“Don’t be afraid to learn by copying others”

"Don't be afraid to learn by copying others"

Opinion: Slovakian designer Tomáš Libertíny, who wrote to Dezeen last month accusing a major advertising agency of exploiting his work, reflects on the nature of copying in design and argues that imitating the work of others should be an integral part of any designer’s education. 


Recently, a post on Dezeen showed a great deal of similarity between Dewar’s advertising campaign and my work. The agency’s stunt reminded me of the likes of Adibas, Adidos, Naik and countless other “brands”.

Inspired, and having thought about the subject of ethics, originality, progress and education in design, I decided to write a short reflection in the spirit of essays by French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne.

"Don't be afraid to learn by copying others"
Tomáš Libertíny

Copy to learn… to be copied to learn

I once heard someone say that the single cause of all the world’s evil are the words: “This is mine!” Picasso said that good artists copy; great artists steal. This is well-known and recently over-quoted thanks to the success of Steve Jobs with Apple. It is also tragically misinterpreted. It is a tongue-in-cheek phrase that insinuates that great artists build on the work of others without anyone spotting it.

Actually, it is more that we forgive them due to the personal spin they give to the bounty. In the light of the recent Tour de France doping scandals, one could say that good cyclists cheat; great cyclists don’t get caught. I am forced to ask myself the same question as Mugatu in the 2001 comedy movie Zoolander: “Doesn’t anyone notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” Ironically, he claims he invented the piano-key necktie.

American art critic Arthur Danto pondered over the success of Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box. This work would not have been possible without the Brillo box design by James Harvey. I imagine it should have been Harvey and not Valerie Solanas who shot at Warhol. The success of pop art is largely thanks to the appropriation of work of often anonymous designers created for the purpose of a vicious battle for consumers.

Nonetheless, it certainly brought Warhol fame and eventually stardom. His version of the Brillo box also became an icon and a dead end. However, its real relevance is the ecstasy of the mind that hangs in confusion. We love to hope; we love the game. The mystery of David Lynch’s movies has the same mind-tickling effect. It is not surprising, since we celebrate entertainers over caretakers.

It seems to me a sign of foresight that we should recognise the path that people walked and pawed before us. That foresight looks back to secure the future. It was Neil Armstrong who took the first step on the moon but that step was the sum of all the steps taken before him by all humankind (not only those of NASA). Similarly, designers are nothing as individuals.

I want to argue that in our education we should learn from the past and not be afraid to learn by copying others. This type of learning is taking a step further in a purposeful direction, acknowledging the source and paying tribute to the ongoing building of knowledge that defines culture.

Our knowledge of Greek sculptures is through the Roman copies. The actual number of surviving ancient Greek originals is pathetic. By copying, the Romans have not only preserved but also learned and improved. Even the famous statue of Laocoön, admired by Michelangelo, is a copy.

The age-old idea of ownership and possession is a consensus upon which the majority of societies agreed to act to bring order into the growing complexity of relationships. We protect the whole by limiting the individual. Copying is not an act of stealing, but it can give the same advantage.

One can copy someone or something in order to:

» learn about the subject and understand it
» pay homage to it
» acquire the same privileges as the subject and exploit it for personal gain.

The nature of the world is such that all of these are part of life and always will be.

Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote in his essay titled The Flower of Coleridge that for the classic mind, literature is the essential thing, not individuals. You could say the same of design.

My training was classical. When I was about 14 years old I got an assignment for an art class I was privately attending to copy a painting. I chose Portrait of a Sculptor, believed to be the self-portrait by Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Del Sarto. There was a limitation: I had to do it in tempera on paper. It was difficult since tempera acts differently to oil, obviously, but the lesson was priceless. My confidence in the medium had risen. Immediately following the copy of a painting was an assignment to copy nature en plein air. I sat by a tree and looked at the structure, texture and weight of its intertwined branches.

"Don't be afraid to learn by copying others"
Graphite on paper, 1984, Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny

In the same way, I observed my own hands. I started to see more the longer I looked at them. It was a great exercise in discipline, focus and of course draftsmanship. I felt that I was starting to understand the relationship between skin, flesh and bones. Later, when I was in the first year of my formal design education, we visited a medical school where they fished human body parts from the pool of formaldehyde for us to draw. A human torso was delivered to us on a trolley and there I was, seeing an expired human engine and tracing it on a piece of paper.

