It is ethical, and even desireable , to copy “old” furniture: Shaker, Queen Ann, Federal, etc,
But what about copying a piece designed and built by a contemporary woodworker?
I saw a photo of a table made by a contemporary artist that really ‘rang my bell’. It was beautiful and it would truly challenge my skills to replicate it. So, I am in the process of making the piece as we speak – but, my conscience keeps nagging at me.
I don’t have plans and the photo was not such that I could scale it accurately. I don’t intend to sell it. It will be for my personal use.
Were, are, my actions acceptable?
Frosty
Replies
Plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery? If you have no intention of selling it or using it for publicity purtposes, etc I can see no reason why you shouldn't, although for the sake of future generations I would ensure that I identified the work as my own.
Scrit
Well you have what my old prof told me if you steel from one source it is plagiarism if you steal from lots of places it is research! :)
I think as long as you are doing it for yourself and not making money you are ok. If you are selling them... well that is a different story. Although even then it may be hard to do anything about it from a legal point of view. I do design work (Architectural Design mostly retail) and if they take my drawings and use them for something I was not paid for I can go after them but if they look at one of the places we did the designs for and just draw their own plans their is not much we can do about it. The only time we would be protected is if we filed papers with the federal government and even then it is questionable.
From what the lawyers have told me we protect books and patents and that is about it. So as far as I know (and lord knows I may be wrong) if you paint a painting and I copy it (with a copy machine) I get in trouble but if I paint something that looks 99% like it I don't (as long as I don't claim you painted it)
Like I said that is what the lawyers have told me but then again I am sure you can find a lawyer that says something else after all if they all agreed with each other they would not have to go to court and they would be out of business. :)
Doug Meyer
“[Deleted]”
I strongly believe it is unethical to make copies of works from living artists or pieces so close to what they make as to constitute a copy. Unless of course you have their specific permission or acquiesence (as in the case of Krenov's students).
You'll see a lot of Maloof copies floating around and made by people who sell them for profit. People ought to wait until he's dead. He still makes his living from his designs.
It appears in your case that you're making the piece for your own use and that helps matters a bit. But really, any reasonably competent intermediate woodworker can copy a whole lot of stuff that more or less constitutes original designs by living craftsmen. If your technical skills are good enough to pull off a decent copy of a pretty complex piece, I think the question you need to ask of yourself is whether or not it's time to start working on your own designs.
Maybe the thing to do is contact the artist whose piece 'rang your bell.' A note praising the work and asking permission to copy it for your own use would probably be met with a 'yes' and would be most appreciated I'm sure. It would also show your good breeding.
Charles,
You give the right answer for the society we live in, perhaps. Like it or not, people live lives in the West where the economy is largey driven by a capitalist model that trades in information (including design information) rather than in mere things. The law recognises copyright and values originality.
However, it is the human condition that we copy: we mimic, imitate and otherwise emulate the doings - great and small - of those around us. This is a basic part of human culture. Today, "around us" is a large place, the size of which is determined by a global market and the associated information-exchange that has made the world a global village.
So, your example of someone who mimics the Maloof chair illustrates perfectly the modern dilemma for all designers, including furniture designers.
On the one hand Mr Maloof's living might be compromised by the mimicry; but on the other hand no one in a rigidly-enforced, copyright-minded society could evolve any design except at the pace of a human lifetime. We would be back to the pace of life in the middle ages. In practice, it is probably impossible to stop information and associated products from being copied, even if we want to (and The Corporate West does want to).
But who, anyway, is a true design-originator? Every designed thing is (for the most part) just the evolutionary tip of a whole host of design elements, stretching back hundreds or thousands of years. For instance, who owns the copyright in the design of the dovetail or the mortise and tenon?
Who is to say that there are not several people around the world, all unaware of Sam Maloof and each other, designing and making curvy rocking chairs? The history of design is full of such co-incidences, where a widespread and shared cultural background "causes" a certain style or design to manifest here, there and everywhere, from several disconnected sources.
This copyright issue is not an easy one to balance between the economic interests of designers and the engine of human cultural evolution, in our dynamic society and its economy.
Lataxe
Look no further than this website for pictures galore of Maloof copies. Copying living artists makes me more much more than vaguely uneasy. I don't do it. I just don't. If I were dying for a Maloof rocker I'd give him a ringy dingy and have him put me on the waiting list. When he is no longer able to fill orders, basically after he is deceased, then I might make a copy but with impeccable attribution to the master. You see, I understand how terribly difficult it is to make a living at this game. Now, I doubt if I made copies that I'd ever REALLY be getting into his wallet but one never knows for sure. I'll leave that exercise to somebody else's conscience. I'll keep mine clear as far as matters like this are concerned.
Obviously, it's POSSIBLE for different craftspeople to simultaneously arrive at very similar designs but utimately as a matter of law it is very rare, especially for furnituremakers in the U.S. who blatantly advertise: "here's my 'interpretation' of a Maloof rocker." Anybody really serious about furnituremaking pretty much ought to understand their contemporaries anyway - at least Western woodworkers with libraries, the internet, magazines, et al. at their disposal.
Charles, I know of several of "my" pieces around the world that were not made by me. The ones I know about are pieces where the maker contacted me and asked for permission to reproduce something of mine they'd seen in an article or on my website.
Before I say yes I ask only for their word of honour that the item they're copying is for personal use or as a gift to family or friends. If they give me this assurance and have asked if I have drawings they can buy I usually make copies of the drawings and send them off for what I consider to be a reasonable fee-- basically covering my expenses of copying and mailing, plus maybe £10 or so to put over the counter of the local bar, ha, ha.
Over and above those known copies I couldn't say. There could be dozens for all I know, or just those I know about.
However, I have chased people down that used my work to promote their business. For example I've come across two cases where someone lifted my copyrighted images of my work to advertise their business. I sent them snotty letters or emails and they did remove my images from their website, their magazine advertisements and from their promotional literature.
In Frosty's case I'd say he's probably, but not definitely okay to make an exact copy of the item as long as it's not for commercial gain. I do urge him to contact the originator of the piece, explain the situation and ask for permission to make the copy. It's the commercial gain bit that tends to get people into deep doo-doo.
Here's a true story that might interest visitors to this forum, but I'll refrain from putting a name to the designer involved. Last year one of the students on a furniture course at the college where I work (not my course I hasten to add) made a piece of furniture based on a piece by an internationally famous living British designer for his final show. It wasn't an exact copy, but you could see immediately what it was based on. It was intended to be a complimentary homage to this world famous guy.
The designer's organisation got wind of it (probably because the student wrote to him saying what he was planning to do, and would it be alright?) The student didn't hear back so went ahead and started making the thing anyway. Then he sent some digital images of the work in progress to the designer's email address, I suppose the intention was to seek encouragement and a reply something like, "Thanks, I'm flattered, do carry on with your wonderful work. Can I help you in any way?"
Suddenly the student found himself covered with lawyers letters like a very bad dose of pox. Evidently the designer was not flattered, had ignored the original contact because it was just an annoying fly buzzing around and it would go away if you ignored it--- and took serious umbrage that a snot nosed, wet behind the ears student would have the nerve to actually steal one of his designs.
The piece he made was not to be sold. It was not to be exhibited at the student's final show. It could be finished and assessed for the purposes of passing his course, but after that it was to be destroyed, and there must proof of the destruction. There was a lot of heavyweight legal stuff coming down on this student from all directions. The piece has not been destroyed yet. It's still in the college whilst the college tries to negotiate an amicable settlement with the designer and his organisation.
So, the moral is, don't go nicking the designs of the rich, famous and very powerful for even educational purposes, let alone for commercial gain, unless you've got big enough balls, plenty of money, and enough bottle to beat the original designer off.
It is after all, plain, unvarnished, bare-faced, theft. But the trouble is that most people get away with it, and most users of woodworking forums think that if it's out there, it's fair game, and lastly most furniture makers that visit forums like this one have absolutely no concept or understanding of intellectual property law. Intellectual property laws certainly do exist, and if you're big enough, mean enough, got out of bed the wrong side this morning, precious enough, and rich enough you can, if you so choose to do so, tear to shreds anyone that has the nerve or cheek to steal or modify your original designs. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 12/27/2006 11:16 am by SgianDubh
I've copied and sold your work profusely.... :-) If you'd sold as many pieces of your own work as I have you'd be as rich as me.... :-)
Enjoy the laugh....
Ha, ha. I like that response. I'm truly flattered. Er, do you need any help with some of the design subtleties and technically challenging bits? Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Let me state right up front. I think allowing oneself to be influenced is perfectly OK, it's natural. But outright copying the work of the living is stealing. This holds for the piece that you make for yourself, to be used in your home, never given away.......People will find all sorts of reasons to rationalize the opposite of the above. But I think what they are really doing is saying, "Its just a little white lie. There's no harm." But what they've done is taken someone else's idea. That's no different then taking any tangible object. In fact, maybe it's worse. An object can be replaced. One can always buy another iPod. But once you've taken an idea, it very likely won't be attributed to the originator for long. As far as he/she is concerned, the idea is now in the public realm and is probably impossible to be retrieved.About twenty years ago I was showing a coat tree at a crafts fair. A man was looking over the things I had on display and the coat tree caught his eye. He didn't offer to purchase it, simply made the comment directly to me that he liked it and would go home and make one for himself. He didn't ask permission which I most likely would have granted. No amount of objection from me was going to dissuade him. I hope he chipped a saw blade when doing that work.Despite all the forgoing, I always say to myself, "Well if they're copying me, then they're following me. And that means I'm in front."
This is really a silly question.
I have seen many a "Maloof" chair in "art" galleries. It is not art. Art is in the creation, not the copy.
It has been said that (I am paraphrasing) an artist is only an artist until they start to sell their work successfully, then they become a manufacturer.
Why would you copy other works? Wood can be made into almost any shape. Go for it!
But in saying all of this, I must admit that part of the learning process of working with wood as a medium is to try to copy great works in order to learn the processes involved and to sharpen the skills necessary for future work.
Hal
http://www.rivercitywoodworks.com]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
That was the funniest thing I've read in a long time!
Richard,
I understand what you and Lataxe are saying and have to say that you are exactly correct. If I were to make an exact copy of your works and put them on the market I would fully expect you to come after me with all guns blazing. I would be taking food from your mouths.
But it's this "exact copy" phrase that is the sticking point from a legal standpoint.(Now, before I go any further here, let me assure you that I, personally, would never do this. If I had the skill to make furnture as fine as yours I probably would have the skill to come up with my own designs and wouldn't need to steal from you in the first place.) Yes. Maybe the over-all appearance of the two works are similar. If one was in a room and the other in another room, a person walking from the first room to the other might think they are the same. But yours is several inches shorter or wider. Mine has more of a curve to the front or has three cross braces instead of four. Whatever. They're not exact copies. Yours was only an inspiration for mine.
Does that make it right? Depends on which side of the issue you're standing. You, believing yourself to be the originator, will say, "Hell no! It doesn't make it right!" But me, believing that my piece is essentially an original inspired by your design, would say that it is.
This is where lawyers (real ones. Not imitation "internet" ones) and the courts would get involved.I spent a fortune on deodorant until I finally realized that people didn't like me anyway.
Regarding the student you mentioned... I think it's fine for some artists not to take kindly to their work being copied for any reason. They seemed to have earned that right. Besides, there is more than enough fodder to get a woodworking student through a show - lots of pieces that could have been built to showcase talent without offending anybody.
The non-response to the request to copy should have absolutely been interpreted as a "no."
I think some of you are taking it a little far. If a guy copies from a photo what someone else did for his own use this is not like he is steeling the other guys baby from the bassinet. He is also not taking money from the guy as he would not have bought it in the first place. And also keep in mind that if you put something in the mags then you are in effect putting it out in the world for the world to see and use.
Admittedly this is a personal believe but then again that is what this subject is about. IF you think it is wrong don't do it. But I don't see people having issues with someone building a kitchen cabinet that looks like one you can buy at Lowes. And if you copied that you are building something that someone else makes money on. I am willing to bet that at least half of the people here started wood working (well us non professionals) because we looked at something and said I could build myself something just a nice if not better then that! Did we exactly copy it no. But we did start with that idea. I have a couple tables in my living room that I build from no plans or photo's but just from an idea. However if you looked at them they are a pretty common design, and I am sure that someplace someone is making them. So someone had to have had the original idea that I effectively stole.
As for the living or dead idea I don't get that. It is morally ok to steal from a dead guy who can't protect himself but not from a living guy? Why is that? Because the dead guy can't build more so he can't make money from this anyway? If that is the case then you are in effect saying that it is morally ok to steal from anyone that is not being hurt financially. So if the wood worker you stole the idea from was Bill Gates this would be ok because he does not need the money? How about if we look at it the other way. I would never pay someone to build me furniture. I just would not do it. So I can build anything I want from any design I want because I am not costing the guy anything as I would never have paid him for it in the first place so he did not lose anything.
I guess I just don't get this. I allwas looked at it as if you put it out their for people to see then it is fair game as long as you don't make money off of it. Kind of like share ware on computers. If you don't want someone to use your design I would suggest that you don't send photos of it out to magazines and such.
An no I would not be personally offended if someone took a design I worked on with my coworkers and used it form something else of course in this industry that I am in they would never build an exact copy as their are too many variables. But they can (and at other places I have worked) have, and as long as it did not effect me and my company personally that was just that. I mean if your neighbor paints his door green are you going to loose sleep because you painted yours green also?
Oh well that is my 2cents.
Doug Meyer
"And also keep in mind that if you put something in the mags then you are in effect putting it out in the world for the world to see and use."No! If I publish a photo they yes I'm showing the work to the world. But no, I am not granting the world permission to use my unique idea. And if Lowes starts selling kitchen cabinets that are in some manner unique or one of a kind, you can bet your bippy that they'll be aggressively defending their intellectual property. As it is now, theirs and most others sell cabinets whose designs have long been in the public domain.
Doug,
<<As for the living or dead idea I don't get that. It is morally ok to steal from a dead guy who can't protect himself but not from a living guy? Why is that? >>
No, it is not morally ok to steal from a dead guy. The difference here is mainly legal, but also moral. Copyright/trademark/patent protection is not forever; it runs out after a specified number of years or at the holder's death (or at a specified number of years after the holder's death). At that time, it becomes public domain, and all are free to use it as they please, without permission, royalties, etc.
The moral aspect of this is that we have all agreed -- indirectly, through our representatives in Congress writing and passing the appropriate laws -- that this is the way we want to handle intellectual property. The originator of the idea/concept/device/etc. benefits financially during the period of protection, and then the rest of us -- or the next generation -- are also able to benefit in whatever way after it becomes public domain; we also may benefit in some way while the copyright/patent/trademark protection still applies, because the device, etc., in some way betters our lives.....
<<I guess I just don't get this. I allwas looked at it as if you put it out their for people to see then it is fair game as long as you don't make money off of it. Kind of like share ware on computers. If you don't want someone to use your design I would suggest that you don't send photos of it out to magazines and such. >>
Items that are published in magazines (books, films, etc.) may have patent/copyright/trademark protections. The purpose(s) of publishing them could be any of many reasons: education, advertising, to enhance one's reputation, advocating some cause, etc., etc., etc. For some things -- furniture plans, for example -- what you are really buying is often very similar to what you are buying when you "purchase" software: you're actually buying a license to use those plans/that software, which also includes whatever restrictions the intellectual property owner decides to impose. You don't actually own -- nor have you purchased -- the actual design or software; that belongs to the intellectual property owner. You've merely paid a royalty for the (limited) use of their idea/product. So...no, you don't just get to take the ideas, etc., found in magazines, books, etc., to use for your own, at least not without permission from (and possibly payment to) the intellectual property owner.....
Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
Edited 12/27/2006 2:22 pm by pzgren
Oh I understand the legal mumbo for the most part, for instance when you buy plans from an Arch you are NOT allowed to build as many of said building as you feel like, you are allowed to build the one you bought the plans for (this is typical, as always this may vary buy arch.) A while back I built an entertainment center based on plans form a mag. for a book case. The plans gave me the right to build a book case for personal use but not for sale. They did NOT give me the right to build it as an entertainment center. So that is a legal question for the lawyers. Still I did not worry about it for morally I think I was in the clear. On the other side of that coin. I changed more then a few things about the case so that it only resembled the book case from the article. Most likely this would have legal allowed me to sell my "inspired" entertainment center but I would not have as I personally felt that morally that would be wrong, as I know it was based on another guys work. Today if you visited me and asked about the entertainment center I would say that I built it but I would not claim to have designed it. And if you asked about the design I would point you back to the mag. article. Because that is what I feel is morally right.
I think the issue is we need to separate the argument here. Are we talking legal or moral? Legally I am willing to bet that their is NOTHING that can be done about someone building a basic copy from a photo as long as they are not selling it, for legally I don't think you can prove a hardship was created, and their will be enough differnences to make the argument of duplication hard to prove. As for the guy building and selling them, well that is a different story. Then again that will depend on how close the an exact duplicate he is making and where the guy that is being duplicated got his idea. For example the reason that Apple could do nothing about Windows is that contrary to popular opinion Apple did not invent GUI or the mouse they saw the idea at Xerox's Parc (Palo Alto Research Center) where xerox had two computers using a mouse and a GUI linked together with what would be called (today) eithernet. So when Apple came out with this idea and then Microsoft followed they could do nothing about it as both companies could point to Xerox before them. Same issue happened in another hobby of mine Company A said they invented a way to do speed control on an electric motor and sued company B, Company B pointed out that the world has had electronic constant speed control on motors for years and the whole thing was drooped. Remember that for the most part the idea is NOT protected it is the THING that is protected. For instance the actual copyright of a book protects the wording of the book not the idea those words represent. That is why you have some many books that are SO alike in basic idea. To prove the "Idea" was stolen you have to go to a LOT of work and usually it fails in the court of law. Their are a lot of books about boy wizards out their and some of them have them going to schools for magic (and some of them are older then the HP books) So it is hard to say who originated what and how close a copy has to be to be a "copy" vs and "Inspired buy" design. That is why law is a better field then word working I am afraid.
As for Morals well that is a different line. Personally I do NOT think it is immoral to take an idea that you saw someplace that someone else put out their for you to see (in this case I think we are talking about an article in a mag vs an add?) and build yourself something as long as you are not selling it or taking credit for it. I view this pretty much the same as the guy quoting someone else as long as he attributes the quote morally he is in the clear. But that is my opinion and you may have a different one. The reality is such that each of us has to make a judgement here for themselves.
I think that a lot of people on the forum make a living doing wood work (and my hat is off to all of you) and they seam to be a bit concerned about protecting their craft (rightly so) but protecting your craft and yourself from financial damage does not meet the same test as to something being morally ok. It is possible that someone could legal do something and it is not moral or that something that is moral is not legal. I mean OJ got off from the crime but was found financially liable for the act. (For example) I just think that a lot of people are trying to say that because it is legal it is moral or because it is not moral it is illegal and I see this as two different issues. For the legal issue if you are concerned talk to a lawyer and when the other guy talks to a different lawyer you can both talk to a judge (then another Judge and then another). But morally speaking I think that this is something you have to ask yourself and as I have said if no one is hurt buy it and they guy put it out their for people to see then I would not lose sleep over it. But that is my opinion.
Doug Meyer
Doug,
<<I think the issue is we need to separate the argument here. Are we talking legal or moral?>>
I'm not so sure that we can really do that. The law is based on morality and reflects -- however imperfectly -- the prevailing morality. Remember...the entire idea behind Western law is to render "justice" -- whether that concerns something as important as a murder or whether is concerns something as comparatively unimportant to society as a whole as a dispute between two neighbors about where the dividing line between their two properties actually is. What is seen as "justice" depends almost completely on morality, and where morality and the law diverge, there is often a perception of injustice, even though the action complies with the law....
_____
If you take this one step further, perhaps you'll see the point. Aside from the moral implications, intellectual property is protected for very practical reasons: without that protection, few would bother to innovate. Like it or not, self-interest is one of the most powerful motivators out there. If one cannot somehow benefit from one's hard work -- regardless of whether it is physical labor or intellectual labor, or a combination of both -- then why bother?
One of the best ways to encourage people to exert themselves is to allow them to benefit from those exertions. Intellectual property rights (laws) are one way to do that. The interests of the individual are protected by allowing him/her to benefit from his/her innovation through the application of patent/copyright/trademark protections, while the best interests of society are protected by making the intellectual property rights limited in nature and scope, and by encouraging that innovation in the first place.
If one were free to simply take another's ideas and apply them for one's own benefit, with nothing going to the innovator, how long do you think people would continue to innovate, or at least to make those innovations public? There would likely be a significant reduction in the number of new ideas/products/processes/etc. being developed, and perhaps even the return of something similar to the old guild system, where the "Arts & Mysteries" of the guild were closely-held secrets, along with the stagnation that would entail. As a rather obvious example, under such circumstances, this forum either wouldn't exist at all, or its participants would be restricted to guild members only. All of us who were not "official" woodworkers simply wouldn't be allowed in, and this current exchange of ideas would likely not be taking place either.....
