. âI acted very impressed and asked for his business cardâ!
When I got back home from our trip, I called that weâll known jewellery designersâ office. His secretary was more than happy to hear that news.
Donât know if he was in business after the designersâ lawyers visited him. (Iâd hate to be him).
In closing, my very true story is a lesson to everyone. DONâT COPY.
âGerry, on my iPhoneâ
1 Like
I think that copyrighting your original jewelry designs is a great idea and I would never knowingly copy someoneâs designs. However, as far as copyright protecting you, if you are copied by someone out of this country and you are a small operation, odds are you canât sue them in this country and actually collect. Also, having sued someone with more resources than yourself, you possibly cannot afford to carry your suit to completion. Another issue is that you can register your design, but if you are involved in a suit, donât you have to prove that the design is original? Wouldnât that involve some kind of copyright search? Is that costly or time consuming? In the end, if you are an individual craftsperson or a small shop, I would think that continued innovation was your best defense. By the time they have copied your work, you have produced something else original.
I have an inventor friend who trademarks his inventions (cutting lap alloys) rather than patent them. This keeps his manufacturing details secret rather than detailed in a patent. Also heâs made a career out of complicated manufacturing which overseas imitators cannot cost effectively duplicate. My guess is that if you do wonderful granulation or keem bo or some such, that overseas factories canât exactly duplicate it. Would I be wrong it I said that there probably arenât a lot of platinum knock-offs of Jim Grahlâs designs? -royjohn
1 Like
I was reading this Medium article this morning on patents, trademarks and copyright law, which mostly applies to writing, but is interesting for jewelry for some of the points it raises about fair use, etc. Patents! Copyrights! and Trademarks! Oh my! | by Karen Remick | Inventing | Medium. The history of jewelry making is long, perhaps 10,000 years long, and copying as well as outright forgeries have been rampant throughout that time. There are many, many out-of-copyright books and images of jewelry designs both ancient and more modern that you can copy freely. Look through the Internet Archive and various museum collections for inspiration for your pieces and you wonât run afoul either ethically or legally. Every beginner learns by copying the works of those who have mastered their craft, either through books or classes. Everyone. Go forth and make jewelry and worry about the business of selling after you have mastered your craft.
Some of you based in the USA may find this article interesting: Protecting The Intellectual Property Of Jewelry Designs - Trademark - United States. Itâs very very hard to register a copyright for a jewelry design in the US, especially as a small designer. Iâve taken several workshops about copyright and trademarking, and my takeaway is that really the only thing you can win on usually is your photographs of the jewelry. (But Iâm no legal expert of course.)
On a side note, my experience with this is that usually the copying we all worry about as designers/small businesses is done by people ripping us off and selling our design in a mass production model. Usually these factories are overseas and (for example) US copyright law doesnât help you with a Chinese company. But I have successfully had my photos removed from sites like AliExpress. They can still rip off the design, but at least they have to photograph their own garbage version that they make out of tin, or whatever material can be made that cheaply!
First let me say that in my opinion, copying anotherâs design by a student is a very good way to enhance the skill of the student. It can offer challenges that a student canât develop on their own. Sometimes itâs harder to make an accurate copy by hand than doing oneâs own thing. But thatâs where it should stop, and in noway should it be used for monetary gain.
Copying for commercial purposes shouldnât be done. But in the jewelry business itâs done all the time. Our problem was not so much with large manufactures, but with local jewelers and insurance companies. To combat it with insurance companies, we added a statement on the âEstimate to Replace for Insuranceâ form we supplied when we sold a piece of original jewelry; That the piece was stamped with our trademark and that it may not be reproduced unless authorized by the original designer. This did help in a few cases when the jewelry had to be replaced.
I would like to tell a story of one customers who had a retail store around the corner from ours. She had fallen in love with one of my designs but thought I was asking way to much for it, so she had her âjewelerâ try and copy it. He would stand outside and look at our window trying to figure out how I made the ring. When we pulled the ring from the window case and brought it inside the store, he actually came in and asked to see the ring. This went on for a couple months. What makes the design different was that it had very simple clean lines that accented the five diamonds, rather than carved from wax which was the custom, it was hand fabricated with wire that makes it appear that the diamonds are floating. After a few months went by, she came back into the my store and had me make the ring for the price I was asking. It always feels kinda good win you win one.