"Don't be afraid to learn by copying others"
Graphite on paper, 2001, Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny

In general, this exercise eventually teaches the mind of any student to look at things. It doesn’t substitute natural talent but nonetheless establishes neural connections that will be prone to recognise relationships, patterns and hierarchies in the world observed. These neural connections may be permanent or flexible, have style or no style (one may argue though that everybody has a style but the difference is quite clear when a rigid and fresh mind approaches a problem).

To learn is to love. Our initial response attaches us to the subject. However, it is the continued study of the subject “as it is” that evolves into love. Bruce Lee in one of his televised interviews says: “If you put water into a cup it becomes the cup. Water can flow or water can crash – be water, my friend”.

Spiritual writer Anthony de Mello puts it differently. He says when you cut water, the water doesn’t get hurt; when you cut something solid, it breaks. You’ve got solid attitudes inside you; you’ve got solid illusions inside you. This is what scientists strive for: an unobstructed view. When you truly love something or someone you must first see it.

A common practice of artists of the past was learning through apprenticeship from an older master. Michelangelo did his time as an apprentice too. He preferred copying paintings from churches rather than learning at school. But which of the world’s renowned design academies today have their students copy, for example, Charles Eames chairs? Or a software code in reverse engineering? How about an assignment to write a story like William Shakespeare? Wouldn’t that be a great way to really understand the inner workings of his writing style and language?

In the case of Eames, when I say copy, I mean literally copy and make an exact replica with the resources one has at his or her disposal. Looking at pictures doesn’t teach anyone much more than information about the weather. It is just information. Following design blogs and current trends does not make one a better designer; it makes one a better-informed designer. Despite the fact that information and skill are both pillars of knowledge, there is fundamental difference between them.

Copying is wrong when it is pretending to be original; then copying becomes faking. A fake is the cardinal sin of design, a non-progressive parasite. On the other hand, copying to learn and improve is the most characteristic trait of human behaviour. Unlike non-human primates, which don’t have the cognitive capacity to improve upon something learned, we do. We copy our parents and friends as children in order to become our unique better selves. That is exactly what designers should do.

Unfortunately, our era pushes individuals to perform at early stages as original creators not understanding that the history of design is the history of re-design. Heading towards the new for the sake of the new is counterproductive. Look, for example, at the three volumes of Phaidon Design Classics. An icon is a stage in the process of re-design that reaches its peak; it cannot be a better version of itself. Originality is a myth. Discovery of the not-yet-seen is not. Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson said that there are no foreign lands, it is only the traveler who is foreign.

It was Giorgio Vasari with his Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects who introduced the myth of an artist. It was Michelangelo, who witnessed his Pietà attributed to Gobbo from Milan, who decided, in the quiet of the night, to carve his name upon it. Vasari distinguished between “disegno” and “invenzione”, understanding them as mother and father of the work of art. He saw “invenzione” not as new, but better. He recognised, however, that not everybody was able to reveal the better and it took a genius to fish it out from the pond of knowledge. Hence not everybody is Michelangelo – but we are all fishermen.

Students of design, copy to learn and remember that you are part of the history of design. We are trying to land on Mars.

Libertiny’s  Honeycomb Vase was copied by Berlin students at last year’s DMY Berlin – read our earlier story »


Tomáš Libertíny is a Slovakian designer working in Rotterdam. He founded Studio Libertíny after completing his masters degree at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2006. His works have been acquired by a number of museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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Honeycomb vase designer says whisky campaign “unabashedly exploits” his work

News: a designer who developed a technique for harnessing bees to create physical objects has accused a major brand of exploiting his work.

Dewar's Highlander Honey bottle
Dewar’s Highlander Honey bottle

Slovakian designer Tomáš Libertíny contacted Dezeen after seeing a campaign created by New York creative agency Sid Lee for Dewar’s Highlander Honey whisky, which features 80,000 bees forming a honeycomb sculpture of a whisky bottle and a bust of Dewar’s “drinking man” symbol.