The basic idea behind this is exactly why capitalist societies are reasonably successful -- despite the many imperfections -- and why communist/socialist societies don't work.
_____
So...I rather doubt that any of my assertions will change your mind on this subject. Instead, I'll simply provide a little food for thought. You can take it from there.Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
James,
You ask,
"If one were free to simply take another's ideas and apply them for one's own benefit, with nothing going to the innovator, how long do you think people would continue to innovate, or at least to make those innovations public"?
A good question but the answer you assume (that people wouldn't innovate) is not as obvious as you may think.
In a society where you have (a) been conditioned to believe that there is no point innovating (or doing anything) unless you are paid for it; and (b) others can be paid for your innovation, if they pinch it - then you are right. But there are many "innovations" made other than for money; and the innovators are just dying for you to copy them.....Consider any school playground and its motivations.
This is the flip side of our very human propensity to copy - we also love to be copied. If you take away the (fleeting) economic model of capitalism, then you realise that human history is littered with actual and would-be heroes who innovate in the hope we will copy them, not for money. In the words of Machiavelli, they seek "power and glory".
Money tends to equate with power (if not glory) in our society today; but this was not so in many other kinds of social organisation (never mind the tiny blip of communism, whatever that was - fascism in disguise, in practice and certainly not the only alternative to democratic capitalism). Money = power/glory need not be the case in the future. Indeed, the evolution of cuture (including economics) will see to that. It is not the case now, in every sphere of human endeavour; why do you and I try to make better furniture - it ain't the money.
Capitalism and the associated attempt to productise ideas (and everything else) chimes with some very basic human traits and behaviours, true. It would not be so virulent otherwise. But it also goes against some other human traits - specifically our overwhelming inclination to copy.
Magazines like FWW actually bridge the gap in a clever way. They encourage us to copy and they make money out of that - the dialectic at work!
Lataxe
Wow, this is a serious group of woodworkers! Perhaps some taking themselves to seriously, i think. Sorry, i just have a hard time believing that most if not all artists, woodworkers or whatever, have not done copies of some sort in their life. In art school, having students do copies of dead and living artists is a common learning skill. These copies are put up on the walls in the classroom and then at home. Not sold as originals. We all learn by copying. Variations on a theme are the norm. And the notion that "if you are any sort of a competent woodworker you would not copy", is a little pretentious. It would be fun to put this to the test by taking pictures of every piece the puriests here have ever made and see if an expert could not find examples of copying major concepts of form or function. I urge the original post woodworker to go ahead, copy, learn, enjoy, try some variations, and my guess is that with time these learned skills and experience will lead to more originality and enjoyment of the craft. No harm done except to the sensiblities of some very serious woodworkers here.
marc
Be glad you didn't sit next to me in high school algebra class -- you would have failed every exam.
Musicians have taken inspiration from the work of others for centuries, what comes first to my mind, for example, are the "variations on a theme of Hyden by Brahms".
As long as proper credit is given !C.
Good composers borrow ideas from other composers.
Great composers steal outright.
I am simply amazed at the extent of linguistic gyrations that some of you go through to justify taking/using that which doesn't belong to you. The only conclusion I can come to is that you have never had an original thought that you've been able to sucessfully execute. Because if you'd had done this you would know just how difficult it is and how many failures occur along the way. You might then respect the efforts of others.
Quite abrasive talk there Sapwood, I am not sure there is the need for it.
All my work is my own design, if I don't design it I don't build it. I do understand though for somebody who is not blessed with imagination, to seek inspiration in someone else's work.
Some of my work has inspired talented woodworkers, I am flattered.C.
"I am simply amazed at the extent of linguistic gyrations that some of you go through to justify taking/using that which doesn't belong to you."
Sapwood, almost everything we see and hear in the world around us is derivative. At college anyone teaching design will routinely instruct students to take one or more items, from an egg to a cogwheel and produce a design based upon elements in the chosen item(s) - a form of derivation. So, you see, there is very little original design at all - most work by it's nature is to a greater or lesser extent derivative. If you take a piece a copy it slavishly, i.e. make a true copy, I feel it is immoral (let alone illegal) to pass that off either as your own work or as the work of the original artist/craftsman. If you are making a piece for your own enjoyment and use then I can see no problems, however, if like the student mentioned in one of Sgain Dubhs responses you are making a piece which will be exhibited in the public domain where you are in part advertising your design skills then you are certainly guilty of passing off the design skills of another as your own, which is potentially illegal as well as being ethically questionable.
"The only conclusion I can come to is that you have never had an original thought that you've been able to sucessfully execute."
That sums up many people in this life. But I'd question whether anything you've ever made isn't just as derivative. I know that many of the pieces I've designed and made commercially, whilst not copies, certainly owe many elements of design to greater designers than myself. And long may it so be
Scrit
Sapwood,
I gotta agree with Citrouille and Scrit. You are pointing your finger at others (in a rather unneeded tone) when you are just as guilty of what you are accusing others of.
If you have ever made anything round, square, rectangular, etc., you are copying someone else. If you ever made butt joints, dovetails, fingerjoints, dadoes, etc., you are guilty according to your definition. Etc., et al.
The real problem is copying Maloof or Stickley, etc., and passing if off as their's. Short of that, its yours.
Alan - planesaw
What does "copy" mean in this discussion? I suspect several different interpretations are floating around.
One is to make as exact a reproduction as possible with the goal being that if the original and copy were put side by side it would be very difficult to impossible to tell the difference. I suspect most folks would agree that is generally the wrong thing to do if the originator of the original is injured.
Beyond that it's a matter of many shades of grey, and somewhere in that grey is the obscure line between right and wrong. Also legal and illegal though that isn't always the same as right and wrong.
As several have said virtually all design, particularly of anything functional, is derivative to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes the originator of a design doesn't realize or has forgotten what the design was derived from. That doesn't give carte-blanche to exactly copy a derivative design. But following a similar path of derivation may well be permissable.
sapwood,
As one who builds primarily reproductions of antiques, I've followed this thread with interest. The differentiation posed by some that copying is okay only if the originator of the design is dead is an interesting one. However, I have had at least one experience of having a museum claim ownership of the design of an antique, by virtue of owning the piece. That is, legal action was threatened for copying, even from a photo. And I've worked for private owners of antiques who expressly forbid the copying of the objects in their collection.
Without getting into the area of derivation being "original" or not,I suppose that those of us who build reproductions must of necessity be in that group who have never had an original thought. Doubtless those musicians who are content to only play music written by composers long dead, instead of writing their own compositions, fall into the same pitiable category (that of being unable to successfully execute).
Personally, the efforts of the large majority of "original" furniture designers look strained and contrived to me. Perhaps the reason that successful original design is so difficult nowadays is that to attain the level of originality, the maker must venture perilously near to the realm of ugliness. To paraphrase Wallace Nutting, (credit where due) Hogarth defined the ogee curve as "the line of beauty" in the 18th century. Of course, it was used long before then, and every permutation of it from the straight line to the most contorted "S" imaginable has been explored to the nth degree. If to draw an original curve requires that it look like a snake with a bellyache (Nutting again), then I'll be content with with my un-original recreation of the work of the 18th and early 19th century, thank you very much. After all, "A man's got to know his limitations" (dirty Harry Callahan).
Regards,
Ray Pine
I have had at least one experience of having a museum claim ownership of the design of an antique, by virtue of owning the piece.
LOL, in the U.S., at least, there is nothing that can be owned; i.e., antique furniture is too old to have a design patent, and no other form of intellectual property can be embodied in it.
'same for the self-important private owners.
Doubtless those musicians who are content to only play music written by composers long dead...
The subject of music has come up several times on this thread, but the law treats music much, much differently than the design of utilitarian objects such as furniture. Forms of artistic expression such as music, writing, painting, sculpture, plays, etc., acquire copyright the instant they are affixed to a tangible medium. Utilitarian objects, and/or the ornamental aspects of them, must be patented, or there is no intellectual property associated with them that can be "owned", or "stolen" (or more precisely, infringed by) another party.
Edited 12/28/2006 10:16 pm by BarryO
I suppose the museum claims that its control of the access to an antique, to take a photo for example, gives it control of the fruits of that access. I'll bet that the museum making a claim to own the design has a licencing agreement to sell furniture based on items in the collection.
And, I suppose that some distinctive piece or the other may be used as a trademark of the museum, and give the museum some rights. Pretty much a stretch.
And, of course, they probably can prevent use of the museum's name in association with a piece.
Edited 12/29/2006 12:28 am ET by SteveSchoene
Lots of opinion tossed back and forth here. But after everything is said and done, Furniture has very little to No protection. Moral issues aside, Furniture cannot be copyrighted. Art can be. This doesn't mean there's no protection, just no blanket coverage. The way I understand the law, a certain construction technique or joint can be Patented. A name or descriptive word associated with the piece can be Trademarked. And an Artistic portion of the piece can be copyrighted. But overall, because furniture has a "Utility" purpose it can't be protected under a Copyright. My belief is, the copyright laws were enacted to prevent the copying of works such that the consumer is convinced the copy is an original. I've always read that Sam Maloof is very generous with his knowledge, sharing instruction and techique with others knowing full well they intend to produce chairs in a similar style as his. Why should he worry, the people that purchase his rockers don't buy them because they want and need a rocker, they buy a "Sam Maloof" rocker. They purchase his "signature" which has more value than the chair.I think a lot of Furnituremakers and Artists let there Ego get in the way, afterall the buyer that you really want to do business with will desire your "Mark" or Signature versus just a piece of furniture, which by the way can be purchased very cheaply nowadays. EarlFurniture...the Art of a FurnitureMaker
I am simply amazed at the extent of linguistic gyrations that some of you go through to justify taking/using that which doesn't belong to you. The only conclusion I can come to is that you have never had an original thought that you've been able to sucessfully execute. Because if you'd had done this you would know just how difficult it is and how many failures occur along the way. You might then respect the efforts of others.
Amen.
I may very well never have an original design idea, but if and when I do (I certainly aspire to) it would be nice to think it might be 'mine' for at least a little while before the jackals on this board start to copy it and then write dissertations (however obtuse) and legal briefs to justify their actions. It would be most pleasant, don't you think, to develop a saleable, recognizable style that would improve my economic circumstances and not have it ripped off - at least until I'm dead when it wouldn't matter.
I sketch constantly. I don't intend to quit trying my hand at design.
Edited 12/29/2006 7:36 am ET by CStanford
Hey,
I'm thinking of building a kitchen table. Do any of you feel that I would be sealing some one else's ideas if I was to use four legs? Or should I go with two?I spent a fortune on deodorant until I finally realized that people didn't like me anyway.
I think you better go with about 29 legs as i have had a table with only 2 legs :)
Doug Meyer
Doug, you might be interested to know that just a few days ago I was sent an email by someone asking if they could buy plans off me and, for their own use, remake the piece from those plans.
This is the second time this particular person has asked to reproduce one of my pieces. I said yes last time, and said yes again yesterday. I packaged up the information and sent it off. I expect to find through my letterbox an international money order for GB£25 in about a week.
If you're going to copy the work of a designer, or modify the design of a piece by that person, it sometimes makes it a lot easier if you get the originator of the piece on your side. I'm always willing to help out someone with design and technical questions that approach me in that manner. It's courteous, it's honest, it's not deceitful on their part and it doesn't get my back up the wrong way.
Just nicking the damned thing that I spent years developing the skill, knowledge and ability to create, and then thinking to oneself it's alright to do so, just because it's "out there" gets my goat. Most of the time however I'm neither rich enough nor vindictive enough to make the perpetrator's lives miserable.
However, if I was super-rich and found someone infringing my intellectual property, I might truly, truly enjoy the process of making their lives miserable for months on end whilst I buried them under a legal hell, even if I eventually lost. Why would I enjoy it? Because I'd be rich enough and I could afford it, which is as good a reason to do it as anyone helping themselves to someone elses ideas for commercial gain just because "they're out there, in full view."---- And I want a piece of that.
Two wrongs certainly wouldn't make a right, but the legal judgements seem to mostly go where the money is, not where the right is.
Anyway, I've said all I want to say on this topic. I need to go and do some design work as all my other ideas have been 'borrowed' by other makers and aren't worth anything to me now, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Ok let me try this again. I DON'T do this. I have NEVER copied anything from anyone else except two pieces based on plans from a mag. Also I am NOT a pro wood worker. I do architectural design for a company that does retail design work like restaurants and stores. I know about the idea of doing a design and then someone else taking it and doing something pretty much the same (in the building industries it is unusual to be able to duplicate something exactly as your space will differ or your base building will be a little off or you need to meet different codes or what have you)
That being that, I do NOT think it is ok for someone to copy your work and then turn around and either claim it for themselves or to sell it and make money. In the hypothetical question above I don't thing that the new table design should be sold buy the guy because you based some design ideas off his work and it looks like something he would make. You designed it, so it is yours.
HOWEVER, I do not see how it can be wrong for someone alive today to copy your work but if you are hit by a drunk driver new Years eve it then becomes fine for that person (who was in the wrong today) to start selling duplicates of your work on Tuesday. IF you want to tell me that I am wrong (and a lot of you have tired) then you MUST tell me how Selling your stuff on Friday was wrong but on Tuesday it was ok just because you died over the weekend.
Wrong is wrong. And if you are going to say that copying with out permission is wrong today (when you are alive) then it will still be wrong when you are dead and it will still be wrong in a thousand years when they are using replicators to make the table out of thin air. Wrong is wrong.
Now if you think it is ok to copy them Tuesday when the guy is dead then you are saying that it is only wrong to copy with out permission when the guy is alive because he is sure not going to give you permission after he is dead. And you can't justify that except for the fact that you will not be hurting him financially. And if that is the deciding factor then ANYTIME someone copies him in a way as to avoid hurting him financially it is ok. And no one making a copy for personal use is really hurting the guy.
You can not pick the time it is ok and the times it is not ok to please yourself you must be consistent or you are just justifying a position that is useful to you and then abandoning it when it is not useful to you. The moral guy will not steal when he is being watched but he will also not steel when no one will ever catch him, that is what makes him moral.
I am sorry to say it but I think that a lot of people here are trying to justify their point of view that protects their business interest with a moral argument. (Don't get me wrong I have nothing but respect for anyone good enough to make a living at this, and I know a few people that have gone under of late in that line of work because of the times we live in vs. anything they did)
But just because you want it to be so, in order to allow you to keep doing what you are doing does not make it so. Fact is that pretty much anyone in this wood working bit (hobby or pro) is copying something form someone else. Be it the ogee talked about above or the dovetail joint or the mortise and tenon joint or the look of an arts and craft piece or anything else. Thing is I don' t think that anyone thinks this is wrong (legally or morally) But if you copy someone who is trying to make a living doing this you are now considered morally bankrupt? I am sorry but I don't see how this works. As long as you are not hurting the other guy directly then you are no more doing something wrong then the guy that is using a dovetail joint is, after all I don't see you all pointing to every dovetail you have ever made and giving credit to what ever unknown wood working developed that idea.
IF you want to say it is ok to copy something as long as the originator is dead (something I don't see how you can do) then I have a better idea for how to handle this. Instead of making a copy of the work the guy is doing today (when it is wrong to copy him) what our home wood worker is really doing is making a copy of this pro woodworkers future antique furniture. He is just doing it now (while the home woodworker is still able to make it) so that someday his great grand kids will have a copy of the piece. In the mean time while he is waiting for the guy to drop off and those grand kids to be born he will just keep it at his home for safe keeping. After all it is ok to make a copy of something once the guy dies. So while it is a no no know as soon as he is dead the copy because perfectly fine. :-)
So be my guest say I am wrong all you want but if you are going to say it is wrong to copy with out permission then it is wrong to copy with out permission and I will expect to see a long list of people that are sending out letters to ask all the woodworkers of the past that developed our designs and technics that we use for permission to use their ideas. I think that while you are waiting for permission from that long dead woodworker to use his dovetail and the other guys mortise and such that you better go down to the local store and buy a lemello bisket jointer (or who ever invented this idea)and get permission to use this so that you can make some sort of joint that is not a copy of some other guys work that you cant get permission to use. After all the reason you can't get permission to copy someone has nothing to do with you not being able to copy him and his being dead is as good of a reason for not giving you permission as his not wanting you to copy him because he makes money selling them.
And while you are at it you better invent a new way of cutting wood as the guy that invented the saw did not give you permission to copy his idea and remember just because you can do something legally (Like make a basic copy of a table) that does not mean it is morally right for you to do so. So being all morally upstanding people that we are I guess we will just have to find new hobbies (or businesses) as this one uses to many things that were developed or invented or designed so long ago that we can no longer get permission to use them and after all if you can't get permission to copy an idea then you better not copy it.
So I guess this is good by to all of use here as I expect Taunton will be closing up shop as most of what they do is based on ideas from long ago and thus are copies (with out permission) and being a good corporate citizen I imaging they (and all the other magazines in the world) will realize that copying is wrong (did they ever ask Gutonburg (Sp?) if they could copy his idea of a machine that prints duplicate pages?) and so they will just close shop. Not sure what we are going to do about food as pretty much all the recipes we eat are being made by people that did not invent them but I am sure you will get used to raw beef (after all you would not want to copy that poor cave man that invented cooked beef now would you?)
Doug Meyer
PS: yes the above post is mostly ridiculous, on the face of it and a lot of it is tongue in cheek but if you want to stand their and say that this is an absolute then you also get to stand their and take everything that the absolute rule brings you. So take your pick either it is not ok to copy with out direct permision or it is ok as long as no one gets hurt.
Darn Doug, I thought my post that you replied to was so evidently tongue in cheek in the latter part you'd just smile and say something like ha, ha.
I'm not fully convinced by your description of intellectual property rights (potentially) passing into public ownership on the death of the originator.
Certainly, for example, a hospital (or hospital trust) in London (the name of which escapes me) has total control of JM Barrie's intellectual property for a few more years yet. He's been dead for close to half a century. Or perhaps it's nearly a century now? True, he was an author, not an artist or designer and the laws pertaining to written works are different. I'd need to check into it, something I don't have time for. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Sorry that was not pointed at you in perticular. I think I just hit the reply to you as the one i used. I still have not figured out the interface here all that well. That post was aimed at a lot of peaple. It is just hard to make a post that does not use the work you when talking to a lot of peaple, as we do not have a simple word for that and saying ALL OF YOU evertime is a pain. So the word you gets into the post and peaple think it is point at one person.
And it was ment to be over the top and very tongue in cheek itself. But it is sometimes hard to understand when someone is being over the top or tongue in cheek and when they are being dead serious.
Really I think this is a matter of personal opionion but I think that when peaple try to get others to go with "the one and only right way" of doing things they don't look at it over all. And as i was saying I am not going to go into the legal as I dont for the most part think the guy doing the copy is legally in danger (at least not around here) as you have to show what law he broke and how you were harmed buy it and you can't prove harm because he built a copy that he keeps in his living room.
As for my when he dies the next day you are ok to copy it, that was more of a point then a techincallity. I was trying to point out that no one seams to think that a guy that is long dead has any moral right to be protected. And I dont understand why a dead guy is any less deserving of not being copied then a live guy. But everyone that responds (well a lot of them anyway) to this thread seams to ignore that we are coping the dead guys stuff allready. It is like we have a 400 pund ape in the room and we are ignoreing it to complaine about a 3 pound cat. As far as I can tell we are doing this because some peaple seam to be illergic to the cat. And yeah it is over the top but it was ment to be.
I just dont think you can't say in one fell swope what is alwas right or what is alwas wrong for everyone. And I don't think that just because you are making a living at something you are morally any more deserving of protection from being copied then a hobbiest or a dead guy is. I think you are moreally protect from geting HARMED by a copy but that is about it. The reason no one cares about the dead guy is that it is hard to harm someone that is dead and the longer dead he is the harder it gets. So as far as I can tell some around her agree that as long as you are not harming the dead guy it is ok to copy him but if you are "Not harming" the living guy you still should not copy him. And I just do not see how you can say both things. Either it is left of it is right.
Just my opioinion. And once again this is not really directed at anyone in perticular. IF for no other reason then I have not been on this board long enought to know anything about most of you. I just have issues with peaple that want to protect what they are doing from other but not limit themselfs and then try to justify it. I understand peaple that want to protect themselves this is only natural, but don't pretend that it is for the greater good or becasue it is the right thing to do. Protect yourselve becasue you should protect yourself.
Over were I live we have a bunch of peaple that moved out of the city to the suburbs and built huge houses and now that they are thier they dont want any more peaple moving in as they like to see the trees and such (that they do not own) so they are now trying to stop the building of new houses and buisness because it is urban sprale. All that is, is an attemtp to protect personal interests and they are finding a "moral" reason to wrape the fight up in. And i see this as becoming very simular.
Real freedom of speach means protecting the right of everyone to speak freely even those who are saying things that you can not stand to here. Not just the newspaper that agrees with your point of view.
Please understand I am not saying that my moral opion is the correct one. I am saying that the one that others are trying to tell me is the correct one has large holes in it and as I can not see how it is better (or even as good)
And it is not so much that i am pasinate about this I am just a wordy person by nature and i have a lot of time on my had right now as things are slow between the holidays.
Doug Meyer
Doug,
Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. None of these short postings anymore.