Being a custom jeweler for over 40 year, we had many occasions where people would bring us a picture of some piece and ask us to copy it. Our response was always no we wouldnât copy it, but we would be glad to make something with a similar feel, but make it original for them. Most customers were fine with that, or they went elsewhere.
Tjones
Goldsmith
3 Likes
We said! On thing you can do to help, is take pictures and save you BOM of these pieces. Send them by Registered Mail to yourself. Put them in a safe unopened. Should you find your pieces advertised on published. Take it small claims court. Have judge open the registered documents. You have proof of idea and documentation of when you created the pieces. Itâs called a Poor Mansâ Copyright. Then the publications would have to print a retraction and would probably do a piece on your body of work!
Sorry, Debh, but the âPoor Manâs Copyrightâ doesnât really hold up in court. That it does is a well-known copyright myth. Poor Man's Copyright: Will It Get You the Protection You Need? | Nolo
Itâs not a lor harder to actually register the copyright by filing pictures with the Copyright Bureau. You can register a whole âsuiteâ of jewelry for one fee, which isnât much more than the charge for registered mail. Visual Arts: Registration | U.S. Copyright Office
2 Likes
Just a question.
Can you get copyright even though
there are prior art?
Can someone get a copyright to your work,
if you do not file for copyright yourself?
Can someone get a copyright to your work,
if you do not file for copyright yourself?
AT&T was such a monopoly once that they came up with an icon of 2 fingers walking across a page, âLet your fingers do the walkingâ, to be used with their phone book, but they failed to copyright it. Later, other private phone book companies took that and used it and AT&T couldnât do a thing about it.
I donât know if anyone can copyright what an originator does not, but if not copyrighted it becomes public domain, meaning it is free for anyone to use.
Neil A
1 Like
The reason I asked, is that there goes a story about an American woman copy righting an old Norwegian knitting pattern design.
If it is true or not I donât know.
But it created some uproar and anger in Norway.
Specially since it is a regional pride and signal product hundreds of years old.
It could be just a urban legend of sorts.
It seems though that protection of prior art, is much weaker in the USA than most of Europe
Regards Per-Ove
The reason I asked, is that there goes a story about an American woman copy righting an old Norwegian knitting pattern design.
âŚ
But it created some uproar and anger in Norway.
Thatâs called cultural appropriation and it does cause resentment. By itself there is no law against it in the U.S., as you said.
On the other hand people also can try to claim ownership of something that may be in the public domain, so it is a two-sided coin.
A design in the abstract, or any sort of idea, cannot be copyrighted. Thatâs black letter law. Copyright only covers the visible or tangible expression of the idea. Were Moby Dick still under copyright, anyone could write a novel about a mad captain searching for a white whale. It is the particular expression of that story, as exemplified in Melvilleâs words, that would be subject to copyright.
Corporate logos can be copyrighted, but that does not give protection from knockoff images that are âinspired byâ but are not exact copies. Logos and other trademarks come under the purview of patent and trademark law, not copyright law. Most people are confused about the distinction, but it is a very important one.
Pieces of jewelry can be copyrighted as unique works of art, but that does not keep others from making very similar pieces. To protect a design against being knocked off one must receive a design patent, and even then it is a very expensive proposition to sue for patent infringement. Since jewelry is a low profit industry, compared with, say, pharmaceuticals or electronics, the legal costs would far outweigh any damages the court might award.
As to the knitting pattern story, it seems likely that the copyright would not cover the pattern in the abstract, but the particular knitting instructions the person was selling. Think of it like a jewelry how-to video. The processes and techniques may be ancient and thus unable to be patented, but if you make a video demonstrating how to do a process, you will have sole copyright to that video. No one can just copy and distribute it, even if the technique you are demonstrating is as old as, say, granulation.
3 Likes