Vessel #2 by Tomáš Libertíny
Vessel #2 by Tomáš Libertíny, 2011

Libertíny claims the project “unabashedly exploits the poetry” of his own projects, including his 2007 Honeycomb Vase – which is now in the MoMA collection – and 2010’s The Unbearable Lightness, both of which were created using a similar process.

The Honeycomb Vase by Tomáš Libertíny
The Honeycomb Vase by Tomáš Libertíny, 2007. Photo: Raoul Kramer

“Studio Libertiny is surprised that Sid Lee and Dewar’s (Bacardi) have launched a commercial campaign that unabashedly exploits the poetry of the work of Tomáš Libertíny and his team of artists and designers,” Libertíny wrote in a statement to Dezeen.

Dewar's Highlander Honey bust
Beeswax bust of Dewar’s “drinking man” symbol from the Highlander Honey campaign

A short documentary about the Dewar’s project, produced by The Ebeling Group and titled “The 3-B Printing Project”, features Californian bee-keeper Robin Theron and Los Angeles sculptor and engineer James Peterson explaining how they collaborated to create the honeycomb objects.

Detail of The Unbearable Lightness by Tomáš Libertíny
Detail of The Unbearable Lightness by Tomáš Libertíny, 2010

To do this, they covered the forms of the bottle and the bust with sheets of beeswax printed with tessellated hexagonal patterns, and enclosed them in transparent cases. The cases were then filled with honey bees, who built a honeycomb structure on top of the forms. “In order for bees to build on the outside of anything, we turned a bee hive inside out,” explains Theron. In total, 80,000 bees were used to create the pieces.

Libertíny used a similar process when creating his objects, the first of which was presented in Milan in 2007. “It took 40,000 bees and one week to make a single vase,” said Libertíny at the time. “Not meaning it as a euphamism, we called this process “slow prototyping”.”

Honeycomb Vase by Tomáš Libertíny, 2007. Photo: Raoul Kramer

In his statement this week, Libertíny said: “The 3B-Printing campaign is clearly not only inspired by but also follows the concept, storytelling, imagery, techniques and vocabulary of the Slow-Prototyping project that Studio Libertiny has been busy with for years.”

“Dewar’s as well as Bacardi are, in their own right, proud of their originality and brand identity which stands in contrast with authenticity of the campaign,” he added. “Studio Libertiny hopes that the campaign from Dewar’s will not divert the audience from seeing the relevance of nature (in this case honeybees) and the importance of it to humankind’s survival.”

Sid Lee admitted that the project was inspired by Libertíny’s work but said a “slightly different process” was used in the campaign.

“You are right in calling out that we got inspired by Thomas [sic] Libertiny,” said Sid Lee managing partner Lukas Derksen, “as well as earlier artists that inspired Thomas like sculptor Garnett Puett with his project called Apiscaryatid in the late 1980s and young New York-based artists such as Hilary Berseth with her well known work called Programmed Hives in 2008.”

He added: “As you can see in our documentary we pursued a slightly different process than these artists did before us, and engineered moulds that would hold the bees in order to sculpt the bottle and the bust in even more precision.”

Mark Corran of London intellectual property lawyers Briffa said it would be “very difficult” for Libertíny to protect himself against people wanting to copy his technique. “The question is, would consumers be confused by the advert into thinking it was his work?” said Corran, saying that depended on how well known Libertíny and his work is to the general public. “He hasn’t got a monopoly on this process.”

The row follows recent accusations of plagiarism including claims that British designer Thomas Heatherwick copied the design for the London 2012 Olympic cauldron, and the discovery of a copy of a Zaha Hadid building in China.

See our recent round-up of stories about copying in design. See more stories about the work of Tomáš Libertíny.

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Beijing Design Week confronts copying in China with giant rubber duck

Beijing Design Week confronts copying in China with giant rubber duck

News: the organisers of Beijing Design Week plan to emphasise problems with copyright in China by exhibiting an original version of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant Rubber Duck, which was duplicated around the country when it recently appeared in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour.