Rich
Rich,
Yeah as I said else where I am a bit wordy and I happen to have time on my hands so everyone here gets to enjoy my posts
Doug Meyer
yikes! this is a passionate discussion. here's a twist i just thought about: suppose i buy a plan to build a piece that is a recognizable style and begin to build it. part way through i redesign part of the piece to suit myself. the completed piece is still recognizable of the originator's style, but it has my obvious deviation from the plan. anyone see a problem with there?
No problem...modify to your heart's content. You paid for the plans and I expect you did not sign a document that says you will build exactly as per plan without any deviation and should you deviate you will need to give up that which you value most in your life. (I say this with a smile)
At this point in the discussion, after reading all the posts at least once and some of the posts once too often, I need to get the following off my chest. Discussions of ethics and philosophy always polarize the participants. Each person is putting forth their argument and actually expects the others to be blown away by the truth and logic presented...and to capitulate to that point of view. It is not going to happen and eventually fences start to be built and then walls, because the fence is no longer high enough to keep the infidels out of the sacred land.
Our creative vision, it was called the mind's eye in a previous post, incorporates all that we consciously see and take in as something we want to work with, and also things we unconsciously take in and adopt as our own. We will all swear on a stack of the holy book we hold sacred that our newest creation was 100% original design...and we will be wrong (and right). The originality is in the specific blending of all the things we have received and taken from our experiences. These formative experiences were catalyzed by other individuals, their words, their support, their rejections and their direction. No one, not a single one of us, and not even the great people we look up to, have created their ''original designs'' in a vacuum. They all learned and developed with the help of others, whether consciously or unconsciously.
All work has individual merit. We learn techniques through the act of copying these techniques. We fine tune the various techniques and when we are proficient enough with our tools and we understand the nature of the materials we use, we may allow ourselves the spiritual voyage that is called inspiration. Is the final work after such an inspiration truly original? It doesn't matter a bit what others think. It is our inspiration and not theirs that we are concretizing by building what we saw in our mind's eye. Revel in this experience and do not allow other's to spoil the experience by questioning the originality of the work.
The market place takes care of that which is commercialized unfairly and what is private...well, it stays private.
Enjoy what you build. JL
I'm late to this discussion and as I see it there seems to have been a lot of vague moralizing and not too many practical real world solutions or examples given. So, I will tell Y'all what I've done and plan to do in relation to this issue and Y'all can blast away! :)
I have just established a website that I am trying to put together for more advertisement. On this website I will have original designs.( no 1 legged tables so maybe not THAT original) I also plan on having some filler pictures of other work. This I consider to be my "student" work. These are pieces built from plans or from looking at things and drawing "inspiration" from them and I wouldn't call different enough to be called original. These pictures will be captioned "Designed by XXX executed as an example of craftsmanship not for sale" or "Inspired by XXX etc..." depending on the individual piece.
Some will say that I am using someone else's design to advertise my business. I believe that this would be a fair use as full credit is given for the design and no attempt is being made sell these pieces. Morally I am doing some CYA by these caveats, legally there are no restrictions for this use in the fine print of these plans. I have only one that does have restrictions but the restriction is that they expect a royalty if this design is sold and I will gladly pay that royalty.
As to what is over the line in the real world, here is one example. I was surfing the web and came across a "makers" site that had a picture of a very nice cabinet on it not at alllike the style of the rest of the site. I realized that I had seen this piece before. I checked a site I had visited and bookmarked earlier and sure enough this was the exact same picture that the" maker"was passing as his own work and it wasn't even a piece he had made just a lifted picture. I emailed the original real maker and it was taken care of. "The offending picture was removed" is a paraphrase of what the real maker emailed me as a reply. ;)
So is my website plan immoral? illegal? not cricket?
Am I blinded by my own ambition?
As for the OP, If this guy/gal doesn't sell plans for personal or what ever use,contact the original maker if you want to make a faithful repro. You might even get some drawings to help you.
PCWoodworks asks: "So is my website plan immoral? illegal? not cricket?"One big mistake that people make is to think that woodworking is sui generis, that it's different from anything else. It isn't. So it's a little like music. If I meet a guitarist, I want to know if he can play riffs like Duane Allman, or like Clapton, or like Steve Vei. I want to know what he can do.There's nothing immoral, illegal, or anti-cricket about it. Until people are copying your work, showing work that you've done using other people's designs is perfectly kosher.
After ploughing through this thread in one go (I got the headache to prove it) I'm reminded of a couple of things...
First one was the legal story about Black and Decker's prosecution of any and all imitations of the Workmate.. Last I heard they'd yet to loose a suit for breech of copyright irrespective of whether the model they took umbrage was an exact clone of their original or something that had a feature that vaguely resembled one of theirs...
The other thing was somethin you said here a while back, that as woodworkers, the fruit of our labour should be thought of as functional art... how hard is it to duplicate a piece, right down to faithful reproductions of every tool mark left on every joint, both visible and concealed?? Personally, I make no attempt to slavishly emulate anyone... I'd guess the closest I've come to infringement of anything would be copying some basic proportions from a set of (bought em... honest guv) plans...
How many changes separate an exact duplicate from an imitation?? How many more between said imitation and an "inspired by"?? How much absolutely original design was in the piece being imitated in the first place??
Personally... I reckon it's far easier (for me at any rate) doing things the way I have been.... designing a piece that fits the requirements of the end user while (hopefully) having some connection or sympathy for its final environment... last I heard, G plan was in the public domain.. right...?? ;)Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
TODDLER'S CREED If I want it, it's mine.If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine.If I can take it away from you, it's mine.If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.If it's mine, it will never belong to anybody else, no matter what.If we are building something together, all the pieces are mine.If it looks just like mine, it is mine.
No, that is the creed of my Brothers, in regard to my tools.
And, if they can't snag it they will buy one like it, so they can snag the accessories, if I forget to mark them.
And once again we are back to the argument that to copy someone while they are alive is bad but to copy someone when they are dead is ok. This to me makes no since what so ever. IF copy = bad then it always will.
I prefer my version, if you copy someone and give the full credit and you don't sell the product or in some other way cause direct harm to the original designer then you are ok.
If you want to argue any other point fine, but please explain why it is ok to copy form the dead guy and not the living guy. I just don't see the difference.
Doug Meyer
Edited 12/29/2006 8:33 am ET by DougMeyer
Contact Mr. Maloof and tell him you are about to produce a line of exact copies of his work and perhaps he will enlighten you. Chairs and tables with four legs and all.
Capece?
Here's the web address to the Maloof Foundation. Please, be my guest:
http://www.malooffoundation.org/
I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear from you, Doug.
Edited 12/29/2006 9:14 am ET by CStanford
This is just the point that a lot of us are trying to make:
We're not talking about making exact copies. That is palgerism, theft or whatever you want to call it and IT IS WRONG!
At least I am talking about using a general idea of another woodworker and incorporating it into an idea of mine. Maybe even the ideas of several woodworkers.
Sometimes it's rathe robvious as to where an idea was taken from. Sometimes it's not.
Now. Let me throw a really big monkey wrench into the discussion...
Suppose I design and build a table in the Sam Maloof style. Something that Sam has never built but I obviously use his joinery techniques. Next thing I know, Sam himself comes out with a table very similar to mine with his name on it. It, since it has the Sam Maloof name on it, sells like crazy and causes me to go out of business (No, I am not in business now. This is all hypothetical).
Do I have a right to sue?
I spent a fortune on deodorant until I finally realized that people didn't like me anyway.
Of course you realize that the style Maloof developed is essentially of more value than the individual pieces. When I'm sketching, I'm looking for a style, a thread that might run through many actual works. This is how art works.
Maloof's style is instantly recognizable, at least most of his work from the last 25 years is.
The answer to your question is of course, no, you don't have the right to sue. You've ripped off the essence of Maloof. He should be able to sue you but probably could not. It would be easier for an artist to sue somebody making exact copies, but I should have expanded my responses in this thread to include the scenario you've laid out.
One would hope that the essential points being made here would not be lost on other woodworkers. It's really disappointing to find out otherwise.
I would urge you guys to sit down with a pencil and some paper and design something. You may very well end up with a piece "in the style of" which is okay. Sitting with sketchbook in hand with a book full of Maloof designs in front of you is not what I'm talking about. A sketchbook and a pencil and that's it. If you can't draw, take a class or buy a book. Right-brainers can learn to sketch. If what hits you is a piece that is Maloofish then build it. At the end of the day, he's not particularly worried about any of our narrow a$$es I'm sure.
Try something beyond a set of UBildIt plans. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Let me see if I get this right the "style" is now protected too? Good lord we are all doomed we will never be able to do anything ever again as if it feels like the other guys we cant do it. So that means that all the Sci Fi writen in the last 100 years needs to be destroyed and TV had better stop and start showing reruns of the 1940's
If you really believe that the style is protected (or should be) I think I understand why we disagree a bit more as thier is just no way in the world for this to be pratical. How many wood workers are thier in the world today? I don't have any idea but thier is no way in the world that thier are that may differnet ways to make furniture look. So most of them need to close up shop as what they are building feels like other peaples work.
So now we are not supposed to do exact copys (for personal use or other wise) nor even something with the same feel.
I am sorry but I think this is WAY over the top.
Doug Meyer
Way, WAY over the top.
Doug, go draw something and build it. You apparently are arguing from the perspective of never at least having tried to do something even remotely original. Beyond a basic form (a chair with four legs; a chest of drawers being a box with drawers in it) just see what you come up with. We understand your chairs will have legs and your chests of drawers will contain drawers.
See what you come up with. Lie down and clear your mind. Smoke a J. Drink a Martini. Do whatever you need to do to get into a creative state of mind. Maybe your view will change if you're on the inside looking out instead of the other way around.
I'm not talking about tweaking a Shaker or Arts and Crafts piece. Draw something from start to finish. Solve a proportion problem. Don't look at a book, magazine, or anything else. Let your only reference source be your mind's eye. See how much design sense you may have absorbed from the other projects you've built. You may surprise yourself. You've seen a lot of furniture before. Now it's time to see how WELL you've seen it. Notice a form in nature and run with it. At least TRY to do something original. Quit working from cut lists and exploded drawings.
By all means, Have Fun.
Edited 12/29/2006 1:10 pm ET by CStanford
To CStanford, Whom ever you are.
Ok I have tried to keep this in a general since but now I have to ask this directly. Do you even READ any of the posts other then yours? What part of any post I have made gives you to think that I "never at least having tried to do something even remotely original" ? I have said in several of these post that I have only used an mag article as the basis of two pieces of work. One of them was a basic design for a book case that I used (read interpreted) to build an entertainment center. I have also stated in various posts that I am a hobbyist (I don't make my living off wood working), but that I have been doing this hobby for years. Now maybe it takes you years to build only two things but........
So based on that it would stand to reason that I have done things other then building copies. I have also stated that I DON'T copy. I will state this again and maybe this time you will read what I said. I DON'T make copies of other peoples work. With permission or with out.
Also let me point out that I have stated (I think several times) that I do Architectural Design work and that I work for a Retail Design firm. So that being said you would think that just maybe I have designed a few things in my live? Hummm....... Also not stated I have done a few house designs for people, and these are also not nock offs and I did design my own house that is frankly not like anything I have personally seen.
So that being said just why is it you think that I have never done any original design? You have nothing to base this on. You know nothing about me or my back ground. For all you know I could be an award winning designer of international renown. (alas I am not) Your points are not an argument for or against the ethics of coping. They are a direct comment to me personally. And as it happens that are WRONG. I underline that so we all understand this.
You are making assumptions that you have no facts for and you are getting them wrong. Tell me do you do this a lot? The fact that I disagree with you about this issue has nothing to do with original design and having done designs of your own. You can try to dress it up all you want. Fact is I have stated repeatedly that I think that as long as the person being copied is not hurt financially then no harm no foul. This should lead you to think that maybe I have a concern for designers and builders as I am worried about their financial issues. And I do being in a related field.
You want to have fun. Design something then send the drawings out to have them butchered by someone else who either interpreted them wrong or just changed them because they could not built it the way you wanted it because they don't have the skill. Then you get to walk past something that does not look "right" and every time you see it you cringe inside because you know what it was supposed to look like. And that is not even talking about the fact that people out their think that you, the company you work for, or the designers you work with intended that to look the way it does. You don't even have the fall back of saying to yourself well they just copied me it is not my work because it is your project being as it started out as your design. I am not saying I am a skilled and talented designer I am not I am a hack, but I work with really great designers and I see what they go though and I do in my own limited ability designs and I have had this happen to me.
So now that we have shot big holes you your idea that design is some how a sacred cow, and we have done the "Mine is bigger then yours" bit, can you tell me one thing? Why do you think that it is morally wrong to copy a live guy at all with out permission but you have no problem with coping a dead guy who also never gave you permission? You can say anything you like but you still have not answered that. An unless you are not using traditional techniques you are using methods and styles invented by others.
And I would like to remind people that I have tried to make it understood that my questions where/are aimed in a general way and that this post is directly a response to one post sent to me in particular. Let me apologize to the rest of the posters on this thread as you did not need to get into this.
I think the moral question is a valid one and I think that we have basically two opinions on the subject both having valid points. I don't think that this needs to get into a "Well you have never" conversation as those of us that are hobbyist have never done a lot of things that those of you that make your living at this do. That does not mean that our opinion is any less valid. Do you have to have a relative killed by a drunk driver before you can express an opinion on driving drunk? I think not.
So in short sorry about this side trip to everyone that has had to make it.
Doug Meyer
Just a couple of thoughts on this question. First, Sam Maloof has done a video and a book showing how he builds a chair. And there is yet another book devoted to his work that shows how he makes a chair. I'm sure that it occurred to him somewhere along the line that someone was going to make a chair the way he makes a chair.Second thought. In an interview, someone asked Charles Eames what he thought about all the (commercial) copies of his Eames Lounge Chair. He answered that it didn't bother him, as long as the copy wasn't a bad copy (as most of them were). By the same token, I'll bet that Sam Maloof looks at "copies" of his rockers and sees variations (spindles, joints, etc.) that he tried or considered and discarded as unworthy.Making a copy of a Maloof rocker is, these days, a rite of passage for many woodworkers, most of whom (I'll wager) proudly sign their own names to them. The real issue is forgery, not copying.
Wait a second the guy in question did a book about his design work and how he builds these? (in truth I have no idea who he is) You are kidding me right? If that is the case then I don't see how this even becomes and issue. If you sell me a book showing me how you did something then you better expect me to do it also.
Years ago my father (before I was born) was one of the first mechanics to be able to fix AC in a car (he worked for a Cadillac dealership when this was first becoming available) and after he started doing these his friend that he had taught a lot about being a mechanic and who worked next to him asked my dad to teach him how to do this, he then offered to (and in fact did) pay my father to teach him how my father did this work. So after that point should my father have objected that this guy then started to fix AC systems the way my father did? Of course not. If you get paid to show someone how to do something you then have to expect they are going to do what you were paid to show them how to do.
Still this really only effect the original post and the argument about copying still stands as it applies to others. I do wonder if this would legally mean that anyone buying the book can then use the design to sell? I don't know but it is an interesting question.
Doug Meyer
Doug, there are books and there are books. The Maloof books are about a craftsman, and how he goes about his work. It doesn't authorize copying per se (and in fact, you still have to know a few things about technique to work out all of the details). But it does make it fairly easy to figure out how to do it.Similarly, Thomas Moser's site has "tear sheets" with measured drawings of all of the Moser pieces. I'm sure that Moser realized that some woodworkers would print out those drawings as the basis for new pieces.Intellectual property is a much more complicated business than 'this is mine and you can't have it.' The business about copying being the most sincere form of flattery is a cliche, but it's also true. Like I said, the real issue is forgery, not copying.
Riverprof.
I guess that would depend on what is the point of the book. But if you sell me a book showing me about craftsmanship and thus how to be a good craftsmen and you show in this book your technique that is what you are selling. So if I then take what I learned from the book that I bought form you (directly or from the company you sold said book to) and use it then I don't see how you can have an issue. You can't sell me a book about how to do something and then not expect me to do it.
Now if this book was about how pretty some woodwork is then you have a point you are only showing pretty wood work. But if the book is about how to (and that is what craftsmanship is) then you have to expect that people will take that knowledge and use it after all that is why they bought the book. They did not buy the book because it was a nice size to fill up the book case :) (OK maybe I bought a few books for that reason but..... I have to say I love books for books sake) Now I am not saying that they should duplicate a design for a complete piece from this but some people are saying that you have to avoid using anothers style and I would have to say that if you showed me about craftsmanship using your style then I don't see how you can expect to protect your so called style. I mean you just showed me how to do it.
Please keep in mind that I really don't really know what this style is.
Doug Meyer
Doug,I don't think we have any argument. I was making a sort of hairsplitting distinction.You should do some googling to find out about Sam Maloof, though. He is one of the great gentlemen among woodworkers, a MacArthur Fellow, a great human being. And although many woodworkers take issue with his joinery, there's no question that a Maloof rocker is a Maloof rocker.
Riverprof, I reply to your message since you were the most recent to bring up Thos. Moser in this discussion...
I've been reading this thread while mostly shaking my head and laughing. I've been woodworking for just under three years and still consider myself a noobie. Since the first time I saw Thos. Moser's work, I have been impressed with his style, the Shaker style.
My father gave me a copy of Thos. Moser's book "How to Build Shaker Furniture" for Christmas. I happened to start reading this book around the same time I saw this thread had started. I found it very interesting that in the first chapter of the book, Moser himself discusses copying furniture. Here's what he has to say:
"Thos. Moser, Cabinetmakers, began producing furniture in the Shaker style as early as 1972. In the beginning a dozen or so designs from circa 1830 were built more or less as reproductions of Shaker originals. Measured drawings were consulted and followed meticulously. There is a place for copying in the development of any craftsman. For it is through faithful imitation that certain otherwise obscure principles can be learned. Any skill, be it woodworking, oratory, or surgery, can best be learned in the shadow of a master."
I'm working on a Shaker/Moser inspired dresser for my youngest daughter. It's not an exact copy, but that's where I drew my inspiration. I'm not ashamed to admit it, in fact I have one of his catalogs on my desk at work and have been known to brag to my co-workers that I'm building something similar myself.
Oh... and I'm not going to waste Thos. Moser's time by sending him an email to ask if he will give me permission.
DarrylM, I'm glad you found that quote from Moser's book and repeated it for this discussion.In some ways, a discussion of copying isn't really suited to a discussion board like this. Knowing how, when, and what to copy is just as much a craft skill as knowing how to cut a dovetail or match grain. It's not just something that has to be learned; it's also an attitude that will be refined over the course of one's career as a woodworker, whether you are a hobbyist or you make your living in your shop.In a way, the question really isn't "is it ethical to copy" but rather, "how, what, when do you copy?"
Riverprof,
Ok two things then. If the discussion does not belong here then where should it take place as I don't have anyone else to discuss this with and learn from.
And the second thing is that I take it from what you said that this can change an their is not always one definitive answer that holds true in all cases. And that is truly my main point.
Doug Meyer
Doug,You are right to raise an objection to my last post. I shouldn't have said, or implied, that we can't have this discussion here, only that it is sort of a lifelong discussion that one has with oneself -- even better if you can have it with other woodworkers who can show you what they've copied, what they think is really original, and so on.Knowing what, when, how to copy is -- as you say -- a matter of taste. There are less and more refined tastes.Rp
As I have read these posts in this forum for the past 3 months, I can tell that there are a ton of quality woodworkers here. After beating this topic like a slow race horse, can we move on so I can learn more from you folks!
Thank-you in advance
Jeff
Woodman
Well we could but what fun would that be? :)
Sorry could not resist.
Doug Meyer
Yup, time to move along. Taking an extreme lean one way or the other usually results in a falling down-no matter what.Philip Marcou
Hi All ,
I am not trying to change the discussion topic but ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Do any of you have an opinion about the upcoming " Pay per view Hanging " to be broadcast on your local networks ,It really surprised me , do you think it is ethical or has it been done before ?
regards dusty
Riverprof,
No porblem I figured you were trying to say that this was something more in the lines of a life lesson then something that you can learn in an afternoon. And if that was your point I agree with you.
To all the rest of you.
As far as putting this topic to bed if everyone else wants to say that this is a matter for each of us to decide for themseleves i am willing to shelf this. I will even be willing to say that we just agree to disagree on this. But i wont submit to a one size fits all answer that others want to impose on peaple.
You'll find that the current iteration of Thos. Moser is VERY sensitive to copying.
He's more than thrilled if you copy a 200 year old Shaker piece. Take a crack at copying one of his Shaker interpretations (for profit mind you) and see what kind of ire you draw.
You won't like it.
I've been lurking, and following this thread from the beginning, and found it interesting.
I just went to the Thos. Moser site and looked at the "original pieces", I didn't see any that aren't derivative of someone else's work, done in most cases with in the last century. Most of his "original" stuff bears striking resemblance to a raft of things you can see if you just go to eBay and enter the search string ' ("danish modern", eames, "mid century"), and look in the antiques-furniture category. I troll eBay frequently with this search to look at mid century designs for thing's I might want to emulate.
