Hasta La Ideas

Yesterday’s chilled-out vibe continues on Dezeen Music Project today, albeit with a very different kind of track.

Think Hazy Streets by Los Angeles musician Krusht features prominent vocals by Deanna Neil, and is for those that like to relax to a less bass-heavy, more vocal-driven variety of electronica.

About Dezeen Music Project | More tracks | Submit your track

Dezeen Wire: homes and interiors publication Elle Decoration UK has announced a campaign aimed at challenging intellectual property rights in Britain, where designers are currently afforded less protection from copying than those from other creative disciplines.

In the UK it is currently legal to copy any item of design just 25 years after it was designed, whereas works of literature, drama, music, film and art are protected until 70 years after the death of the artist/author.

Elle Decoration is urging anyone who would like to see UK intellectual property laws altered to better protect designers to sign an online petition that aims to raise the 100,000 signatures needed to automatically earn the right to be debated in the House of Commons. Click here to view and sign the petition.

The campaign is being backed by Sir Terence Conran and Sir James Dyson, who says: “The aping of ingenious design and engineering impedes new ideas, sticks a finger up at investment in costly research and development, and circumvents any original thinking. There’s nothing clever about it.”

Elle Decoration editor-in-chief Michelle Ogundehin has been speaking out against the issue of copying in design since the news that UK prime minister’s wife Samantha Cameron purchased a copy of an Arco lamp last year. This sparked a debate within the media and manufacturing industries about the validity of replica products. See all our coverage of this story here.

Here is some more information from Elle Decoration UK:

#ELLEDecoUKFightTheFakes

ELLE Decoration UK campaigns for Equal Rights for Design

ELLE Decoration UK has launched its Equal Rights for Designcampaign to protect creativity, support originality, stop the exploitation of designers, and ultimately protect the reputation of Britain, world-renowned for its exceptional home-grown design talent. The campaign is supported by Sir Terence Conran and Sir James Dyson,

ELLE Decoration UK exposes the hypocrisy of the UK copyright laws with respect to design and questions why the government seems to relegate the discipline to a position below art, literature, drama, film or music, all of which enjoy far greater copyright protection.

In Britain, it’s legal to copy any item of design just 25 years after its date of issue, whereas works of literature, drama, music, film and art are protected for 70 years after the death of the originating author/s. In addition, those 25 years of protection cover only ‘registered’ designs – unregistered design rights extend to just three years! ELLE Decoration UK questions why design is deemed less worthy of protection, and asks, are designers felt to invest less ‘labour, skill or judgment’ in their work: the criteria governing copyright eligibility?

With the Equal Rights for Design e-petition ELLE DecorationUK seeks to change the law in order to afford design parity of protection with other creative disciplines, and give all designers, and designs, greater protection. The e-petition requires just 100,000 signatures to automatically earn the right to be debated in the House of Commons. ELLE Decoration UKcalls for anyone who cares about the protection of originality and the nurture of British creativity to add their signature and support the Equal Rights for Design campaign.

ELLE Decoration UK Editor in Chief Michelle Ogundehin says, “The UK was once a major player in industry and manufacturing with a global reputation for quality and excellence. And it could be so again. But Britain’s designersare still one of the country’s greatest exports. The ELLE Decoration UK Equal Rights for Design campaign hopes to force the government to acknowledge that parity of copyright protection is urgently required to both support our home-grown design talent, and enable the design sector to prosper.”

The design sector contributes an estimated £33 billion (2.4%) to UK GDP and the creative industries as a whole are a major part of the UK’s economy, contributing £112 billion to UK gross domestic product (GDP), 5.14% of the UK’s employment total and 10.6% of exports.

Sir Terence Conran says, “Design has an important contribution to make to the growth of the UK economy at a time when it is sorely needed. If the UK Government were to change the copyright laws that are intended to protect designers in this country, it would go a long way to ensuring our brilliant young designers can make a decent living out of their creativity.”

Sir James Dyson says, “The aping of ingenious design and engineering impedes new ideas, sticks a finger up at investment in costly research and development, and circumvents any original thinking. There’s nothing clever about it.”

Intellectual Property reform could be worth as much as £7.9 billion, according to the Hargreaves Report, an independent review of the issues surrounding Intellectual Property (IP) in the UK. Professor Hargreaves states, “It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is something deeply and persistently amiss in the way that policy towards IP issues in the UK is determined and/or administered.”

To find out more visit www.elledecoration.co.uk/editors-blog/

Sign the ELLE Decoration UK Equal Rights for Design e-petition to change the UK copyright laws here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/26273

Like the ELLE Decoration UK Equal Rights for Design Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Equal-Rights-for-Design/214235855328515

Dezeen Wire: David Chipperfield Architects have won the contract to renovate Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum in Berlin – artdaily

The famous glass and steel building housing a collection of 20th century European painting and sculpture will be closed to the public during the extensive renovations, which are scheduled to begin in early 2015.

Chipperfield has worked extensively in Berlin in the past and his restoration of the damaged Neues Museum won the 2011 Mies van der Rohe Award. See our original story on the Neues Museum here and all of our stories about David Chipperfield here.

Dezeen Wire: New York Times design critic Alice Rawsthorn predicts that failing to address ethical and environmental issues could be the downfall of Apple, “the reigning champion of corporate design” – New York Times

Dezeen Wire: here’s a round up of design critics’ reactions to the retrospective of British design that opens at the Victoria & Albert museum in London tomorrow.

The exhibition is the first major presentation of post-war British design and includes over 300 significant objects representing the evolution of design in the country from the 1948 Olympics up to the present day.

Writing in The Guardian, Fiona MacCarthy, who was the newspaper’s design writer during the 1960s, describes the curators’ choice of start date for the review of British design as “an embarrassingly opportunistic link back to the 1948 London Olympics,” claiming that it should have begun two years earlier with the Britain Can Make It exhibition, which was also held at the V&A.

Also in The Guardian, current design critic Justin McGuirk suggests that interesting parallels can be drawn between the products on show and the evolution of UK politics over the same period but feels that the curation doesn’t represent recent British design favourably, “partly because it is drawn mainly from the V&A’s own collection, and museum collections are weakest when it comes to contemporary artefacts.”

Jay Merrick, design writer for The Independent, describes the exhibition as “timely and ambitious,” but says the choice of familiar buildings such as Norman Foster’s Gherkin and the Falkirk Wheel is “disappointing” and “rather safe,” when more ambitious architecture projects have been left out.

Design Week‘s Emily Gosling also finds the architecture section disappointing, claiming: “even the Gherkin model in all its ridiculous phallic splendour doesn’t make for a particularly engaging finale.”

Meanwhile, The Observer has invited six British designers – James Dyson, David Bailey, Zandra Rhodes, Richard Rogers, Barbara Hulanicki and Ron Arad – to talk about their favourite designs, the most unusual of which is Bailey’s choice of gaffer tape.

See all of our stories about the V&A here.