At a press conference announcing that Florentijn Hofman‘s ten-metre-high inflatable duck will appear at Beijing Design Week 2013, the event’s organising committee highlighted the proliferation of unsolicited copies that emerged in several Chinese cities including Tianjin and Wuhan last month, as well as unauthorised T-shirts and merchandise.

“We want to use the Rubber Duck case to drive an awareness programme raising the sensibility towards intellectual property rights around China,” said Wang Jun, a senior consultant to Beijing Design Week’s IP Protection Office.

Beijing Design Week will instead work with Hofman to produce and license official associated products and promises to take legal action against lookalikes.

“The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation,” says a statement on Hofman’s website.

A 16.5 metre tall version of the sculpture was shown in Hong Kong from 2 May until 9 June, attracting a reported 8,000,000 people to the area.

Hofman’s duck has appeared in over a dozen cities since it was first exhibited in 2007, including Sao Paulo, Sydney and Amsterdam. Its installation at Beijing Design Week, which takes place from 26 September to 3 October, will be its second in China.

Copying in design is a hot topic at the moment, with Thomas Heatherwick recently being accused of copying the design for the Olympic cauldron from a New York agency, which has since said it never accused Heatherwick of plagiarism.

This issue is particularly prevalent in China, where a Zaha Hadid development in Beijing has been pirated by a Chinese developer in Chongqing. Earlier this year, Dutch design collective Droog made a series of products copied from traditional Chinese objects.

See all our stories about copying in design »

Top image is by YY Yeung.

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Dezeen archive: copying in design

Dezeen archive: copying in design

Following claims that Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic cauldron design isn’t original, we’ve compiled our top stories about copying in design.

Copying in design
Thomas Heatherwick rejects claims that Olympic cauldron is a copy as “spurious nonsense”

The British designer was accused of copying after proposals by an American firm submitted to London’s Olympic committee in 2007 were published in The Guardian earlier this week, though Heatherwick dismissed the claims as “spurious nonsense”.

Recently it was announced that deliberate copying of a design is to become a criminal offence in the UK and a bill to extend copyright protection on industrial design has already been passed in the country.

Copying in design
Zaha Hadid building pirated in China

Copying has also been prevalent in China, where a Zaha Hadid development in Beijing has been pirated by a Chinese developer in Chongqing.

Copying in design
Droog copies China

However, Dutch design collective Droog turned the notion on its head by unveiling its own copies of Chinese objects at a Guangzhou shopping centre.

Copying in design
Apple pays up for using Swiss rail operator’s clock design

Legal disputes over copying settled in the past year include Apple’s payout to Swiss railway operator SBB for copying its trademark station clock design and Emeco’s claim that fellow US company Restoration Hardware ripped-off its classic Navy Chair.

Copying in design
Emeco settles dispute over Navy Chair copy

See all our stories about copying in design »

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copying in design
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Fictional bridges on Euro banknotes constructed in Rotterdam

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam

News: the fictional bridges depicted on Euro banknotes have been been transformed into reality at a new housing development near Rotterdam.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam
Bridge from the €200 note (also top)

Dutch designer Robin Stam was inspired by the seven images of archetypal bridges originally created by Austrian designer Robert Kalina to represent key phases in Europe’s cultural history.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam
Bridge from the €50 note

The illustrations on the banknotes show generic examples of architectural styles such as renaissance and baroque rather than real bridges from a particular member state, which could have aroused envy among other countries. “The European Bank didn’t want to use real bridges so I thought it would be funny to claim the bridges and make them real,” Stam told Dezeen.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam
Bridge from the €20 note

The local council responsible for constructing a new housing development in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam, heard about the idea and approached Stam about using his designs.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam

“My bridges were slightly more expensive but [the council] saw it as a good promotional opportunity so they allocated some extra budget to produce them,” says Stam.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam
Bridge from the €5 note

The bridges are exact copies of those shown on the banknotes, down to the shape, crop and colour.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam
Bridge from €500 note

“I wanted to give the bridges an exaggerated theatrical appearance – like a stage set,” adds Stam, who poured dyed concrete into custom-made wooden moulds to make them.

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam

All seven bridges surrounding the development have been completed and are being used by cyclists and pedestrians. Stam says they have divided opinion among residents: “Some people’s initial impression is that the bridges are ugly but when they find out the story behind them they find it really funny.”