Not to put anyone down, but unless you are working with a new process or medium, like Eames, and the molded plywood, that he and others experimented with and perfected prior to WW-II, there really isn't much chance of any nonderivative work.
Virtually everything I see that is well proportioned, and any joint or method that is practical, can be traced back to something, someone else has done before.
The table being "copied" that started this thread, is very much derivative of reinforced concrete bridges designed by Monier. And, in fact was designed as an interpretation in wood, of an arch bridge, done at the request of an editor who posed the problem to two wood workers. Both designs were attractive, and had their merits. If I were to do the design, it would have a torsion box arch, with a wooden deck, and would be instantly recognizable to most Civil or Structural Engineers as a wooden model of a Monier bridge. It would also incorporate the graceful curves that ib Kofod Larsen ,and other mid-century designers used. Some things, have truly elegant lines, which can't be improved upon. I would be drawing on my influences, and not copying.
As far as intellectual property is concerned: I'm still trying to figure out how the Porter Cable Biscuit Joiner fence, violated the Dewalt patent, because there isn't anything on the Dewalt fence that isn't a basic mechanism that has been around for over a century, and is public domain. So, I'm confused on what the original concept or mechanism that Dewalt patented is. It is things like this that make me think our patent system is completely out of whack.
Jigs,
As far as Eames and his "original" idea of molded plywood, Belter's Victorian era furniture from the mid 1800's utilised the same principles, with different ornamentation. As you say, all is derivitive. There truly is nothing new under the sun.
Ray Pine
You'll find that the current iteration of Thos. Moser is VERY sensitive to copying.
He's more than thrilled if you copy a 200 year old Shaker piece. Take a crack at copying one of his Shaker interpretations (for profit mind you) and see what kind of ire you draw.
Well, a quick look at the USPTO database shows 5 Design Patents assigned to them:
D512,853 Dresser D506,092 Arm for furniture D504,782 Chair D504,578 Foot stool D382,134 Study carrel
Copy any of these, and you can "draw ire". They also sell books of plans. These plans automatically acquired copyright as soon as they were created, so copying these plans requires permission of the owner as well .
Anything else appears to be fair game.
Some had said this is just a "philosophical discussion". 'sorry, I disagree; it's a legal one, and naivete can get you burned. It doesn't matter if "I consider furniture the same as music", what matters is how the courts interpret the law.
Case in point: I remember seeing an article in an astronomy magazine a few years ago, featuring some dude proudly showing off his latest invention for looking at sunspots (or something like that). At the end of the article was the sentence "he reserves all rights to his design". I thought, "the poor SOB, he just threw away just about any rights he had"; i.e., the publication meant he no longer had a trade secret, and any company could have picked it up and started making it. Since it was now public, in almost all countries he couldn't file a patent application for it. The only thing he had left was the possibility of a U.S. Patent, if he acted fast enough (you have a 1 year grace period after disclosure in the USA). In the woodworking field, there's someone who's beening complaining that others have been selling "his design" for a particular power tool. As far as I know he didn't get any type of patent on it. So of course it should be no surprise that there would be imitators, if the product was successful in the market.
There used to be numerous cases of small-time inventors bringing there design into Fortune 500 companies, in the hopes of getting a big contract. The coporate types would listen, say "thank you very much", and 6 months later have the selfsame widget on the market themselves. Nothing the original inventor could do about it. Nowadays, it seems most people doing this have wised-up, and at a minimum require an NDA before discussing anything about their latest 'n greatest thing, and wait for the patent issuance before disclosing anything particularly critical.
I believe that I am one of several that said this was not a legal discussion. Not being a lawyer, I cannot participate in a legal discussion. I can listen to lawyers talk and/or explain the issues, but I haven't the tools (nor the interest) to participate. I can discuss personal feelings and ethics since I have both of these. Others may have to excuse themselves for lack of either one.
I've been following the thread, and have truly been impressed with the speed with which it has expanded.
People have danced around the original question.
First is copying unethical? In itself no. We learn by copying, we do it all our lives. The real question then is: When is copying unethical, and when is it ethical? Making a copy and selling as your own or claiming credit for the design is clearly unethical. But what about copying ideas out of FWW gallery?
I think the professionals on the board will see the issue much more polarized than most of us amateurs. Amateurs produce furniture for the love of it. If we didn't build it, we wouldn't buy it. If someone copies a Sam Maloof chair giving him credit for the design is it unethical? There is no intention to sell it, to portray the craftsmanship as Mr. Maloofs and of course they would never have purchased a Maloof chair otherwise. So has My Maloof been put under any hardship? Clearly the situation changes when the chair is done by a professional for sale.
I am not intending to say that amateurs are exempt from all moral questions regarding copying. I think going into a furniture store and measuring out a table or a desk "Just to see if it will fit!", and then building one at home is unethical. Building something from a friend, off of someone else's design runs into dangerous territory as well (depending on where the plans are from of course).
In the end I think we have to recognize how difficult it is to 'make an exact copy'. Without details of joinery, exact measurements, and in some cases the feel for the piece; it's near impossible. I think the best most can hope for is a close interpretation of the piece.
I'm sorry. I couldn't make it past about post #85 on this thread. I've only been reading knots closely for a few months, but these are some of the most lengthy posts I've encountered overall.
I know the subject of music and literature copyright has arisen as a comparison, and I think the ethics of "intellectual property" apply the same, despite whatever legal nuance may be differently applied to furniture design. As far as I understand it, I am perfectly entitled to sing the compositions of Verdi or (heaven forbid) P.Diddy (don't know if this is his latest moniker) in my house, in my car, or in a streetcorner performance without fear that anyone will confuse me with those people or that I have stolen their intellectual property. And is there any prohibition to my building my own Ferrari from scratch or painting my own Mona Lisa, as long as I don't selll them as originals? And perhaps the ways in which copyright laws apply to those things which are "out of print" would apply to the question of copying the work of dead men.
I am sure I am ignorant of the express legal code, but I fail to see how anyone who designs anything can prohibit another from attempts to copy for personal use, or imply ethical deficiency in the doing of it. As has been touched upon in these threads the very act af recreating from scratch requires creativity such that the joinery, details, or at least the process of arriving at the final similar, even nearly identical, object constitutes a different thing from the original. In my understanding the similarities which remain will determine whether the object is dissimilar enough to be legally precluded from sale in the general market.
Am I far off course? Is not the ethical concern one of respecting the other's work and design prowess? And is it not observed by limiting to personal use? To be clear, I agree 100% that we should not violate the rights of authors, composers, or designers, as such violation is a theft of their livelihood. Do attempts to recreate the piece for personal use constitute such theft? Would those of you with concern be less concerned if it was a copy of something designed by an amateur and whom you had no way of contacting for permission?
Matthew - puzzled by the hypothetical moral dilemma generated by the real-life question of the original post
Matthew,I think that the issue is broader -- and more interesting -- than just "personal use."Suppose I build a set of Nakashima Conoid chairs. They aren't exactly like Nakashima's, but they're pretty close. Are they Conoid chairs? Yes. Are they Nakashima chairs? No.Now, a friend comes over for dinner, sits in the chair, is amazed at how comfortable it is, and asks me if I will make her a pair. As it happens, I won't sell a piece of furniture outright, but I will barter. I'll also accept cash for the price of the stock. None of this matters. It's still not for personal use. I sign my own name to the underside of the seat. So it is not a forgery when it leaves my shop.Is that ethical? I think it is. Would it be ethical if I sold the chairs for cash? Is this cutting into Nakashima's daughter's business? I don't think it is. There are some people who want the authenticity of a piece by a craftsman, and are willing to pay the price. Others want the design -- and the story -- but don't care that George Nakashima never touched it.Now what if I started producing Conoid chairs by the gross? That, it seems to me, is an altogether different matter, and the Nakashima family would have good reason to ask me to stop.What would be unethical would be to claim the Conoid chair as my own design -- that's a lie -- or to sign Nakashima's name to it. That's a forgery.Rp
You need to read Richard Jones' example of a woodworker who had the courtesy to contact him even though he only wanted to copy a couple of pieces for personal use.
That's what we're talking about here, common courtesy, plain and simple, between brothers in the craft. Classification as amateur or professional does not matter.
If I could dig Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, the Seymours, et al. up and out of the ground and bring them back to life I'd ask their permission too. The substitute is scrupulous attribution.
Writing a letter to the designer, while it seems honorable, strikes me as fraught with difficulties, CStanford. After all, what is a "copy"? Here's an example. I buy a Krenov book, I like a wall cabinet in the book, and I copy it -- sort of. And I send a letter to Krenov saying, I want to copy your wall cabinet on page xx of ----.Now, how should Krenov reply. If true to his philosophy of woodworking, he might say: 'before I built that cabinet, I had a piece of spalted maple. The color and grain of spalted maple determined the treatment of the doors, and the doors determined the cabinet. Since you don't have the same piece of spalted maple, you cannot, by definition, "copy" either the cabinet or the process I went through to make it.'What do you do?
Fraught, schmaut.
<"Fraught, schmaut.">Breaking out the 50 caliber intellect, Charlie?Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Well do you think we will break 200 on this (no. of posts that is)
As for the conversation I think it still falls into 2 area. Legal and ethical. For legal talk to your laywer. I dont think this is an issue but you never know.
As for ethical I still don't see this as an issue but I think as long as no one is hurt by something then go for it. And i do not see how anyone is hurt if you make a copy of a piece that someone else sells (as long as it is only for your use)
And last but not least (even though no one will tell me the answer) why is it ethical to copy the dead guy but not the living guy?
Doug Meyer
1. The legal issues have been addressed- it is difficult to see legal redress for copying a piece of furniture for production- let alone personal use. That may not make it right, and given sufficient funds, one could certainly sue, but it would be frivolous.2. Whether it is ethical to copy someone else's work is a matter of debate (apparently). It is interesting that those who apparently are most esteemed and imitated (e.g. Sam Maloof), seem also to be least irate. Those who are not likely to be copied seem most nonplussed. Interesting?3. Defining a copy is not trivial. If I make a similar piece, but use a different wood- tiger maple instead of cherry for example- I may alter the impact of the piece significantly. Is that a copy, a refinement or an homage?4. I wonder if those who are most jealous of the art of their design would feel the same way if the field were different. Say surgery, instead of woodworking. If surgeons jealously guarded their operative techniques- as they once did- would that be OK? Of course, that might mean getting a less successful operation for your tumor or aneurysm, as the surgeon in your town might not be aware of a better procedure or technique, but hey- ars gratia artis...5. What strikes me about this entire thread is the sense of the artist as radical individual. There he is in his garret- I mean shop- toiling in solitude to perfect his art and his craft. Not. The fact is anyone who is honest will be forced to admit that he has been influenced by others, and taught by others. I mentioned in another thread recently that I had been at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford earlier this week and had enjoyed their gallery of 18th century American furniture. What was really special was the space devoted to the Connecticut Valley woodworkers of the late 18th century. This was pretty much the edge of the civilized world at the time- it wasn't England or Philadelphia or even Newport... these guys were in the boonies. But they created some wonderful pieces- and they clearly influenced each other. A chest from New London had rope-like pilasters flanking the drawers, one from So. Glastonbury had fluted pilasters. A low boy from Weathersfield had petite legs with small dainty ball and claw feet. It was possible to conjecture that a student from one master had done a piece in a style that reflected his teacher- but had left, worked in Philadelphia for several years and then returned and worked in a somewhat different style. The point is, that good design will, by its nature influence others- at least it should. Many painters and composers begin by emulating their heroes- as Beethoven did of Haydn, Picasso of Cezanne... before developing their own style, which was then imitated by others.6. The wide spread copying of a work has the effect of publicizing it and its author. All those copies of Maloof chairs, Hepplewhite tables, etc if anything tend to bring more esteem to the originator. The "students" are rarely held up to the same light as the teacher. Plato remains unsurpassed, Aristotle not withstanding.GlauconIf you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Edited 12/30/2006 10:20 pm ET by Glaucon
The Los Angeles Times weighs in on the subject:http://tinyurl.com/ykaxqb
Do any of you actually know, or have worked with any well-known craftsmen? Ever stood at the bench with somebody others often copy? I'm talking about working with them. Not taking a class from them. Working for a paycheck or working to complete a commission that puts food on both your tables?? Anyone?
I'm telling you that your view would change if you actually knew any of the people whose names are being tossed around here. You'd ask for permission just as sure as you'd ask them to pass the bread at the dinner table instead of reaching across the table and grabbing a roll for yourself.
Obviously, this issue exists in theory for the vast majority of you, or perhaps in a course on patent and trademark law you took years ago in law school.
I'm trying to envision sitting next to Sam Maloof enjoying Happy Hour and telling him I'm going to copy him all I want because I don't think he would stand a chance bringing an action in federal court. How rude.
Most you you need to get out more. A lot more. Meet and cultivate a friendship with a working artists or two. Then let us know what you think. Try to meet some of the Howard Roarks of the world.
Edited 12/31/2006 8:04 am ET by CStanford
CStandford,
You are beating a dead horse I don't think anyone said it was ethical to copy a guys design and then turn around and sell a ton of them. Let me see if I can make my point understood. I do NOT think it is ok to copy anyone and cause them harm. But you can not show me what harm is being caused when I (or someone more likely to make a copy) copy someone for their own personal use.
You can twist this all you want but we in general on this thread have said that a copy that is sold is NOT acceptable.
And as I have also said no I have not stood next to a wood worker when their design was stolen. I have however stood next to Architects and Architectural designers and seen it happen on projects that I worked on. And thus I have seen details that I developed (read designed) used by other it happens. And not just to wood workers. And while I have issues with the guy taking the design and using it for profit. I would not have and Issue with someone building it on his own house (for instance)
Doug Meyer
You wrote: " But you can not show me what harm is being caused when I (or someone more likely to make a copy) copy someone for their own personal use. "I've had original ideas (at least I'm pretty sure they were original to me..... I can't recall where I might have seen them before) taken and used by others. And this experience made me feel pretty awful. Like something had been taken from me, waved in my face, and there was nothing I could do about it. You will have a very difficult time convincing me I wasn't harmed.(And, please, no one here need tell me that I ought to have sued the guy or otherwise sought redress. I'm not afraid of going into battle, but I know when not to.)
What the hell. I have held off for days on this one, and will now, myself, be guilty of continuing this thread beyond its usefullness.
Me thinks that we have learned more about birth order of individuals and the behavior of only children, than we have about ethics, morality and the law. ( with the few exceptions of posts by individuals who seem to have a fairly good understanding of the law).
Furthermore, if feeling really bad about someone copying/emulating your work is now going to be the measure of what is ethical, we are all in real trouble.
Having said this, i suppose it had been a fun thread to read, thanks.
marc
A major part of my professional life is devoted to training tradesmen and project managers in the building trades. As a result I have created several original booklets, all designed to light the sacred fire of quality workmanship in the people I train. Some of these booklets were used as marketing tools and distributed to clients and potential clients. About a year after I created a particular booklet, I saw a series of ads appear on the back cover of a trade magazine over a period of 4 months... ''inspired'' by the booklet that I had created and distributed. The punch image was an eagle, not the same eagle I had chosen, but an eagle just the same. The text, however, was almost, and almost is the key here, taken from the text in the booklet. It is the image that first drew my attention to the ad, but it was the text that convinced me that the idea was taken from my original work. What to do? Go to court? It would cost big money to do this and in the end the fact is that my booklet is still mine. The message is still mine and the power it has to teach is still there. In effect, I had not lost anything in terms of what I was doing and what I could do with my creation.
I was miffed, for sure. I was also flattered that someone would find the booklet inspiring. Should I receive royalties for my idea? Now that brings up the question of where my idea came from. The image of the eagle , the eagle eyes that see all, is not original. After all, the eagle is the symbol of many countries all over the world. The principles of quality awareness and quality workmanship are also not my creation. They existed long before I was born and will exist long after I am dead. I used these basic symbols and principles to get a point across, successfully it would seem.
True, I do not have any respect for the advertising firm that created the ads that they were surely well paid for, but I have not lost anything that I otherwise would have had if they didn't do what they did. Anyway, my booklet was head and shoulders beyond the ads I saw :-)
So I say again, we should all feel free to incorporate the work of others into our own expressions and experimentation with the materials we choose to build with, but this must be done with awareness and respect. JL
Edited 12/31/2006 2:07 pm ET by jeanlou
Ray,
I saw a number of your pieces at the Waterford, VA., show a few months ago. The workmanship is flawless. There is one thing that worries me however. One of your chairs is EXACTLY the same as one that I have been thinking of making. So while you didn't copy any of the pieces that I have made, you did "copy" one that was in my mind. Other wimps in this thread take very wishy washy stands about whether it is ok to copy what a living or dead person has produced. You stole the design that I was thinking of!!!Of course, I am not going to sue. I can't prove that it was my idea first. What we need is a thread of about 2000 posts on whether it is morally right to steal someone else's idea, whether or not they have actually expressed the idea. Maybe if we got some para-psychologists involved, they could tell us about the unintended transfer of unexpressed ideas from one person to another. I hear that there are some very interesting ways of disseminating ideas. One of them is "artificial dissemination". Then we could involve some para-ethicists to determine whether it is moral to implement someone else's idea that was unintendedly transmitted to another person via phenomena that we do not yet understand. Have a good day. You did a good job on that chair whose design you took from my mind. But if you are going to take any more of my unexpressed ideas, I wish you'd write to me first. :-)Enjoy,
MelPS to everybody!!!- If anyone missed the intended humor in this message, the fault is mine. As I read "philosophical" threads, I notice that some people are pompous, some like to push the knife in and twist it, and many are straight from the heart. But there is one person who invariably addresses important issues with insightful thought-provoking comments which are also good-natured and laced with relevant humor. That person is Ray Pine. I don't know what is going to happen when I die. Some people tell me that I will meet God, and she will judge my life and send me to an appropriate place. I wonder what God will consider important in my life. Will her first questions be: DID YOU COPY ANYONE'S FURNITURE DESIGNS? IF SO, GO STRAIGHT TO HELL. Will God ask whether the designs that I stole were from people who were dead or alive? Will God ask me if I took strong ethical positions on Knots? Will God ask me if I got angry at people who copied furniture that I designed? Will she ask me if those people ought to go to hell (and not pass GO, and not collect $200)? Or will God ask me if I was hard-working, and kind and generous, and helpful and nice? I hope that God sends me to a place that has good and plentiful tools, and lots of fun-loving woodworkers. I sincerely hope that God does not call me for a while. I like it here and would like to stay here for a long while. I enjoy learning from others on Knots. I hope that God does not mind that I COPY THEIR TECHNIQUES for joinery, sharpening, clamping-up, finishing, etc. I hope that God believes it is OK to use other peoples methods of work. If not, I am in real trouble. I will end this overly-long message by giving everyone my full permission to copy piece of furniture that I have designed and/or built. I will be grateful to you for thinking highly of something that I did. If you do plan to "copy" one of my works, there is no need to ask me for permission. However, I would be grateful if you send me a photo after you do. I will respond with strong statements about your infinite wisdom, high intelligence, great taste, etc.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Good Lord!
Look at all the opions!
And not a single one as important as mine.
Ha, ha! Just havin' some "in the New Year's Spirit" fun.
But in all seriousness...
I think to start to put this thread to rest and bring some consenus to it we have to agree on one thing:
What, in the context of this thread, is the definition of the word "copying"?
Is it, as a copy machine would do, making an exact duplicate? Is it taking a definitive style from one artist and using in a work of your own design? Or is it simply taking a design element from another furniture maker and incorporating it into your own work? Or is it all of these?
Personally, this is how I see it;
The first example is plagerism.
The second is copying. If done by permission it's flatery.
The third is inspiration.
I spent a fortune on deodorant until I finally realized that people didn't like me anyway.
Mel,
"I hope that God sends me to a place that has good and plentiful tools, and lots of fun-loving woodworkers".
My shed is a bit crowded but I'm sure you will be able to squeeze in. :-) You can copy anything you find there (albeit it is far from the high Pine-standard you mention).
Lataxe of Galgate-aka heaven-on-earth, inclusive of a ladywife-angel.
Lataxe,
Glad you enjoyed my message. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to visit your shed. You are always welcome in my humble shop. I have made a lot of friends on Knots in my first year here. Two of them, Jimma and Planesaw have come to visit my shop and trade some woodworking lies. Both took photos. I was disarmed and delighted by that. One of them actually posted one of those photos on Knots. I felt honored by that. I also met Joinerswork this year. I would like to steal some of his designs but I haven't got the skills to carry them out. As he pointed out, many of his designs come from folks who stole liberally. I had studied Thomas Chippendale and was aware of some of his influences. I hope that he sent letters to the Chinese and Greeks and others whose ideas he borrowed from. If I steal any of your designs and make money off of them (fat chance, since I only give things away to family and friends), I'll send you $10 for each dollar I make. I was greatly influenced by the original philosophy of computer software writers. Do you remember the original "hackers"? Do you remember hearing about the original computer programmers. They called themselves "hackers". The term now has a completely different connotation than it did then. Now it means that you used computer code to "break into" someone else's computer. Originally, when people were just starting to program computers, a "Hack" was a new and interesting piece of code that did something that hadn't been done before. The original hackers believed that software was "free" -- that is, no-one owns software. Once you develop a hack, it goes into that great big bag of hacks that are available for all to use. Each was very proud of their hacks, and they were happy that others noticed them and used them. It was a very communal atmosphere. Unfortunately it is gone. Now we have Microsoft and Google, etc. etc etc. While I would like woodwork to be like the world of the original hackers, I know that isn't possible. I do find that Knots shares some of the values of the original hackers. I have learned more in a year on Knots than in the previous 30 years because folks are so free with their ideas and advice and experience. I wish you and all woodworkers a Happy New Year. If I develop any great ideas this year, I'll send you a photo so you wont feel guilty about stealing them. :-)Enjoy,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Happy New Year and Many More of Them!