Bridges of Europe by Robin Stam

In his recent Opinion column, Sam Jacob talks about the made-up landmarks on Euro notes as he ponders the historic and cultural symbolism of money.

The latest Dezeen stories about bridges include a heated pedestrian bridge in Sweden and Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi.

See more bridge designs »
See all our stories about design and money »

Here are some more details from the designer:


On the first of January 2002 new banknotes were introduced in Europe. In addition to windows and gateways, these seven banknotes also depict several bridges. Each bridge has an individual appearance, all of which can be recognised as having originated throughout certain periods in European cultural history: Classical Antiquity, the Roman period, the Gothic period, the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo, Iron- and glass architecture and lastly contemporary, twentieth century architecture.

Designed by Robert Kalina, the bridges are meant to illustrate the tight collaboration and communication between Europe and the rest of the world in general, but more importantly, amongst the European countries in particular. However, the bridges portrayed in the banknotes are fictional.

They have been designed to prevent one single member state from having a bridge on their banknote opposed to other states not having any depicted in theirs. In other words, “member state neutral” banknotes.

Now wouldn’t it be amazing if these fictional bridges suddenly turn out to actually exist in real life? And wouldn’t it be even more amazing if these bridges were to be built in a new housing project in the former centre of urban development and suburb, Spijkenisse.

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UK to criminalise deliberate copying of design

Radice stool by Industrial Facility for Mattiazzi

News: the deliberate copying of a design is set to become a criminal offence in the UK, in line with the law on breaching copyright and trademarks.

The change, announced this week by the Intellectual Property Office, is intended to simplify and shorten the legal process surrounding design right disputes by moving them from the UK’s civil courts to its criminal courts.

Design right provides automatic protection for the three-dimensional shape of an unregistered design – although not its two-dimensional aspects, such as surface patterns – and lasts a maximum of 15 years.

The trade organisation Anti-Copying in Design (ACID) welcomed the government’s decision, but said there was still “a long way to go”.

“It’s great that the government has taken a first step to protect designers from those who copy their designs, but there is still a long way to go to ensure we receive the same protection as musicians or filmmakers,” said ACID chief executive Dids Macdonald.

In a column today, Design Week editor Angus Montgomery agreed that the UK’s current intellectual property system leaves designers in danger of being unprotected.

“[D]esign right itself is a seemingly marginal protection. Yes, it covers unregistered designs, but only 3D designs (products and furniture but not graphics or illustrations) and is only effective in the UK,” he said.

“So while creating a new crime doubtless sends out the right  message – and hopefully makes serial copiers less likely to offend in future – the practical effect would seem to be minimal.”

The government is also introducing changes to ownership so that a commissioned design is now owned by the designer, not the commissioner, as it had previously. The proposed changes can be read in full here.

Today’s announcement follows the government’s recent decision to extend copyright protection on industrial design from 25 years to the length of the author’s life plus 70 years – see all news about copying.

In Milan last month, designers including Marcel Wanders and Tom Dixon told Dezeen in a movie (below) how they are responding to the phenomenon of copying. “It’s become an increasingly big problem for us,” said Dixon. “People can steal ideas and produce them almost faster than we can now.”

However, in a recent opinion column for Dezeen, architect Sam Jacob argued that the extension of the copyright term for design would “protect existing interests instead of promoting innovation”.

Photograph shows Radice stool by Industrial Facility for Mattiazzi.

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UK design copyright bill comes into force

UK design copyright bill comes into force

News: a bill to extend copyright protection on industrial design from 25 years to the length of the author’s life plus 70 years has today become law in the UK.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which also includes wide-ranging reforms to employment and shareholder rights, repeals section 52 of the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988, which limited the terms of protection for mass-produced artistic works.

The changes to copyright law will give design the same terms of protection as books and music, extending rights over a design from the existing 25 years to the length of the author’s life plus an additional 70 years.

The legislation also allows for the commercial and noncommercial use of ‘orphan’ works – copyrighted designs for which the owner is unknown or untraceable – and the appointment of an authorising body to license this use.