I was thinking of doing a post comparing the freeware movement in software to woodworking design - the freeware world is still extremely vigorous and growing in fact. Freeware and the sharing/evolution of "patterns" in other design arenas (like woodwork) often come before the later commercial exploitation (not after, as the copyrightists would have us believe).
But this thread has run its course, I feel; it's unlikely that the more entrenched (on either "side") will have their mind's changed here. .......But there will be other threads in which vigorous memes may be planted into unsuspecting wetware. :-)
Them memes have a life of their own, you see; and are, even now, evolving madly via cybespace and forums like this (a bit of freeware, of a sort).
Lataxe
Lataxe,
Can't wait to see your future post comparing the freeware movement in software to woodworking design. Concerning your statement: "I feel; it's unlikely that the more entrenched (on either "side") will have their mind's changed here." In my short experience on Knots, I have never seen anyone change sides or modify their views on anything. That would be a sign of weakness, and woodworkers embody the spirit of rugged individualism. Woodworkers never show weakness!!!! I come from a long line of Italians. The big dinners on holidays were always a hoot. 60 people at three tables eating and shouting. Extreme positions were the norm, and the more wine that was consumed, the more extreme they got. No-one ever convinced anyone else of anything. That wasn't the point. It was more like a sequence of rants. Very exciting. I loved them. The closest thing that I have now is Knots, except that I understand that some of the folks here are not Italian. That's hard to believe. They sure act Italian. But then again, in many ways, Old World Italians are much like Old World French, who are much like Old World Germans, who are .... Three cheers for the melting pot!Last night, Mary Beth and I went out to eat. I told her of this thread, as I have of others. She can't believe that woodworkers would take the time away from woodworking to write this sort of stuff. She's a quilter -- also a hobby for folks who like to work alone. I told her that science has proven that breathing sawdust causes the urge to rant. I'll bet that if the folks on Knots wore their dust-masks all the time, they would stop posting messages here. :-)I have wondered why this thread lasted so long. I have come to believe that it is because everyone got sick of complaining about Mike's new rules for civility on Knots, which is another topic that seemed to go on far longer than it was worth. I enjoy threads on shoulder planes and spokeshaves far more than those on the philosophical underpinnings of woodworking. I suppose, however, that there are a lot of Knots denizens who have spent so much time in the shop, that they need to get away from tools and techniques for a while -- thus the emphasis on philosophy.Have a great 2007.
Enjoy,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
One reason this thread has gone on so long is that some few of the messages seem to be private missives hello Mel back at you Ray, and haven't much to do with the matter under discussion.The other reason that the thread has gone on so long is that some tasks, like sanding, are so darned boring that you end of thinking about things like the ethics of copying. Either that or you reargue the fight you had with your mother-in-law in 1979 -- again. Which would you rather do?What I don't understand is why people on discussion boards think that discussions have gone on too long. Heck, I've been talking about the weather every day for more than half a century, and it always seems to bear additional comment each morning.Whether it's ethical to copy any woodworker's work is an endlessly fascinating discussion. The hundred-some posts so far hardly scratch the surface of it.
As the individual who made the original post, I think I gather that the consensus is that what I have done (am doing) is OK - BUT it would be polite to contact the originator of the work. I phoned Wayne Marcoux on Friday but his shop must be closed. I will try again on Tuesday.Two additional thoughts:I've seen many artist (aspiring, as I am) sitting in front of paintings in Museums attempting to emulate the Masters. That is what I was attempting to do. YES - I know the painters were dead.I differentiate between works displayed in the Gallery (I wouldn't copy them) and an item which is submitted for publication (and remuneration) in the informative body of the magazine. That, I felt, was fair game placed there to encourage me to enhance my skills.FrostyA Happy and Ethical New Year to all!
Riverprof,Thanks for the reply. We haven't conversed before. Nice to meet you. By definition, no thread goes on too long. It dies when when the posters feel that it is no longer useful to continue. It's like bidding at an auction. Its over when its over. No sense arguing about it.Where does your name "riverprof" come from? Are you a professor? What is your background in woodworking? If I knew a bit more about that, I could better understand your posts to this thread. I posted my background in a message to Doug Meyer in this thread just a few minutes ago.I don't think that asking you about your woodworking background is an attempt to change the nature of the thread. Rather it is an attempt to better understand what is going on. In this world, context is everything.I do hope you have a great New Year.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Dear Mel,You are right. We haven't conversed directly. I'm a little cranky this week because I'm giving up a 30-year Lucky Strike habit and succeeding. I'm sorry if my crankiness has leaked over into any of my messages.I started woodworking in a more-or-less serious way about 20 years ago when I was in graduate school. In the summer time, I would work on the patio of my apartment in San Diego. I used a rotary saw for rough milling, then did everything else with hand tools. At first I was only interested in colonial and Shaker pieces, then (after seeing the Gamble House) arts and crafts. In time I discovered the modern studio woodworkers and that's where I am today. I've picked up a few power tools in the meantime, and I've moved inside. I still miss that patio, though.My motto is "Nothing Off the Shelf." I have a long way to go.And yes, I'm a professor -- of history of science. Rp
RP,
Wow - we have some stuff in common. It is good to meet another person who has read Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolution". If I had to pick five books that have influenced my life, that would at the top of the list. I have long been interested and involved in science and technology. I have been at NASA since 1979. In a sequence of jobs, I have managed: the Aeronautics Human Factors technology program, the Space Human Factors technology program, the Space Artificial Intelligence and Robotics technology program, and from there I was responsible for the entire Space Technology Development program. After being in technology development for more than 15 years, I got a chance to move to science. For close to a decade, I have been in the Astrophysics Division. That is a strange succession of jobs for someone with a Ph.D. in the Psychology of Learning, but what the heck. It has been a wonderful sequence of adventures. I was involved in the introduction of small rovers to space exploration. I got the first technology program going in that area, against a mighty group of folks who did not want a rover program. After I got that program started, something lucky and fortunate happened. We got an opportunity to fly the first small rover that landed on Mars. It was developed on a shoestring ($25M for the rover). It was a "single string" engineering design. That means, any failure would be catastrophic. We had no failures in the system, and the mission was a success. Moreover, the Planetary Exploration people have adopted small rovers as the accepted way of doing business on Mars.I hope we can meet someday and talk about the world of "revolution" in science and technology. I am very happy to make your acquaintance. Please let me know if you ever get close to Washington, DC. You and your family are invited to my home for a barbeque, some woodworking lies, and some interesting conversation about how science changes. I met my wife at Penn State, while getting my doctorate. It was there that I started my intense interest in woodworking. I started with a circular saw, a jig saw, a homemade workbench, a belt sander and a router. I took that set of tools to Binghamton, NY, Pensacola, FL and Dothan, AL. After a while, I used a garage as a workshop. Now I have a nice room in the basement of our house.I just came up from the workshop where I put a coat of varnish on a curly maple hanging cabinet. I made two identical cabinets except for the wood and the finish. I think of them as "fraternal twins". One is pine, finished in milk paint. The other is curly maple, with aniline dye stain, and varnish finish. Making your acquaintance has been a great way to start the new year. I sincerely hope you beat the smoking habit. I worked on tobacco farms in Connecticut when I was 14 and 15. That was probably the reason that I never smoked. Have a great year, and please stay in touch. The invitation to visit my home is a real one.Enjoy,
Mel
PS I never perceived you as "cranky".Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Well, Mel, that was an interesting and unexpected reply! Don't know when I'll next be in D.C., but as it's looking friendlier to me these days, it might be sooner than either of us knows!Connecticut tobacco is probably just what kept you from smoking. I wouldn't want Kentucky or North Carolina nutmeg on my eggnog! Everything has its place.Rp
RP,
Thanks for the response. I do hope you get to DC sometime. I actually live in Northern Virginia, about 18 miles from the center of DC. Whenever your plans to get here start to gel, send me a message and I'll send you all of the relevant info.Enjoy,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
<<Connecticut tobacco is probably just what kept you from smoking.>>Them's fightin' words, Rp -- just kidding. As an FYI, much of the Connecticut crop is shade grown and highly prized as a wrapper for high-end cigars.Mike
come on, just 2 more! i know this thread has a 200 in it's future.
200!!! Hated to see it get this close and not go over.
What was the topic of this discussion anyway? Have we solved it? Will we solve it? Was it fun?
Regardless, happy new year year,
Alan - planesaw
Edited 1/1/2007 5:51 pm ET by Planesaw
200 isn't going over. 201 is going over.We did not solve it completely.
I don't think we solved it at all. I think we decided to agree to disagree on this one.
Doug Meyer
WOO HOO over 200 (and i think i only did about 30 of them :) )
Riverprof,
Miswording on my part. I was responding to gmony about hitting 200. But, you are correct, 201 is going over.
By the way, do I take it you live in Pennsylvania?
Alan - planesaw
Alan,Nope, I live in Maine. Just took a drive over to L-N to get a calendar the other day.Rp
If I make a copy of a copy of a Sam Maloof rocker. Using a Krenov Plane,a Grizzly drill press that does not work and a Festool circular saw while making disparaging comments about EZ smart. Would I need to write a letter and to whom? Or would I just have to right a letter. If so by what right.
AB,
I love it. Gotta be the best post yet.
Alan - planesaw
I just finished reading an article on Thomas Lie-Neilsen -- very interesting and informative. Would you believe it: most of Lie-Neilsen's tools are based on Stanley designs? Now, I am sure that Mr. Lie-Neilsen is a man of great ethical convictions and character, but by the opinions of some that have posted to this thread he must surely be a villainous cad.
Michael
pzaxtl,
And, I'll bet Mr. Lie-Neilsen didn't ask Mr. Stanley's permission! Oh, but wait a minute, Mr. Stanley's dead so I guess Mr. L-N didn't need to.
Alan - planesaw
And, like many others, I am so glad Mr. L-N has done what he has.
Edited 1/1/2007 11:11 pm ET by Planesaw
Great response. It is like I wrote it myself! :)
Doug Meyer
Lie Nielsen isn't the only firm that has taken advantage of what I assume must be long-expired patents and the long-dead inventors responsible for those patents.
Ever seen a Record plane?
During the inventors' lives there actually were patent squabbles galore, buyouts, etc. so nobody really went gently into the night. I wouldn't characterize that period of history as being friendly to copycat firms.
If you get interested, look into the history of the Defiant line of planes.
Seems like I read somewhere that Mr. Lie-Nielsen said he was building the same mousetrap but with better materials.
What was so brilliant about Stanley at its heyday was the combination of functionality and accessibility. Certainly, many look no further than vintage Stanley these days finding them perfectly capable tools. L-N are certainly nice, but not as affordable (in real terms) as those which they mimmick. Yet the company appears to be very successful.
Edited 1/2/2007 3:52 pm ET by VeriestTyro
I think you would be obligated to write the letter on a biscuit and mail it to General Delivery, Taiwan. That should cover most of the bases....
don't forget to include some butter, gravy or jam depending on whom you ask.
>much of the Connecticut crop is shade grown and highly prized as a wrapper for high-end cigars.I did not know that! Thanks, Mike.
Mike,
I worked on that shade grown tobacco for two years. I am originally from Windsor Locks. I worked the fields in Poquonock, Windsor, etc. It convinced me not only to avoid smoking, but to get an education. Work in the fields didn't pay much. But then again, I was just 14 and 15. Do you live near that area?
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
<<I worked on that shade grown tobacco for two years.>>Mel,I'm a lifelong Connecticut boy, who somehow managed to avoid working tobacco as a kid. It never sounded like much fun -- very hot under those "tents". I work in Windsor, and drive by the fields every day. Ever see the movie Parrish? Much of it was filmed in the area.Mike
Mike,
I don't think I saw the movie, Parrish. I just Googled it, and it doesn't sound familiar. I will rent it and see what the area used to look like when I was a kid.I went to grammar school in Windsor Locks, but then to High School in Springfield, Mass. Then off to various colleges starting in 1960. I have a brother and his family who still live in Windsor Locks, and my Dad still lives there at the ripe age of 91. I think that avoiding the work under the tobacco tents was a good thing. I remember taking the bottom two leaves off of each plant, and then going through first through sixth picking. Dirty work. I would peel the tar off of my hands. Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
<<I would peel the tar off of my hands.>>I've heard about the tar from many who worked tobacco. Nasty!Yes, do try and see Parrish. It's about two tobacco families in the Windsor area -- filmed in Windsor, South Windsor, Essex and Saybrook. It may have been Claudet Colbert's last movie, and I believe she came out of retirement to do it in 1961. Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Dean Jagger, Karl Maulden and one of my favorite character actors, Dub Taylor are also in it. Not the greatest movie ever made, but interesting if you're from the area.http://www.amazon.com/Parrish-Troy-Donahue/dp/6302986338
Parrish may be the only hint that Troy Donahue had potential acting ability. Worth seeing, especially if you are familier with the Old Saybrook, Essex area as well as the growing fields further north up the CT River valley.
Steve,
I am going to rent Parrish. I am from Windsor Locks, Conn., and spent two summers working on shade-grown tobacco, which was a life-changing activity. I remember the name, Troy Donahue, but I don't remember anything that he did. I look forward to seeing how the Connecticut tobacco area looked in the days of my youth. I visited Old Saybrook many times when we went to the beach.
Thanks and Happy New Year.
Mel
PS - at this rate, and with this approach, this thread could hit 300.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
<<Parrish may be the only hint that Troy Donahue had potential acting ability.>>That's a stretch.BUT, to hear Connie Stevens tell us that she sleeps raw, now that was worth the ticket in -- at least for an 11 year old.
Mel,
You mention that,
"In my short experience on Knots, I have never seen anyone change sides or modify their views on anything. That would be a sign of weakness, and woodworkers embody the spirit of rugged individualism".
You are reading one WWorker who has had his mind changed plenty by Knots posts. Yet I am certainly a rugged individual, as you would realise if you could see me standing out in a crowd, like a sore thumb sporting a big wart with a bad haircut on it. Unique? You betcha. :-)
Of course, during an argument one tends to hold one's own and argue the point. This is the duty of those who debate and discuss. You must remember, though, that the ideas, concepts, conclusions and so forth remain in the participants' heads well after the discussion has fizzled out in Knots. These memes (evolving, interacting, competing patterns of thought) cause us, sometimes, to change our minds.
Some rugged individuals may fail to admit this, even to themselves. One often wonders, why? What is ruggedly individual about being a stubborn, pig-headed dunce who despises the idea of learning anything new?
Often these changes of mind are simple matters of thinking, "I will try to plane and chisel wood rather than routing and sanding it, as I once argued were the only sensible methods" (or similar). Sometimes the more peripheral and esoteric discussions, eg about copyright, will cause opinions to morph, over time, in more complex ways, as the wetware dreams and schemes its way through life.
I mean, once upon a time I was in the Jan & Dean fan club (not now)! And some of those fashionable trousers I once thought were the bee's knees!!
So I was wrong to say that this thread has reached some sort of natural end (as Riverprof points out). It could go on for ever, both on line (in Knots) and off line (in all our heads). Until we die, it is our fate as humans to think: to play host to the warring memes, the little rascals.
Lataxe
PS Thomas Kuhn - also on my top 5 books of that ilk, along with Arthur O Lovejoy's "Great Chain of Being"; Daniel Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"; Michael Oakeshott's "Rationalism in Politics" and William Gosling's "Helmsmen and Heroes". (Now you must list yours).
Edited 1/1/2007 1:44 pm ET by Lataxe
Edited 1/1/2007 1:46 pm ET by Lataxe
Lataxe,
I stand corrected.
You are an intelligent and well read person. I especially like your interest in Jan and Dean. I once saw them perform in a live concert. Great stuff. Glad you liked Thomas Kuhn. You are truly a rugged individualist, and I have enjoyed our conversations on Knots. Your posts cause me to think. I have enjoyed reading them and am a better person for it.Given all of the reading you have done, I am going to put the computer away and go read another book:-)Have a great year.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
I don't know about you but I think that some people on this board will be met by a long line of woodworkers from years and centuries past who will all be expecting letters asking for permission to use their techniques before the newly arrived will be allowed in the great wood shop in the sky :)
Doug Meyer
Doug,
Since I live near Washington, DC, maybe I could get a message to the Bush Administration, and suggest that they register all woodworkers and put cameras in all woodworking shops to check for woodworkers who are making unauthorized copies. With the new software available for "face recognition", I am sure that all pieces of furniture could be photographed and put into a data base, much like fingerprints, so that the cameras could check for unauthorized copies being made. Possibly, with the help of "artificial intelligence", the cameras could learn to recognize when a style has been copied, as well as actual pieces of furniture. Special prisons could be build for these fraudulent woodworkers, in which they would be forced to do woodwork with cheap low-quality tools. There would be photos on the walls of Lie Nielsen and Lee Valley tools, but the woodworkers would only be allowed to use tools from Harbor Freight. Those in this prison would be forced to make copies of furniture found in places like K-Mart, Target and Walmart. The techniques used in Clockwork Orange could be used to "reprogram" these cheating woodworkers so that they are sorry for their crimes, and so that they become physically ill if they ever design a piece of furniture which bears any resemblance to any other piece that has already been created. The techniques found in the movie, Farenheit 451, could be used to round up and destroy all fraudulently copied furniture. Do you remember the movie "Star Chamber". We could organize a small group of select members of Knots to insure that maintained among woodworkers, by using extreme measures (but only when we deem it necessary). Oh, what the heck. I am not going to contact the Bush Administration. They do not know me, and they might take me seriously. I have to stop watching all of those old movies. Instead, I just want to wish you a very happy new year, filled with joy of woodwork. Sometimes I wonder why I enjoy woodworking so much. I don't get a lot of respect from others for my hobby. People pay me compliments like "Wow, nice cabinet. I'll bet you could sell those for about $40. What are all the dark and light stripes in your wood? Can't you get nice maple without all of those markings? Do you do kitchen cabinets too? Can you fix my old chair if I give you $10?" But I love it anyway. Enjoy and again, Happy New Year,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Um, you do realise that I am for the guy making a copy for personal use dont you? As long as no one is hurt by it that is. I dont see an ethical issue with it.
Doug Meyer.
Doug,
I don't see any problem with it at all.
Have a great year.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
And a happy new year to you too.
Doug Meyer
Doug,
I am sorry that my message caused you to think I might have been giving you any grief. The thought never occurred to me. I do woodworking because I enjoy it. I don't do any woodwork or write about woodwork in such a way as to cause anyone any grief. I generally stay out of the philosophical discussions, except to throw in some humor when they get so serious that they lose perspective. If I could have made a living as a woodworker or a humorist, I would have done that rather than what I did. So I do woodwork in the evening and on weekends, and I also attempt to write humor, sometimes to Knots. As we all know, humor is a difficult thing over email. No-one can see your face or hear your tones. I worked for a guy who had a great cartoon on his wall. It showed a dog who was typing at a computer and also talking to another dog who is standing next to the desk. The dog who is typing says to the other dog, "The thing I like most about the Internet is that no-one knows that I am a dog."There are a few people on Knots, for whom it is difficult to know if they are just making extreme statements or if they believe what they say. I thought that my attempt at humor in my message to you was so outrageous (imprisonment, vigilante-ism, torture, etc) that is was obvious that I was just having fun. In my original post, I took pains to say that it was humor, and that I invite everyone to use any of my designs. In the past year, two other people mis-took my humor for seriousness, and we exchanged messages, and we will be friends forever. The first incident was one in which I praised the writers to the thread by saying that any of them could make a Chippendale highboy with nothing more than a ten pound rock, a broken pair of pinking shears, a bent screwdriver and three dull chisels. Yet one person thought I was insulting his chosen profession. He wrote me a personal note. When I explained my intent, he apologized for thinking I was giving him grief. Later he provided me with excellent advice on designing a hutch. I think that now that you know me a little better, you won't ever think that I am giving you or anyone else any grief again. It is not within my nature. I am a 63 year old psychologist who has worked at NASA since 1979. I morphed to the area of astrophysics as the years went by. I have been doing woodwork as a hobby since about 1968 or so. I am very eclectic. Mostly I make case pieces, and they all go to family and friends. I don't sell anything. I work slowly and only for the challenge and the enjoyment. I do carving and decorative painting, and it took me over 7 years to make a dollhouse (part time) but it is five stories tall and my daughter (now 25) loves it. I made all of the doors and windows and trim and flooring, etc out of sticks, and didn't buy anything as a kit. I tried to be creative in making the pieces but when I saw someone else do something interesting, I use their techniques. In the world of miniatures, folks don't seem to worry so much about sharing ideas. You can see a photo of me in my shop, next to my homemade tenoning jig on the Knots personal info sheets. For decades I was a "Norm afficianado" and stuck to power tools but now, as a result of Knots, I am using hand tools also, but I have a long way to go.I hope that gives you more of a feel for my background and approach to woodworking. If you are ever near Washington, DC, please let me know, and come visit my home and my shop. What is your woodworking background?
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
I was also unsure about your intent Mel (if I may call you Mel instead of 9619).
In fact, I had an answer to your post about what God would ask you when she met you at the entrance to the great woodshop on high...and then decided to let it go.
I guess that like all people who create, we are sometimes overly sensitive to the unwritten statements and the less than positive undercurrents in a message.
Happy New Year to one and all, and I hope that everyone realizes their goals in the coming year. JL
Mel,
I'll get my parapsychologist to call your parapsychologist: After the initial small talk, "You're fine, how am I?", they can iron out the details of whether you or I, owe the other a royalty. Perhaps we'll both get to pay to the ghost of Chipplewhite, Sheradale or others.
Ray
PS Glad I am not the only one who is a legend in his own mind.
Legal protection against copying can apply through trademark, copyright, or patent law.
That LA TIMES article covers a case of trademark protection applying to furniture. A key sentence: "Trade dress guards a handful of design icons—the Coke bottle, the Hershey's Kiss, the Volkswagen Beetle—that function on their own merit as trademarks". How many new furniture designs rise to this status?Look up "trade dress" on Wikipedia.
The Eames Chair apparently is an example of a design icon that is considered "trade dress", that is, a non-functional feature that identifies the source of the product to consumers. So it gets trademark protection.I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know this "trade dress" status does not seem to apply very often to furniture. Why? A comentator on the case of Krueger International, Inc. v. Nightingale (District Court for the Southern District of New York) observed,
"Certain markets are highly dependent on the development of creative and innovative designs. In fact, at the extreme are products whose commercial success is determined largely by the continual introduction of imaginative designs. These include clothing, tableware, furniture and eyewear. It is less likely that the configuration of a product in markets such as these will act as a designator of source." As far as copyright protection goes, my understanding is that this is denied to "useful articles" such as furniture. Design elements that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the furniture may be protectable. But otherwise, what is not physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of a piece of furniture apparently is not eligible at all for copyright protection.Then there is patent law. Now, how likely are you to infringe on a patent by fabricating a copy of some protected, useful element of furniture? I suppose Ikea holds patents on various elements of knock-down furniture assembly. But if Home Depot carries something like the fasteners Ikea uses in its bookshelves, I'd assume it is the fastener-maker's responsibility (not mine) to respect any patents that apply. Unless I start mass-producing fastener knock-offs in my own forge. The law aside, what harm am I doing by copying someone else's furniture design for personal use? I suppose I'm denying the maker his profit, but that's true whether I use his/her design or my own. If I start showing up at trade shows trying to pass a knock-off as my own original design (with no attribution) then that's different. Even then, if I can deliver essentially the same desired look and function in a better/cheaper/faster way, then I suppose I've added my own contribution to the craft.
Edited 12/31/2006 2:51 pm ET by tom21769
Thanks for that link. I think this post has morphed though. I thougt is started out as a guy looking at a piece of furniture and using it as inspiration and making it for himself not making the thing to sell and pass off as an original. I did a google on the eames lounge chair that was mentioned in the article to see what the hub bub was about. I almost fell over laughing. Obviously the only reason to buy that chair is to tell all your friends you have a chair you paid 3k for. Sorry I am artistically not with it. But I know one thing. PT Barnum was right!
The Eames longer might not be the prettiest thing around, but I have loved the way they feel when you sit in them for about forty years now. They are damnably comfortable. But, I agree 3k for any chair is a bit beyond what I would spend without thinking I was nuts.
Doug:
I can't answer the question of why it's OK to copy the work of the dead, but I can bring you some words of a dead guy from the art world.Picasso encouraged his students to plagerize, not copy. By that he explained - "take something from everything you see and make it your own - do not copy what you see".Everything we do is a product of our experience (and history)so it will, of necessity, have some elements of someone else incorporated.No two snowflakes (or fingerprints) are alike, but they are identifiable as snowflakes and we would be hard pressed to say that any two were not copies.I suspect that even our most original designs (are you listening Charles?) when viewed objectively will contain elements of others.Cheers,Joe
Joe,Interesting point. The poet W.H. Auden related a story about a young protege. It seems this young poet desperately wanted to be unique and original, as he believed only then could he be a true artist. Auden is purported to have chuckled and told the young man to strive to be authentic and not worry so much about orginiality.<"Try to meet some of the Howard Roarks of the world."> Oh. Hmmmm... Ayn Rand. Well that does explain a great deal. Game over.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
Sorry, I just don't see it.
And I don't think it's inconsistent with my unwillingness to participate in the MP3 swapping of a few years ago or illegally download movies without buying them, etc. I am sensitive to protecting the work of the original artist.
The person making a piece because he liked the original is, like the creator of the original, an artist, and his inspiration is not limited to that which has never been done before - as some of you would so confine one's muse. Again, I think the issue is one of personal use. It's a matter of free expression. I can quote you as long as I attribute the origin properly. And it's a matter of commerce. I have no right to sell it as though it was an original. While I appreciate the example of Mr. Jones and the courtesy of his admirer, I do not think permission is necessary, although it is laudable and is more likely to foster help rather than antagonism if one has trouble in the reproduction. Were Mr. Eiffel alive I would not seek his permission before creating a model for my living room. Perhaps I should hold a seance (sp?) to ease a sensitive conscience?
Perhaps I missed it between posts #85 and #135, but has anyone from FWW weighed in to comment on the legality of the original question? Is there a woodworking body or guild that has a position statement on such?
Perhaps I missed it between posts #85 and #135, but has anyone from FWW weighed in to comment on the legality of the original question? Is there a woodworking body or guild that has a position statement on such?
I don't believe it is a legal question. Unless a work is copyrighted, patented, or trademarked, there is no legal issue. After all, who is to say that the "original" wasn't a copy of something else. As many have said before on this thread, most work is a derivative of other work and we typically take an existing design and add our own flavor to it.
I know that this topic has been discussed as a seminar topic in the past two AAW Symposiums. These discussions have been pretty much a statement of the feelings of those participating and I am aware of no formal position or statement has been made by the AAW on this topic.
I don't believe that FWW is the authority on this issue - it is simply a publication. If you place value on what FWW thinks of the issue, I would suggest it is already contained within the publication itself. As an example, since copying the Maloof rocker has been cited on this thread, take a look at the back cover of FWW Issue 186.
Steve
Legal and ethical rarely mean the same thing.
I do think that the legal question of whether one is liable for such reproduction has been raised, so I was curious if the folks at the magazine, presumably with resources beyond most of us lay-readers, might offer information on the issue. I did not mean, nor intend to imply, that any magazine is the authority on the legality or the morality of copying a piece of furniture which strikes one's fancy. Additionally, I do think that if a guild or professional body has a formal position on the ethical question it would be helpful as a reference.
Now, I think I've already contributed enough to this confusion. So, here's my last word. (I think.)
My free and unauthoritative opinion: Personally, practically, and theoretically, I see no conflict in attempting to create, by one's own craftsmanship, a piece for one's own personal satisfaction and not for gain which within one's skill set is as like as possible unto one produced by some professional, whether a living modern design guru or dead master.
Very convienient to copy from dead peaple (If I could dig Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, the Seymours, et al. up and out of the ground and bring them back to life I'd ask their permission too. The substitute is scrupulous attribution. ) saves a lot of letter writing i guess. But a copy with out permision is a copy with out permision and if permision is what is needed to be ethical the you still need it even if the person is dead.
May i suggest that you look to see who inherated from the above listed peaple and look up them and ask? I mean it would show "common courtesy, plain and simple" :)
Doug Meyer
Doug,
And Chippendale stole some of his ideas from the Chinese. Heck he put the Greek orders of architecture right in the front of his book, so we all would know where he stole his proportions. Hepplewhite, Sheraton, they all were plagiarizing one another. And the Americans were okay with stealing from them. After all, they wrote those books, didn't they?
Further, if I am copying a piece that was built in the 1940's by a company (out of business) that was reproducing a piece built in 1800 by a guy in Philadelphia who was copying Hepplewhite, from whom do I ask permission ? This is no vague generality. It is a chair (set of 6, he wants 8) owned by a local man, built in the 40's by Va Craftsmen Inc, who copied one in Monticello that Jefferson owned. After I build it, I'll have the patterns, bwahahahaha! I may even make one and keep it myself... BWAhahahahHAA!!!!!
Amorally, unethically yours,
Ray
What I am asserting is that assumptions aren't necessary. You are assuming because he's made this video or written that article that you have been granted an imprimatur. Hell, for all I know he was broke and needed the money from the video, book, or magazine article. Maybe he has to live with the consequences.
If I wanted to build Sam then I'd write to Sam. It would take me fifteen minutes to dash off a letter and he may not give a damn but it would make me feel better.
Also, I'm not brazen enough to think that I can out-Maloof Maloof. So if I was going to do it at all, I'd do a copy.
Fools in this thread want to argue and expound about intellectual property laws and all that garbage. We're all brothers in the craft, aren't we? Do we want to insinuate attorneys into this mix for God's sake?
Edited 12/29/2006 1:32 pm ET by CStanford
Hmm ... I think that if Sam Maloof had to respond to letters from everyone who makes a chair in the Maloof style, he'd have no time left to make chairs -- or anything else.Maloof's style is part of the studio furniture design language, just as Krenov's (and Nakashima's) is part of the language. And I think that it's really quite appropriate to see whether you understand the language by attempting a pure copy of a Maloof rocker, or a Conoid chair, or a Krenov cabinet, and then to make your own designs, using bits of other people's designs as you work toward a personal style.
Hmm ... I think that if Sam Maloof had to respond to letters from everyone who makes a chair in the Maloof style, he'd have no time left to make chairs -- or anything else.
Thanks for helping me make my point.
CStanford,
I can't decide if you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me. And I'm not sure if you know either.
I don't want to make exact copies! I want to make my own designs. Oh, sure. I might make something now and then from FWW or Woodsmith. The end result won't look exactly like the picture in the magazine but it's close enough that I can't deny where the idea and plans came from.
But - pardon me as I whip out my ignorance - has Maloof ever made a table in the style that his chairs are known for? I honestly don't know. If he has and I was to make a table using his joinery techniques then I have made a copy of a Maloof table. I shouldn't and wouldn't sell it. But if he hasn't and I made a table using his joinery techniques then I have made a table in the Maloof style. There shouldn't be and there isn't anything wrong with that. It's the same thing as one painter using the same brush strokes as another artist. It's done all the time.
I spent a fortune on deodorant until I finally realized that people didn't like me anyway.
But - pardon me as I whip out my ignorance - has Maloof ever made a table in the style that his chairs are known for? I honestly don't know.
In my opinion, yes. You might be looking for a more overt, easy comparison but look for yourself and see what you think. I think the Maloof style even runs all the through the house he built for himself and his late wife.
He has a recognizable style. It's original. It is his. I actually like other people's work better, but that's not the point we're discussing at the moment.
Let me buy you a drink.
Any time.
I may very well never have an original design idea, but if and when I do (I certainly aspire to) it would be nice to think it might be 'mine' for at least a little while before the jackals on this board start to copy it and then write dissertations (however obtuse) and legal briefs to justify their actions. It would be most pleasant, don't you think, to develop a saleable, recognizable style that would improve my economic circumstances and not have it ripped off - at least until I'm dead when it wouldn't matter.
You want to protect your design so that know one else can use it? Fine, federal law has a mechanism to do that: get a Design Patent. If you don't, then it's in the public domain, and what you refer to as "jackals" the law calls "competitors". And as far as the law is concerned, it's OK if they come after your throat (metaphorically) and try to run your business into the ground.
That's the case in any field of business in the free enteprise, capitalist-based economy we have in this country. There's no "gentlemanly exception" for the furniture business, AFAIK. The rules are the same as for any other business.
Yeah man. You're right. Nothing would thrill me more than to run Lee Grindinger and Richard Jones out of business. I hate them. They're my competitors.
Guys, better get good and greased up. I'm about to scr#w you as hard as I can.
Richard, say goodbye to that lovely cab. leg you designed. I'm going to put it on the next twenty commissions I do. It's not yours, it's mine. I saw a picture of it once and that means you gave it to me. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I am too much of a dullard to have come up with something so beautiful. You're a real peach for posting it on the internet, I didn't even have to buy a book or pay for a magazine or a set of plans. What a deal.
Your friend,
Elsworth Toohey
Edited 12/30/2006 8:05 am ET by CStanford
I'm not too worried Charles. You'll probably mess it up and use it upside down or something. It'll just look clunky, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
I think I did call it clunky once but you must have trimmed it up a bit on the next set of projects....
I have finally learned which end of the leg goes up. It was A Fine Day in my shop. We broke out the Champagne and celebrated.
Edited 12/29/2006 4:32 pm ET by CStanford
Charles,
<<Your friend,
Elsworth Toohey>>
Too funny!! You have made the point exactly......Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
I wondered if anybody would get it. Not surprised you did.
Here's a toast to you.
Edited 1/3/2007 3:50 am ET by CStanford
Hi Charles,I must admit that I had no idea who he was and thought you were taking on a split personality so you could copy your own work illegally.Luckily, google came to the rescue."Elsworth Toohey is the intellectually and politically
manipulative villain in The Fountainhead, the novel by
Ayn Rand (Panther Books, London, 1961)."Now I understand, and have learnt something more today.Chuckling with the dark humour,eddie
Edited 1/3/2007 5:27 am by eddiefromAustralia
Eddie, thanks for the explanation. I think there are one or two chaps on this forum of that description, BTW.Philip Marcou
Edited 1/3/2007 4:53 am by philip
You should read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, especially Atlas Shrugged.
Thanks Charles
James, Sapwood and Others,
"......keep in mind that if you put something in the mags then you are in effect putting it out in the world for the world to see and use".
Sapwood says "No"! But James intimates that it all depends.....
I wonder how the law would treat a case in which a woodworker copied an item in, say, FWW where the author of the piece then tried to prosecute under some kind of global intellectual property rights legislation. Would success or failure of the case not depend on many of the surrounding circumstances of the publication?
For example, if no copyright is explicitly claimed in the article and the article does explicitly show how to build the piece, surely it would be difficult to claim "unjust copying" since the whole intent of the article is to get you to build one (it could be argued)?
Of course, there will be other cases where copyright is made explicit and backed up with some kind of legal registration process (a design patent, for example). Where there is a clear and unambiguous set of legal conditions met, one who copies can only expect prosecution.
When it comes to asserting some sort of moral right over and above the legal rights, the whole issue is much more difficult. Morality is not an Absolute Set of Unchanging Laws, it is a cultural construct which has a "force" largely proportional to the number of people who agree it (and inversely proportional to the number of people who disagree).
In the issue of copying a piece of furniture, I expect you will find just as many (if not more) people who would copy as those who wouldn't (assuming no explicit legal rights are created and registered). It's human to mimic others, like it or not.
I also expect that those with more of a vested interest in copyright and intellectual property rights (eg professional cabinet makers) would want an "anti-copying" morality to be on their side.
Personally I dislike the whole idea of "intellectual property". I think it goes against nature in general and human nature in particular. But I may be an unconscionable anarchist or worse. :-)
Ask yourself this though: if a footballer tried to register a patent on a successful football play, would you say, "Right On, Brother"! Or, "Don't be so daft"? Some things (including furniture design elements and motifs perhaps) are so widespread in a culture that it becomes very hard to say that you invented and can own this or that particular conglomeration of them. Or so I assert (for now).
Lataxe
Right on Lataxe (and thats from a left hander).
Doug, you perfectly illustrated my point about woodworkers and their general ignoring of intellectual property law.
By using the same logic you displayed in your post, as far as you're concerned, should you accidentally leave your SatNav in full view on the dashboard of your car, it's perfectly okay for me to carefully open the door without causing damage to the car itself and taking the SatNav away to use myself.
"Hey," I could say. "It was on full view. I'm entitled to it. I know it didn't belong to me-- but it was definitely clearly visible." Most courts of law don't agree with that philosophy concerning physical property. The law also has similar things to say about intellectual property. Just because it's on show it doesn't make it yours. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 12/28/2006 4:03 am by SgianDubh
Richard,
I think your analogy is false. It breaks down because the Satnav thief deprives you of your Satnav whilst the "idea thief" does not deprive you of your intellectual fruit. You can still make (and sell) as many cabinets to that design as you could before the "thief" made one too.
Of course, were the idea thief to not only copy your design but sell dozens (or even one) of the resultant cabinets with a label on saying "Designed by Richard Jones" we have a different kettle of whelks. The thief has here not stolen your idea but your (potential) income from your idea; and misused your valuable name.
And if his cabinets were built to a naff standard, this would compound his crime.
Lataxe, a sophist
The problem with the guy steeling my Sat Nav is that he had to open the door and that is "Entering" and it is illegal. Then he took something that cost me money (this is theft) now if I have an unpatented sat nave on the dash of my car and he can copy the design buy just looking at it so much the better for him and the worse for me. Of course that gets into the issue of you cant patent something that someone else built even if they never did patent it, but I suspect that he can built them. So this just proves that my bit about Legally arguments being something for the lawyers vs moral arguments. And that is really my only point about the legal side it is a big gray area for the lawyers to argue over and make money. And keep in mind that when it was copied he did not have access to the item so he had to fill in the blank and his back has air slots vs my air Holes and his unit is 2.25" wide while mine is 2" and these changes mean it is not an exact copy only something that was inspired by.
Like I said legally talk to a lawyer. Personally I would be surprised if the wood working item was protect. I doubt he submitted paperwork to get any true protection and as for the so called intellectual property rights, well Intellectual property rights are for the most part something someone dreamed up and not all that real. For instance take the SawStop the intellectual property here is the idea of using some sort of break that senses when you touch the blade to stop the blade and save your finger. Their is little that SawStop can do to protect that idea. If I can figure out a way to do the same thing and not hit their patents I am in the clear. What is protect is the electronics and the physical hardware that does the job. So if I can design a break that is not like theres and uses a detector that is not like theirs I am pretty much free to build the BladeStop Saw (trade mark and patent pending :) )
This is why in some ways a patent pending is better protection then the patent. The patent is public knowledge (not so much the patent pending) and I can get a copy and have my lawyers and designers work a way around the patents. With a Patent Pending it is hard for me to guess what will be protected about the idea. Did you ever see how the first PC clones got their chip design? They would find a "Virgin" engineer (one with no work experience at any chip maker) and have them work out how based on the code that was publicly available the chip must have done it's job, and because they had no experience it was hard to prove that they did not come up with the chip design on their own. This whole area is legally very ugly. The same holds true in Architectural design, hard to prove that someone copied you vs being inspired by you. That was and is my true point legally you would need to talk to some lawyers (I would say more then one to get a real opinion as the do not all agree with each other) This is not clear cut, but I will bet you money that as long as he has NOT sold them he is safe. For you have to prove that the guy did something illegal and that he caused you harm in so doing. If you neighbor duplicates your Christmas lights he has not done anything illegal (you could argue the stealing of the design) and he sure has not cost you anything so this would go no place fast. Got to love the laws in this country they are all a bunch of gray areas and as long as you can get a judge and jury to agree with you you are home clear.
Morally this is a different issue.
Doug Meyer
You are wrong on practically every issue you attempted to address.
The notion that this is difficult or that there are gray areas is really just ridiculous to me. Perhaps there are gray areas in a court of law, but I would never push something to that point.
As for copying the Philadelphia Chippendale or even specific pieces from that period by an identifiable maker, or a circumstance similar to this, I can assure you there is no comparison in the law or in ethics to knocking off Maloof rocking chairs and selling them. If you aren't able to see the difference then I have nothing but pity for you.
There will come a point in time when Maloof's work is fair game. It just isn't now, while he's using the fruits of his talents to put food on the table.
Edited 12/27/2006 2:53 pm ET by CStanford
CStanford,
You mean I am wrong on almost all points I state in your opinion, Great thing about this country and the internet everone can have an opionion. And being as most of what I said is that morrly we all have to decide for ourselfs and leagle it is a can of worms that the lawyers would have to argue over i am at a bit of a lose as to your blanket statement.
Doug Meyer
I made the blanket statement because the ethics on this are as clear as a bell to me.
You are wrong.
Charles,
And you were being so good....up until now.
I will call that nurse!
Lataxe, a therapist.
The beauty of these particular hypotheticals is that they needn't be.
One can simply call or write the living artist and ask permission. It's the decent thing to do. Like I said in my other post, it's too bad if he or she doesn't respond. That should be interpreted as "no."
Opinions don't really even come into play. It is wrong to assume that you have permission.
Just pick up the phone or a pen.
I guess the difference is if you think you need permission or not.