Supporting the introduction of the bill last year, Sir Terence Conran said: “By protecting new designs more generously, we are encouraging more investment of time and talent in British design. That will lead to more manufacturing in Britain, and that in turn will lead to more jobs – which we desperately need right now. Properly protected design can help make the UK a profitable workshop again.”

In Milan this year, British designer Tom Dixon (whose much-copied Beat lamps are pictured above) told Dezeen that copying was becoming “an increasingly big problem” for his business, while Dutch designer Marcel Wanders agreed that “stealing most of the time is more cheap than buying”.

Not everyone in the design industry welcomes the new law, however. In a recent opinion column for Dezeen, architect Sam Jacob argued that the extension of copyright for design would “condemn us to mid-century modernism”. “Copyright’s expiration period creates dynamism in creative activity,” he noted. “The extension will mean there is less incentive to invest, to experiment and to develop new designs.”

See all news about copying.

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“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in this movie filmed in Milan earlier this month, leading designers and manufacturers discuss the phenomenon of copying and how they are responding. “It’s become an increasingly big problem for us,” says Tom Dixon. “People can steal ideas and produce them almost faster than we can now.”

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

“An original design product will have a cost higher than its copy,” says designer Marcel Wanders (above). “It’s very simple. Stealing most of the time is more cheap than buying.”

Unscrupulous manufacturers visit Milan to photograph new prototypes and then rush out copies before the original products reach the market, according to Casper Vissers (below), CEO of furniture and lighting brand Moooi.

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

“It’s very sour if you have presented a product in April and it’s in the shops in September, but a bloody copier has it already in August,” says Vissers, speaking at Moooi’s spectacular Unexpected Welcome show in Milan (below). “This is what happens at the moment.”

Vissers adds that legal action against copiers in Asia is expensive and, even if it’s successful in the short term, it does little to stem the tide: “You need huge amounts of money [to launch a law suit in the Far East] and if you win – if – a new limited company in China will start production [of copies]”.

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

Copiers are increasingly shameless about their intentions, says Tom Dixon, speaking at his presentation at MOST in Milan. “People feel very confident copying things. Some people come around with spy glasses photographing things but other people are more overt and come in with iPads or film crews.”

Dixon says the problem is getting worse, with markets around the world and even the UK market increasingly flooded with copies. “Everywhere we go in Australia or Singapore or India we’ll see many, many copies, and that’s also hitting more and more the UK as well.”

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

Gregg Buchbinder (above), CEO of furniture company Emeco, says the solution is for designers to push manufacturers to make more sophisticated products that are harder to copy. The furniture collection Emeco developed with designer Konstantin Grcic for the Parrish Art Museum on Long Island (below), for example, “was a very difficult project to do. Although the chair looks simple, there’s nothing skipped.”

“The more difficult it is, the more difficult it is for people to knock it off,” Buchbinder adds.

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

Emeco aggressively pursues copyists through the courts and earlier this year won a case against fellow US manufacturer Restoration Hardware, which had copied the iconic Navy chair.

But outside Europe and the US, copyright law is less robust and harder to enforce. “It’s very, very difficult to protect yourself legally,” says Dixon.

Dixon’s company is directly responding to the problem of copying by developing a range of new products designed to make life more difficult for counterfeiters.

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our products”

“What you’ll see [at our Milan presentation] is a number of coping strategies,” Dixon explains. “We’ve been trying as much as possible to invest in tooling and slightly more advanced technology. We’re working on adaptive models where we make specific things for clients. A new bespoke division where we make things for people, so we adapt our products to suit a client’s needs. So there’s ways of dealing with it. We’ve just got to be faster and smarter.”

See all our stories about copying in design ».

“Milan is a breeding ground for people who copy our product”

Milan is the second stop on our Dezeen and MINI World Tour. See all our reports from our first destination, Cape Town. This movie features a MINI Cooper S Paceman.

The music featured is a track called Divisive by We Are Band, a UK-based electronic act who played at the MINI Paceman Garage in Milan on Friday. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

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Dezeen archive: copying

Dezeen archive: copying

Dezeen archive: following Sam Jacob’s Opinion column about plans to extend the copyright term for design in the UK, here are all the stories on Dezeen about copying in architecture and design. See all our stories about copying »

See all our archive stories »

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“Extending copyright for design condemns us to mid-century modernism”

Sam Jacob opinion on changing copyright laws

Opinion: in his latest Opinion column, Sam Jacob argues that the UK government’s plans to extend the copyright term for design “protect existing interests instead of promoting innovation”.