And as for asking maybe I am sinicle but read my other post about why I don't think that will work.
I wish the world was a better place but alas I am afraid it is not.
Doug Meyer
If I had the overwhelming urge to copy the work of a living craftsman I would ask permission.
You can do whatever you want to do.
I'm sorry you are so 'sinicle' [sic].
Edited 12/27/2006 4:13 pm ET by CStanford
Wallace Nutting was a very opinionated, but very important Furniture Guy in the 1920s. I remember him writing something along the lines of- "Nothing done after 1820 is worth building in the least. You are better off copying an old piece than making some sort of original and ugly piece."
I think he was maybe a little bit nuts. But that is what he said. His books are rather good resources though.
Frank
This whole discussion is utterly absurd.
And apparently your "ethics" do not extend to petty sniping at mispellings.
Ok this was a point someone made on another thread and I just could not resist bring it up here. Some on this forum think that it is not ok to copy a live person but it is ok to do so with the dead (presumable because they can't answer a letter from you) So if that is the case what about those that believe in reincarnation? (As some religions and people do)
Of course I guess in that case the problem is getting the dead/living guys new address.
Sorry Could not resist.
Doug Meyer.
PS: Yes this is meant as a Joke.
BoardmanWI writes: "This whole discussion is utterly absurd."Gosh, that's a definitive statement. Aren't there any parts of the discussion that are only mildly absurd? And, now that I think of it, isn't your statement that the whole discussion is utterly absurd itself utterly absurd since it's part of the whole discussion?
I love it now we are heading into if a tree falls in the woods.....
Now I remember what I loved about college. The discussions in some classes went off in some really strange directions!
Doug Meyer
i wish i could remember college!
prof:
Aren't there any parts of the discussion that are only mildly absurd?
You may have a point. There are also probably portions that are amusingly, tragicaly, biblicaly, horrificaly, or even cutely "absurd." One day in the distant future, say around the year 2083, I'll do a qualitative analysis.
Well while I think it is a good idea for you to do a complete analysis I am not sure this thread will have ended my the time you propose doing said analysis.
Doug Meyer
Just when we thought the copying thread was dead and gone ...I copy things the way that H. D. Thoreau bought farms. One consistent theme in my copies has to do with the fact that I am not fond of the lathe. Sorry, bodgers, but the cheap symmetry of turned wood doesn't do it for me. I don't know why, it just doesn't. So in every case where I see an otherwise fine design marred by parts from the lathe I redesign it my mind, starting at the shave horse. Some pieces end up being darned near round, others have facets -- seven facets, nine facets. Some are crude, others precise. So, for instance, I've copied all of Sam Maloof's chairs, without turned front legs. Sorry, Mr. Maloof, I like mine better; they're consistent with the rest of the chair.RpP.S. If you read this message carefully, you know that I haven't actually copied Sam Maloof's chairs. Yet.
Re your Maloof inspired chair.
IIRC, he doesn't turn the legs, he hand shapes them with a spokeshave and or rasp. The majority of his work is done free hand, much of it on a bandsaw, which he admits probably isn't safe, but he has done it for years without a problem.
Beg to differ. Go to page 108 of Sam Maloof, Woodworker, picture 12: "I remove excess wood from the front legs with the band saw prior to turning them on the lathe." There are other pictures in the book of him turning legs on the lathe.Rp
"There are other pictures in the book of him turning legs on the lathe"
Oh!
Jigs
Thanks for that.
When I read RP's post, I started thinking, "what turned legs? Sam doesn't have a lathe."
I've watched him cut freehand on the bandsaw. Inspiring. He never had any formal training. He didn't know a bandsaw wasn't supposed to be used like that. Hey, it's a power carving device, was his thinking. I wish I had just a tiny bit of his talent.
Sorry, Rich. It's true. Turned front legs. At one time all of the legs and spindles in his chairs were turned -- but that was forty years ago!Rp
Huh!
I'm at work. I have Sam's book at home. I'll go through it later.
Rich
Jigs and Rich, from your replies I sense you share my disdain for turned legs.
"I sense you share my disdain for turned legs"
Actually, Yes.
I'm contemplating "copying" a Hans Wegner design right now that has turned legs and stretchers. His "Y" chair (of which I own a factory "copy" in black lacquer).
http://www.designaddict.com/design_index/index.cfm/fuseaction/designer_show_one/DESIGNER_ID/336/ObjectGroupId/1/selectedObjectId/0/index.cfm
I'm trying to see how those members will work with a more rectangular cross section.
The arm rail of the chair has a round cross section also, as do the arms of many of his pieces, but it is not turned. It's formed by a very different process.
Rich
Wegner is an obvious early influence on Maloof, although I'm not certain whether he's mentioned it. He tends to point to Esherick, but Maloof's early work reeks of Wegner.
And speaking of copying, one project on my backburner has been to take a piece done by Charles Eames in cast aluminum and reinterpret it through Maloof's design vocabulary (round-over and hard line) in walnut. The chaise was designed for the director Billy Wilder; it's so narrow that you can rest on it, but if you fall asleep, you'll fall off. That's the story, anyway.The trick to copying this is that walnut cut to the same dimensions wouldn't be strong enough, I think. So some compromises need to be made.See the accompanying pic, courtesy of Herman Miller.
Rp, I do not see any Wegner influence on Sam. I think, because they both focused on the chair as their main interest, the chair itself led them both to similar solutions. All roads lead to Rome. I think Sam's early work was simply "California Modern" which, of course was a derivative of "Scandanavian modern." Rich
I think disdain is the wrong term. I have several pieces that have turned legs. I just don't own a lathe, and so don't tend to use turnings in anything I design. Plus, I tend to like a more "organic" form, (probably not the right term), emulating natural structures. I want things to flow smoothly with out undue edges, as if they have grown that way. Not necessarily naturally, if I had the time, I wood try to figure out how to shape the growing wood.
This tendency toward smooth curves might be due to all the trouble I had trying to make and finish a true and sharp edge when I was young, and discovered how much easier it is if you design them out from the start. I spent weeks trying to make a perfect cube in shop class.
I once read a response on rec.woodworking to a guy who was asking whether to buy a table saw or a band saw first. There were too many buy the table saw and a jointer responses to count. One response said to decide whether your interest lies in furniture or cabinetry first. If you want rounded curves and few straight lines, as Sam Maloof produces, then get a band saw, you can rip short straight lines with it with reasonable ease. If you want to build cabinets, and other box shaped things with straight sides, buy a table saw.
I tend to like things similar to this chair by ib Kofod Larsen.
View Image
I have a recliner, couch, short backed rocker, and several chairs of his design that are very similar, and hope to try a rocker similar to this next year.
Jigs,The "which saw first" question/debate always makes me laugh. It's sort of like wanting a car and asking whether to buy the engine or the transmission first.But you're right. It really does come down to whether you're more interested in case furnture, or in shaping and joining sticks. Okay, I'll take you out of the "disdains turnings" club, but you're only just outside the door.Rp
Jigs, I googled Ib Kofod Larsen and found the accompanying images of chairs at an auction site that had some work by Larsen and other Danes. The site lists the designer of these chairs as unknown.It's a nice chair, and ripe for copying!
You're lucky you haven't copied his chairs.
I was getting ready to dial the Furniture Police.
Keeping the legal aspect completely away from this discussion: I was always taught that it is wrong to copy another's answers. Any successful furniture design can be thought of as an answer. It satisfies a certain set of parameters.... a certain set of questions. So when one copies (and I mean copy, not "is influenced") as was the original premis of this discussion, then that is wrong. Some of you will tie yourself into a knot trying to deny this, but I don't think you can. And I think you know it.
Mr Wood,
I have copied people all my life and so have you (and so has everyone). How do you think we all learn to speak and otherwise operate as cultural beings? It is not wrong to copy; it is unavoidable, if you are a human.
The dominant economic model we currently have operates in a way that defines and protects intellectual copyright, in various ways. That's fine with me, even though I don't personally care for the idea. But if you're trying to say that, morally, we should all be completely original somehow, then I fear you will be disappointed at our universal moral turpitude.
Having law concerning various aspects of intellectula copyright sets the rules not just about what can't be copied without penalty but also what can. If you have no legal mechanism for protecting "your idea" then if I want to copy it, I can.
Charles S is right to point out that there may be moral considerations on top of the legal ones. But Doug is right to argue that, in a multicultural world, it is very, very difficult to arrive at a common moral standpoint. In this day and age, when the individual is king, we often have to decide and apply a personal morality, as there really is not much left of common public morals on a whole swathe of matters. - including this one.
Of course, it is good manners to ask to copy in certain circumstances, as Charles points out. Personally I am not quite that good mannered - although if someone pre-empted me and said, "Don't copy me" I would be inclined to acquiesce.
If I'd already built one and you could only say, "No, burn it" via a claimed moral code, I would say, "Sue me" (ie meaning I knew you couldn't do so successfully - unless you were American, in which case you make the law up as you go along, depending how much money there is to spend on yer lawyers. :-)
Lataxe
PS Furniture making is not an exam and copying a design "answer" is not wrong. It is how we learn.
<"Of course, it is good manners to ask to copy in certain circumstances, as Charles points out">Lataxe,You made my day...this is the only time I have seen "Charles" and "good manners" mentioned in the same sentence...Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
G,
Charles is a snarly, bitey man and often argues in B&W. However, he does make some fundamental points from time to time and is always worth a read. Some of his more adamant statements cause one to rehearse one's diametricals, at the very least.
I just make sure I have a 'kerchief handy to wipe off the spittle. :-) But I am not ashamed to admit he has changed my mind more than once (not with the barking though).
Seriously, Charles, if you're reading this - I value your posts and am grateful for your opinions: good, bad and mad! It would be a worse Knots without you.
Lataxe
See that is the issue. I have no doubt that you are a good person and that you treat lost puppies well, and thus you mean well however in YOUR opinion morally this copy bit is a bad thing. That does not mean that it is morally bad it just means that it is so in your opinion.
My Grandmother (god rest her sole) was of the opinion that morally my brother was doomed because he lived with his girlfriend for years before that got married. But I think if you talked to most people today they would laugh at this. And I had a girlfriend who's father did not allow even a modest two piece swim suit. The list goes on and on.
Personally from a moral point of view as long has he did not sell it, or take credit for the design (when asked) I would not even slow down and my personal Jimminy Cricket would not even notice it.
They only way you could even come close to figuring out if this is morally ok or not would be to do a survey of the population. For generally the moral issues are decided by a general consensus. This is what makes it so hard. So if you want to tell me that you PERSONALLY do not agree with my moral stance on this good for you and please do so. In fact I will stand with you on this so you can point to me and say that morally you think I am wrong on this. And if anyone says you don't have the right to say that you think I (or others are) morally wrong I will stand their and defend your right to your opinion. BUT I contend that it is only your opinion. Like I personally think that Blue is THE color of colors. This is an opinion and we all are entitled to them. This does NOT make you right and me wrong or for that matter you wrong and me right. It just means that Like I said before the guy will have to decide for himself (with a little help from others opinions) what is morally right for him.
You can not force your morals on another person at best you can be an example to them and hope they learn from you.
Now just to through a wrinkle into this. Let us say that he decided to write and ask for permission to duplicate this. I will be willing to bet that the guy he asks will say no (at least he will if he talks to his lawyer) as the legal hoops to be jumped through to allow him to duplicate this legally for personal use while still not letting him sell them would be a pain and thus it would be simpler to say no. In every company I have worked for doing design work when we need to send out drawings that are no hard sheets (that fall under the protection of copywrite laws) we have a long (two pages) form that has to be signed in about 6 places by the person receiving it and often our lawyers will customize this form just of the use of that one guy. Now as flattered as the designer may be that someone wants to use his design I am thinking that he will not want to pay a lawyer to create a release just for this one guy and if he sends back a note saying "Sure go ahead and build it for your use" then he is opening up a can of worms about what that means. I seam to recall a legal argument about the definition of the word "Is" a while back. I hate to say it but we in this country are in a legal mess.
So in my opinion I say go for it, and if most people think I am wrong, well I guess I will just be a moral deviant like all those peace nics from the 60's
Doug Meyer
If you have money and influence you can sue regardless of a leg to stand on or not.
I am sure you could challenge any designer on his design because you could find similar elements in other designs. There is hardly anything that is completely original any more. Even works by contemporary artists. The use of their name however would be illegal.
As a second note, I believe it is perfectly legal to copy a patented item and build it for your own use. It is however illegal to build it and sell it. Patents only protect ownership of manufacturing rights.
Jack
If you can afford an original Maloof, you're going to buy an original Maloof. You aren't costing the creator a single penny by buying a replica.
Mass production or passing off as original is unethical in my opinion though.
Frosty: I think any thing hand made and identified with the makers name would pass ethical muster. A small note giving attribution of the design to the original would add solidity to the position. Now, mass producing a design would be different as would claiming the design was yours alone. Look at all the rocking chairs that obviously owe their "look" to Maloof and all the Greene and Greene style furniture and architecture and interior trim.
Duke
"... Buy the best and only cry once.........
If, as you say, you're not selling it, then you have nothing to feel uneasy about. Absolutely nothing.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
If we are talking ethics I don't think this is an issue as long as he knows where the design came from. I would not take credit for the design if I did not come up with it my self. I do that when show people some of my own personal work. I will say I made this or that piece and when I get to one that I designed from scratch I will say I designed and made this piece. If they ask me about the designs of other pieces I will credit where I got them from.
That being that I don't have a lot of pieces that are a "great" design and I have never looked at a piece and tried to copy it, (I have done things based off plans in mags but that is what they are their for) not because I have an issue with it but just because I never saw something I liked and wanted to copy.
So as long as he does not take credit for the design I don't see an issue here. But then again I don't make money at this.
Doug Meyer
Greetings,
IMO there is no problem if the piece is for your personal use.
In fact I take it as a compliment when my work is copied and indeed, expect it when the piece has been published.
But I do appreciate it if the piece is signed appropriately such as - Design by xxx, Made by .....
Cheers, Don
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. But I play one on the internet... :>)
IMO, legally, you have nothing to worry about. You are a woodworker, not a copy machine. Somewhere your design of this table is going to vary from the photo you are "basing" it on. You bought the materials, cut them, shaped them and put them together to form a table in a fashion that was pleasing to you. There's nothing wrong with that in a legal sense. If there was then the original designer of the first picture frame would have died a very, very rich person.
However...From a moral standpoint...Well, morals are as different from one person to another as fingerprints. I, myself, have no problem in designing a piece of furniture based off another piece I may have seen. (It's completing the piece that I have a problem with.) If you have a problem with it then that is something you're going to have to deal with in your own way. Maybe, as was said earlier and I happen to strongly agree with, you could give the artist of the original piece the credit for your inspiration. But since you're building it for yourself and not for sale then all of this is "by-the-by" anyway.
The ETHICAL man knows that he is stealing someone else's design, and their intellectual property. The MORAL man knows when he would be doing that, but he simply won't do it. The THINKING man knows that good design principals are shared by everyone across the ages. And, that he is free to interpret other's CONCEPTS for his own use, without copying their design verbatim. Evolution is O.K.
Counterfeits and forgeries are not. Have the HONESTY to admit that you borrowed somebody else's concept, and interpeted its' principals into your own design. And, be careful to NOT knowingly copy somebody's DESIGN (a.k.a. their intellectual property), then call it yours.
I don't actually think that is true. If you design something that is your intellectual property. Therefore any copy could actually be considered copyright infringement. Just like in the music industry, even if you use part of someone elses song, you have to get permission. Even if you change things alittle bit.Just like design, even if you change things you should always give credit to were your influneces came from. And as long as you are not going to be selling there design, than I see no problem. But I thinkk legally if you are going to sell it, then the designer has the right to sue.Just my 2 cents, and sorry about the spelling.Kaleo
http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com
Here is my 2CW. Books & software have copyrights, and inventions have patents which give the owners legal recourse for infringment. Since it does not fit that, then I would not imagine it is an issue. Now, if you make a copy and sell it as an original (fraud) then that would be a different storry. Its a piece of furniture, have fun and post some pic's when you are done.
You didn't mention Registered Design status though bones. That's another layer of intellectual property protection that designers can cover themselves with. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Cool, never heard of that one. I'll google that to learn more. Moma always told me to learn one new thing everyday. I'm done for the day. Thanks.
Frosty,
Tough question.
I tend to agree with Charles that copying the designs of living woodworkers (artists, writers, etc.), without their permission, is a morally undesirable thing to do; it is, when you distill out all of the self-justifying BS, quite simply the theft of intellectual property -- no different than plagiarizing a novel or a piece of poetry, etc.
Whether legally enforceable or not, under trademark, copyright, or patent law, is one thing, but it is, at best, morally questionable. (Let's not forget the difference between "legal" and "right"....)
I believe that, if you intend to complete building the table, you should contact the designer/builder of the original table and get permission, pay any required royalties, etc. You'll sleep better -- and enjoy the table you build more -- knowing that you have done the right thing.
These days, the above view might be construed as "overly rigid," but it is my belief that, in many things having a moral aspect to them, there are "right" ways and there are "wrong" ways to do things. In this case, getting permission, in my view, is one of the "right" ways to go about this. Just my nickel's worth.....
Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
It's not a tough question. It's just tough for some to find the right answer.
Sapwood,
<<It's not a tough question. It's just tough for some to find the right answer.>>
Excellent point!
Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
Edited 12/27/2006 2:24 pm by pzgren
I once attended a weekend seminar with Sam Maloof. He seemed quite flattered that most of us at the seminar wanted desperately to know how to make one of his rockers.
But he was also clear to say that if one of made it, it wouldn't really be "his".
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
Not to mention even if yours was as good or better than his, his would still be worth more because he made his. Another example would be a photograph of Half dome at Yosimite, yours will never be worth as much as Ansel Adams. Another thought is that there are very few truly original designs in furniture or most art and those that are (like Maloofs chairs and others) are truly special. I would think that a lot of furniture like a china hutch are variations of a theme an example would be a Thomas Mosher(spelling?) china hutch. For my 2 cents worth use somebodys design for your own piece for your own use is not the worst sin especially if you use your own insperation to change it for your own use. Just don't sell it.
There are some designs which are patented by certain artists today to protect their interest.
It is my understanding that as long as you don't make an exact copy, don't claim that the other guy made it, and start selling it, you can make as many as you want. It is when you pass your work off as someone elses and try to profit from it. You can photo copy a book. You just can't sell it or profit from it.
Calling someone and asking their permission is simply a professional courtesy, and not a requirement.
Otherwise, who are you going to pay a royalty for the round wheels you use? Do you have to pay someone to build a chest of drawers? A chair with 4 legs? Table, etc., etc., etc.
Change a couple words in a song, or a couple notes, and legally you have a new song. Harry Potter has a very strange coincidence of being almost exactly like someone who wrote about him earlier than the current author -- and the earlier author lost in court.
Just make sawdust,
Alan - planesaw
I would love to hear from someone like Maloof, or Robert W. Lang, or maybe someone from L.& J.G. Stickley, Inc.,or Thos. Moser, Inc. to weigh in on this issue. I don't think of myself as a plagiarist simply because I have gone to furniture stores to measure Stickley pieces with the intent to replicate them. After all, isn't that one of the things Lang has done to help with his highly accurate shop drawings that he has published?
Gustav Stickley himself published many of his furniture plans in an effort to thwart the cheap knock-off furniture makers attempts to capitalize on his designs.
If I buy a set of plans from Lang and change the dimensions to fit my needs--does he have the right to sue me because I was unfaithful to his drawings? and does the Stickley estate have the right to sue Lang for accurately portraying Stickley's plans? and would the Wm. Morris Co. feel the need to sue the Stickley estate for his use of the Morris Chair as a mainstay in his line? then would the heirs of Rennie Mackintosh sue the Wm. Morris Co. for Morris' plagiarism of some of his ideas? and on and on and on.
All I wanted to do was make a faithful reproduction of a hall table that I liked.
"Roger Staubach for President"
This thread is going to make whole cloth. There must be a difference between coping a design and copying skill of work. I think it reasonable to use a design, if you don't duplicate the construction to imitate the original piece. Making an exact copy and prentending it is yours is plagiarism, but can we all sucessfully duplicate the craftmanship of the work we want to imitate, and isn't that an important aspect of the art of woodworking? There are hundreds of craftpepole that I will never be able to copy, because I don't have the skills to do it. And yet I might try to make something that looks like something they made. So is this wrong?
Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I heard this many years ago and never was very comfortable with the message, but as I move on in life I think I understand the message a bit better.
We all have learned through imitating others. We have done it as children and we coninue to do it as adults. If the work you are imitating is not being commercialized, and you are prepared to give credit for the source of the inspiration, where is the harm? I am pretty sure that your rendition of the project will have many aspects that are particular to your work, and the final product will be far from an exact copy.
As someone who has been a professional woodworker and builder for over 35 years, and has been blessed with the opportunity to share this knowledge with the younger tradesmen coming up through the system, I feel comfortable telling you to get totally involved in the project, and not to waste precious energy on unnecessary guilt.
If at any time you run into technical difficulties while doing the work, take a break, and call on the original creator of the project you are copying...it is amazing what can be picked up from the collective conciousness when we truly want to learn.
I took a class with David Marks at Marc Adams School of Woodworking and I asked him the very same question. He told me that if I wanted to copy his pieces to make myself a better woodworker, no problem. He also sells plans for his work on his website, so I think he is ok with it. He told me that he wants to pass along his knowledge so others can become better. Bottom line is....we all copy. When you read your FWW, you read it to learn....but these are techniques and projects that someone else has done. Just woodwork and be happy!
IF copying someone when they are alive is morally wrong then I don't see how doing so when they are dead is ok. If copying someone because we legally can is still wrong then I don't see how the legal aspect effects the moral. If you are trying to say that are laws are all about what is right well I can't help you their but I think you need to look again. OJ all but said he did it and he is a free man. The gas companies play with the price of gas anytime they want and I know of one railroad that ran all over a bunch of little model makers because the RR had more money then them (until one fought back and they had to gave in before it went any farther)
A lot of you seam to think that intellectual property rights are enforced and exist, according to every thing I have ever read and to all the lawyers I have talked to about this for the most part that is just not so. I know for a fact that you can't protect a design for a building worth a damn as if they change almost anything it is now their design. Also from a company I used to work with the protection of the corporate logo was so nuts that if you changed from one shade of blue to another it made a different logo. (I got in trouble for printing the brand new logo a shade to light because the printer could not do the dark Blue, and the lawyer from the firm that did the logo work was not happy with me) So legally I don't think you have the protection a lot of you think you do. I would ask your lawyer about this before you go putting to much faith in that idea.So I will avoid the legal or not and just look at the moral.
IF it is not moral to copy then dead or alive does not change it. I mean if anything dead should be worse as the poor chap can't defend himself and you never know but maybe his widow and orphans need to sell his design to put coal in the fire place and stay out of the poor houses, and here you are making copies.
IF you are going to say that copying is wrong then it is WRONG. It cant be ok to do it some of the time. It cant be ok to do it because the guy does not know about it, it is not OK because the guy is dead or out of business it cant be ok because the patents are gone (that would only make it legal not Moral) If you are going to say it is not moral to copy with out the consent of the person involved then it is not moral to copy with out the consent of the person be he dead or not. (sorry been watching to much Pirate of the Caribbean) And from a Moral stand point if it looks like the other guys but is just different enough to get away with it. Well that may be legal but it is not moral. So if the only way to make a copy (Identical or just close) is to get permission then I think that pretty much everyone is in trouble. This is the problem with absolutes. They just don't work. This is why I say that it is a personal matter.
So that being said I would think that all of you that have those nice L.N. Plans that are copies (for the most part) of the old Bedrocks and such should give them all away and go buy the originals. Being a nice guy I will take them off your hands for your. :)
Doug Meyer
i believe it is ok to copy old pieces e.g. shaker, etc., in fact, many books out there give explicit measurements and drawings to do just that. the authors are not shakers. E. Handberg even goes so far as to say that if you're going to make a shaker piece you should be exact in the copy and even use the same processes or tools that the shakers used. he said otherwise, if you alter the design, you are really making a piece in the shaker style. i personally have no problem doing either of those things. many of my pieces are based on a specific shaker piece but not necessarily a duplicate. i also use whatever tool suits my fancy or purpose best. the shakers were innovators and generally made or bought the best tools they could get or afford. i do the same today. i must say that the shaker designs, some of them, do appear to be inspired. the forms are just so moving in simplicity and flow.
you seem to be a very conscientious person. i personally would not feel guilty about copying or trying to copy a piece that appeals to me. i do sign and date the finished products, but do not try to pass the design off as mine if it isn't. my pieces are not for sale anyway. i never seem to feel that i can recoup the time and effort that went into them. i'd rather give it away than work a small hourly rate.
Edited 12/27/2006 11:02 pm ET by gmoney
Frosty,
The right thing to do is to contact the original maker and ask for permission. As long as you are not selling the piece, most will grant it.
Hal
(I usually give my web site here but I don't want you to copy my stuff without asking.)
Sam Maloof is probably the best-known and most-copied woodworker of our time.
I once asked Sam what he thought about all the 'Maloof' chairs out there. "It's quite flattering," he answered.
I was intrigued, so I pushed for more. "You mean you don't mind when someone makes one of your chairs?"
"Not all all," he remarked. "However, please don't call it a 'Maloof' chair. I didn't make it."
I say, this is an interesting discussion- I see that in addition to being some sort of shell a whelk is also a pimple.
Strangely enough I am in agreement with dear Charles, mostly-a most unseemly situation. In fact I don't see what the flap is about at all: a simple test will give one the answer. One merely asks oneself, as one is in the act, "would I like this if it were the other way round?" Pressing on regardless will result in grief eventually, sure as dammit. I am a fatalist.
On the other hand a smart chap coming up with a good thing needs to avail himself of patent laws etc: not too hard to do in the country where one lives, but expensive. However it is a lot harder and more expensive to enforce them domestically, let alone internationally. Why, here in Kiwistan ther is a chappie churning out Maloof like chairs-could Sam give a fig?
And I think there are more folk with a working knowledge of patent and copy right laws "on forums like this one" than one may think.Philip Marcou
Philip,
You may have the simplest way of looking at this and frankly the best. Would you like it if it happened to you. If not don't do it. I like that! What a simple way to put it.
Of course the issue here may be exactly that. If someone copied something from a photo that I put in a magazine, as long as he did not claim it for his own design or go on to make money from it I would personally not have an issue with it. In fact I would be flattered by it. So that may be the difference. I don't see this as a theft or an insult or anything else of the like and that is why for me this is not problem from a moral point of view. But as I have said moral is a personal point of view not a definitive one size fits all, and it is always evolving. So you may not like the idea.
Doug Meyer
You wrote: One merely asks oneself, as one is in the act, "would I like this if it were the other way round?"I think that you have good intentions, but you are not allowing for the feelings of others. No matter how completely one rationalizes a decision that affects another, without communicating with that affected individual to ascertain their feelings/beliefs, one must take the path of least harm. So in the case in question, the furniture piece should not be copied. One cannot fairly apply ones own moral beliefs to another. So despite the fact that you or anyone else may not object to your own work being copied, that doesn't mean it's OK to copy mine, his, or hers.
General note to start. I use the word YOU in this post as it is simpler to state things that way then to say something like "Whom ever" this is not a post directed at any one in particular as I do NOT know any of you well enough to say who is who.
I understand the point but I still think this brings us right back to my problem. If it is not OK to copy with out the permission of the person being copied then how do you copy a dead guys work? I doubt he gave you permission to do so in his will. And if it is wrong morally to copy with out permission then it is wrong and the guy being dead does not change that. It may change it legally but not morally.
So either it is ok under some circumstances to copy with out the guys permission of it is NEVER ok. If never then that includes his being dead. So everyone that has ever made a shaker anything has a problem IF it is ok sometimes then who gets to make that choice?
If I understand a lot of the people here seam to think that it is ok to copy without permission if the guy is dead (I will concede it is hard to get his permission if he is not breathing). But that is really just a cop out. In effect what you are saying is that it is ok to copy a dead guy because he is dead and it can't hurt him. So in effect you are saying as long as he is not hurt it is ok. Well if that is the case then.......
This is a slippery slope, have fun on the way down it.
So once again I think you have two camps one thinks it is ok as long as you don't claim it as your design and the originator is not hurt the other camp does not think it is ok to copy as long as the originator is alive with out his permission but ok after he is dead (something I REALLY don't understand)
So take your pick and chose the one you can live with.
Personally I think that the stance that it is ok to copy a dead guy but not a living one is based on the fact that the living one may (or may not depending on who he is) make a living building that piece and in effect you are stealing his job. IF he is dead then he is not doing the job anymore and you are ok to copy it. But really is that not just rationalizing something for the benefit of those that make a living at this? It is to the good of them that no one copies them while they are working and it is to the good of them that they can copy anyone that is dead. What if the first race car driver that ever used a sling shot move to pass had this attitude? The move would have been off limits to anyone else until he died? This is not a moral argument it is an argument about protecting someone's work, and thus back to a legal argument.
Morally either it is ok to copy if the originator is not hurt or it is only ok to copy with permission. Just because the guy died or it has been a hundred years or because someone else copied it does not make it morally ok for you to copy it. So either you need permission or not you can't have it both ways.
As I have said I think that we all need to decide for ourselves but I don't think you can look down on me because I copied something from some one that was alive when he did not get hurt by it (as I would never have paid him for it, and no one paid me) yet you go out and copy any dead guy that you feel like.
Doug Meyer
PS I personally have never copied anything from a guy that was not published as a plan in a mag (and only a couple of those) so this really is not anything that I do.
S,
You say, "One cannot fairly apply ones own moral beliefs to another".
On the contrary; to be moral, your actions must always be in accord with YOUR OWN moral beliefs, rules et al. If not you are, by defintion, being immoral.
Your argument comes down to essentially this: "I should do as everyone else wants me to" with a hidden assumption, "as long as I agree with what they want".
You are also substituting a hard and fast rule, in this case, for a "real" moral decision, which requires thought and action on a case-by-case basis, sometimes using principles or other explicit rules but often requiring an essentially emotional "decision" as well. Not everything can be decided by logic or precedent.
Of course, many people do substitute a set of explicit (even written) rules for a moral code. Often such people find themselves hoist and punshed by the vagaries of real events.
Lataxe, doing ethics 101
FWIW, when this issue came up about 15 months ago, I wrote this rather long-winded response on the subject:
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/display.asp?webtag=fw-knots&msg=18776.35
Note this is written from the perspective of U.S. law.
Thanks for your link. It was very interesting. I've been surprised by the responses in this thread. I never would have thought the opinions went so strong on both sides of the argument.
Well as one of those sounding off the most on this (I have some time on my hands right now so I am on this forum more then normal) I have to say that even though i have a strong opionion my opinion is a bit wishy washy as my opionion is "It is up to each person to determine his/her own Morral standard by which to live" And really that is about it.
As for the original post well, lets say that I think we may have slipped a little past the original intent here. :)
Doug Meyer
Thanks. I think alot of the trend lately for woodworkers to promote themselves as "artists" rather than craftsmen (a more appropriate label, IMHO), is motivated by IPR concerns; i.e., "I produce sculpture" (and thus subject to copyright protection), as apposed to "I produce fine furniture" (not copyrightable).
'interesting to see so many attitudes "if I design a widget and sell it, it is unethical and/or illegal for someone else to sell it, too". Real capitalism is in actuality far more brutal than that. Unless the other party is claiming it is the original and not a copy (fraud), or it is patented, or an artistic work (copyright), well, you got competition.
Whoa! I've been away from my computer for 24 hours and my INBOX filled up!
Let me proceed with "full disclosure" as the original poster. FWW, Issue 184, p.50 and following, ran a story titled "An Exercise in Design". Three woodworkers were asked to design a hall table with specific size limitations and inspired by an arch bridge in Connecticut. Photos of the submissions were included in the story and the briefest of dimensional sketches. I liked the Wayne Marcoux table.
Last May my wife and I were in Japan and saw a bridge - two arches, leaning into each other, meeting at the top. The deck was suspended by cables. I was "like WOW, that's neat. What a great form for furniture." I kept mulling the bridge and the table for six months and finally decided to give it a try. I've modified dimensions and materials. As for the final joinery, I'm not there yet. I never thought to contact Mr. Marcoux because of the way the story was published and because the table would be for personal use - yet I wondered.
WHAT DOES FWW HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS ISSUE?
Frosty
Frosty,
Wayne Marcoux does have a web site (rtam.com/marcoux), including another view of the piece that rang your bell.
If my conscience bothered me about attempting to copy his work, I think that I would drop him a line or give him a call. He appears friendly enough in his picture :)
That said, I think that the answer to your conscience is found in the answer to the question, "Will Mr. Marcoux be harmed in any way by my reproduction of his work and its subsequent use?"
From what you've said thus far, I think not. But why not go ahead and give him a shout? Likely he will be pleased to hear from you.
Monte
Simply answered, from my point of view, yes sir you are doing what I believe everyone on this forum does now and then, you are working with wood. Go and machine, joint, and otherwise build your project and then sit back and enjoy the results of your efforts.
I am new to Knots, but not to Fine Woodworking nor the medium. I look forward to reading more and participating occaisionally, but I will make sure to be oh so careful.
Jeanlou,
<<...but I will make sure to be oh so careful.>>
Why??? Just jump in and speak your mind. Someone's gonna disagree with you anyway, so it really doesn't make any difference. We're a sometimes contentious and always opinionated crew here, and that's one of the things that makes this place so much fun: just look at this thread.....Beste Wünschen auf ein glückliches und wohlbehaltenes Neues Jahr!
Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
...I guess I was a little bit intimidated by the passion of some of the people posting. I will take your advice and be a little more passionate myself.
Thanks for the encouragement. JL
Sure, it's fine. Who is harmed in your example? You are not going to claim the piece was made by the contempory artist, right? And you're not going to sell it (and thereby take away a pontenial sale from the artist)? If anyone ever asked, or you showed the piece (in a woodworking exhibition, for example) you would freely admit that your piece was inspired by and aimed to essentially reproduce the original work of the contempoary artist, right?
Copyrights as I understand them are intended to makes sure no one is confused about the source and that the owner is free to exploit her design as she sees fit for her own profit without interference or others profitting from her design. I just don't see how your making one for yourself infringes on any of these rights of the original artist.
If I went to a gallery and saw a painting I liked, and then went home and painted my own version of it to hang on my own wall, I don't see how there could be any objection by the artist or anyone else. Your case is the same.
While up at Center for Furniture Craftsmanship almost 2 years ago, I heard a high-end wood turner talk about a copy of his work. He had a beautiful piece in the shape of an acorn, but 4-5 inches across, I think, green with a gold top. Someone who knew him & the piece saw another one exactly like it in an art catalogue. But it was made out of metal. Other than that, it appeared identical. He was pretty philosophical about the whole thing. It didn't bother him, and he didn't see any reason to take issue with the person.
Shortly after that, I went to a local performance of Handel's Isreal in Egypt. There was a write-up in the program notes about Handel borrowing/stealing/copying. A few of his major pieces have this. In some cases, he borrowed from himself, and in others he copied from others. This resulted in much correspondence across 17th/18th century (I think) Europe. Some people defended him, others railed against him, and he claimed he was merely improving on their work.
Personally, I'm with CStandford on this. It really boils down to this: How can you make it your own, rather than a copy? Give yourself some permission to do some design work, and maybe even totally muck it up. Allow the design time to stretch out way beyond your imagined deadline. If you do decide to copy it, let everyone know its a copy. Telling the truth is far easier than worrying about it.
Bob
"I don't have plans and the photo was not such that I could scale it accurately. I don't intend to sell it. It will be for my personal use.
Were, are, my actions acceptable?"
This has been an interesting thread, I must say, I did not read every word, but I think I (from my point of view) got the gist of it. Here is my take...Copying, is OK with me, but not the most diserable. I see lloking through Mag's and Furniture examples, that a design is a really admirable ideal that I want to achieve "for myself", I like it, I want it, I will make it! I will have that!
To copy that and capture that is all fine and good from my point of view. It is a nice piece, you admire the art of it, the lines and the feeling it gives you. Nothing wrong with that, in copying it you are celebrating the creativity of the one that made it. Enjoy it and the design of it, for you discovered in the making of it, maybe how the designer came to that design. DO NOT use it for commercial gain without stating THIS IS A COPY!! It is not "YOURS" it is someone else's. Whether the creator of the piece is ALIVE or DEAD, just say it as it is, "This is a copy of XXX."
I am just a hobbyist, who would like to make some nice things before I pass into dust. I like to think of projects as a way for me to solve a puzzle or a problem. It is almost more fun to do that than building the acutual piece for me. I try to do the best with the particular situation and make it as desireable or beautifull as I can. That is "my personal challenge" and why I do this, and am particpating in this forum. I want to learn how to do, what I want to do 'better'.
If I can make something while I am alive, and some-one likes it enough to copy it, I would like them to say " I saw this piece on FWW Knots and I liked it enough to copy it". Even if it became better than sliced bread, sold millions of pieces, that would be OK by me. (If I learned that Joe Shmoe got rich and famous, I admit I would be pi##ed, but I guess Joe built it better or marketed it better that I could).
I guess for me it all boils down to copying and creating, I really try to create, as best as I can, knowing full well, that I am drawing upon numerable other sources, whether in my concious or unconcious mind. And that is likely to be used and built upon by others. At any rate, all creativity comes from the source of all creation, and that source is still a mystery to me. Just my thoughts.
Carry on.........
Steve
Steve I think we are on the same page. The challange of doing something beyond my current skill level motivates me. If you read one of my follow-up posts, I had seen a bridge that contained elements I wanted to try in furniture. Later, when I saw Wayne Marcoux's table, I felt this was a good starting point: I would modify his 'crossed legs' to parallel legs, ala the bridge. The joinery is complex - for me - but I'll try.I have talked to Wayne. He is agreeable with my efforts as long as I don't sell it. I have no intention selling my work. It's questionable who would buy - and my cost of materials is equal to market value. Plus - I'm not a fast worker.Frosty
I suggest you read the first sixteen pages of a book by Wallace Nutting titled "Furniture Treasury" Volume III. If you read them I bet you'll read the whole book.
Whatever you do, or think, are a consequence of previous experience in life. For so long as you acknowledge those influences I do not see how you can be wrong.
This is an entirely original opinion expressed by mufti and is subject to copyright.
I would say go for it. However if you decide to mass produce them and sell them to an outlet for a huge profit, highly unlikely, but you never know, you would need to research the patent rights. Especially if you go overseas to like,uh pakistan or india or peru to have them manufactured. But if your just making one for yourself go ahead, make two, give one to the inlaws, that should clear your feelings of guilt.
Huh huh, he said “wood”, huh huh
This is the best argument yet for closing down comments on old threads. If you go looking for the post (#253) that brought this back to life you are wasting your time.
Is the subject matter or arguments posed any less relevant today? You think the discussion of this subject (or many others over the last 10+ years) is over?
Thankfully, I don't imagine I'll ever be so arrogant, or so full if hubris as to think a subject should be closed off to discussion.
I didn't even bother looking through the entire thread. I immediately used my browser to search for "2022" in the page.
If it's significant, start a new thread. It's a lot easier to follow.
No, not my point at all. This thread while potent is quite scattered and impossible to follow. There might be a dozen different conversations going on in there. Your post at #253 randomly placed within took me 2 passes through the massive page to even find. Usually what's found is a wad of spam dropped in.
Reviving a conversation is welcome, I'm only suggesting that years-old threads be closed to new comments, not deleted. It's a great topic, maybe it deserves a new thread.
Given the formatting used in presenting comments, and the significant difficulty the general reader encounters trying to discern what’s new on a thread fifteen years old and thirty miles long, I think it’s easy and right to conclude that the best policy is to close comments on a thread after, say, thirty days, or some other reasonable time.
Forums like these are largely “in the moment”, and should be recognized as such. That doesn’t mean that threads should be deleted—not at all, and I’d be aghast at such a policy that results in the loss of meaningful commentary that’s now arbitrarily classified as being too far beyond its “best if sold by” date. I’ve learned many things, here and elsewhere, from old comments on closed threads.
Should the topic of the old, closed thread become timely, and one has a new question, perspective, etc. to pose about the matter, start a new thread. Were I to want to ask for current input about a technique Klausz described twenty years ago, I wouldn’t want that query embedded within a thread from 2002. I’d want it fresh, without the sea-anchor of the previous thread, and I’d try to present it with enough context for adequate identification, but —and this is the thing—as the beginning of a conversation being held today, not an abrupt resumption of one from two decades ago.
With that, I’m moving on. This thread should be in a mausoleum.
I see, sorry for getting my backhairs up. The organization of these threads is irritating. There's a point to be made for sure.
I can say though, that I've learned a lot digging through them. It takes a lot of sifting, but there's a ton of knowledge to be had.
I've often been surprised by the information I've found on the most random subject I'm curious about.
I read almost the whole thread (this) and can say there are a lot of good points. Even though some of them can be opposite to each other.
Hi Hi, MJ-bloke! Are you trying to kill this thread and thereby my own pearls of wisdom contained therein! I feel you should be punished for this, by being made to read the whole lot and then summarise it, inclusive of your own conclusions concerning not just the central question but also the 38 orthogonal issues that arose.
You have until tomorrow night.
Lataxe
PS "The past is never dead. It's not even past!" What novel, by who, is that a quote from, then? :-)
Oh, now you’ve gone and done it. In a thread on ethics of copying, you’ve stolen a line from Faulkner! In fact, it’s the very line which was lightly paraphrased and used in a Woody Allen movie (“Midnight in Paris”) a few years back. The Faulkner estate sued. I think I recall that the estate lost, but the lawyers all got rich.
Even if I disagree, I do see your point. Maybe there's a nice middle ground they could find.
I read some of this thread then realized that it is ancient history. I bypassed a bunch and got to the end and was thinking about commenting, I mean taking the world as a whole and what we experience day to day on this continent it's quite possible that ethics have changed over the last few years....but here's what I'm going to do.....
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