Later this year the UK government plans to change copyright law for design, extending the period of protection for designs deemed “artistic” until 70 years after the death of the creator. In essence, that means the entire ouvre of canonical twentieth century design. Wrapped up in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill is legislation that will have a profound effect on design culture.

Currently, design for artistic works, which may well include prototype models of design icons, has copyright protection in the UK from “the end of the period of 25 years from the end of the calendar year in which such articles are first marketed”. That means that a designer of an artistic work has a 25-year monopoly to exploit the design before it passes into the public domain.

That means there is nothing legally wrong with you or I knocking up our own version of a Le Corbusier lounger or an Eames chair and there are, of course, many replicas on the market now – though you should get them while you can before the ERRB becomes law. There’s nothing wrong (legally) with a company producing exact replicas and selling them far cheaper than Knoll, Vitra or Herman Miller’s “authentic” replicas.

Thinking about the issue of copyright in other industries is illuminating. For example, the big pharmaceutical companies rely on the protection of intellectual property to give them a period of monopoly in which they can recoup (and obviously exceed, sometimes many times over) the vast sums they invest in research and testing.

Here, intellectual property acts as a motivator for development, offering a reward for the risk and experimentation that the companies take on up-front. Even then, the period of protection is short – 20 years from the date of application for the patent. Most of those 20 years will be lost on proving to regulators that it is safe and it works.

But in design, do the big companies invest in research to anything like the same extent? Do the likes of Knoll, Vitra and Herman Miller really support innovation? Or do they mainly exploit the back-catalogue of their intellectual property portfolio by churning out more and more products by Mies van der Rohe, Charles and Ray Eames, and George Nelson? It’s certainly easier: no expensive designers to pay, no re-tooling of production lines, no real risk. It is an enviable situation – a market that they essentially control with consumers caught in an endless love affair with mid-century furniture.

I’d argue that they don’t even have to create this demand: the desirable, canonical status of the named designers is not bestowed by the marketing initiatives of the design companies themselves. It’s a function of academic scholarship, art history, museums and other institutions, whose commitment (and, often, whose funding) is public – serving culture and knowledge rather than private interest.

Extending copyright for design to 70 years from the author’s death suddenly pushes the whole of modernism back into private ownership. It means, one can estimate, protection of around 100 years for the design of, say, a chair. It essentially fixes the field of design for the foreseeable future and condemns us to mid-century modernism until the middle of the next century.

Copyright’s expiration period creates dynamism in creative activity. Twenty-five years seems long enough for a company to recoup the costs of design development and it also means that they have to develop new designs of equal merit to replenish their stock of design rights. The extension will mean there is less incentive to invest, to experiment and to develop new designs.

There are shades of the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” at work here, the phrase used to describe the 1998 extension of US copyright terms that was heavily lobbied by Disney. Equally, it echoes the UK’s “Cliff’s law”, named after singer Cliff Richard, which extended the copyright term of music recordings from 50 years to 70 years.

Both are pieces of legislation that protect existing interests instead of promoting innovation. It’s interesting to note that there has been significant lobbying with regard to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill on behalf of “well known furniture designers and manufacturers.” It has also been welcomed by the Design Council.

At heart this is more than a legal matter, more than an argument over knock-off Barcelona chairs. Wrapped up in this proposed legislation is a disciplinary definition of what design actually is.

Is design, to quote Mies van der Rohe himself, “the will of an epoch transformed into space”? This, of course, is the spirit of innovation and radical experiment that brought these design classics into existence in the first place. Or is design, as the ERRB seems to propose, the will of a previous epoch transformed into private interest?

I’d argue for the former, for ramping up design research and development, and for greater investment in design by those private interests to create the design classics of the future.


Sam Jacob is a director of architecture practice FAT, professor of architecture at University of Illinois Chicago and director of Night School at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, as well as editing www.strangeharvest.com.

Top image of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair courtesy of Shuttershock

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