Comments on: Inspired or Stolen?

By: Jeff Tobin

Jeff Tobin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:20:28 +0000

Great article, Chris. I’ve heard variations of this same discussion for over 20 years. Is it right for creatives to scan CA Annuals for “inspiration?” Is it stealing when someone knowingly co-opts a concept but they change the layout or tweak the headline? Is it really that bad to lift music from a composer’s demo CD if it’s only going to be used a few times on a local TV spot? I’ve personally faced these questions many times in my career; so has any creative who’s been around awhile. And while much of it’s covered under intellectual property and trademark law, as you say, smaller companies don’t have the resources to protect themselves from this kind of behavior. At the end of the day, I think it really does come down to one’s personal ethics.

By: Kristen Harris

Kristen Harris — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:56:11 +0000

Good article, the blog is nice addition to your site. I love the internet because I can find anything and everything out there, unfortunately so can everyone else. You want to post your work so people can see it and hire you, but that leaves you exposed to these kind of unethical situations as well. We haven’t found a way around it that makes us comfortable, we only use private sites and hidden links to share samples with our clients. Otherwise the Portfolio Creative Staffing website could become the greatest “inspiration” website our there, and that is not fair to our associates. It’s up to our associates if they want to post their work publicly, but we don’t. It’s an age-old issue, just made all the more accessible by the internet.

It may sound a little free-love-and-hug-a-tree, but to me how you do business has a lot to do with karma. If you work and behave in a professional and ethical manner, then the people you deal with will rise to your level. Every creative person (really every businessperson) seeks inspiration, how they use that inspiration is what separates them. See a great idea and think you can do it better or for less? That’s entrepreneurship at it’s finest. Steal something outright…I guess it just depends on what kind of reputation you are trying to build, but at the end of the day you have to face yourself in the mirror.

By: ckavinsky

ckavinsky — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:18:14 +0000

There’s always going to be “designers” that rip off ideas, whether its from the web or annuals. There’s not much that can be done about that. Most of them stay under the radar, but when they get exposed, it really hurts them.

The shocking thing about LogoMaid is that its a corporate mindset of at least using stolen ideas as their own. That at least seems to be the case from their initial reply. Although they’ve recently publicly recanted and removed the logos under question, its sad to see that wasn’t the response initially. i hope its a good lesson to them and anyone else that tries to make a profit from someone else’s hard work.

Kristen - thanks for the compliment on the site and blog. It was almost a year in the making and I’m glad the feedback has been positive.

By: Steve V. C.

Steve V. C. — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:44:52 +0000

So how do we distringuish between theft and inspiration? Did Steve Jobs steal an idea from the Beatles or did he appreciate the simplicity of a popular fruit? Was he even inspired by Apple Records? And what about Budweiser? Did they steal a foreign brand or pay hommage to the original? This topic centers around commercial arts but we have seen the same problem in other areas with music being the best example. Is rap an example of theft or reinvention?

Becareful how you answer. Artists develop their skills through imitation and build their craft through emulation. Few concpets are truly original.

You’re correct that this is an issue that can only be resolved by the public but the creative community has to determine where to draw the line. Trademark and copyright laws cut both ways. Strict laws and rigid enforcement makes it easy for big companies to steal ideas from smaller entities while lax enforcement allows for theft of intellectual property. We can police it in the open market but we have to know how.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:51:54 +0000

Steve, I agree with you that there is a lot of grey area in distinguishing between inspiration and theft. You can’t throw a big blanket on every similar design and claim that they stole it, which is what some people in the design community do sometimes. You have to look at each instance case-by-case.

In this case of LogoMaid stealing Dan’s logo design, you have to look at a number of things that I pointed out in the post. First, look at how defensive and accusatory they responded. That’s usually, though not always, a common response by the guilty.

Secondly, you have to look if this is a one-time coincidence, or is there a pattern of questionable designs. Again, LogoMaid appears to fail this test as well, especially the supposed Apple ripoff. Look how quickly that logo vanished off the site when word that Apple aggressively goes after copyright violators. It does not paint a good picture of LogoMaid at all.

If you go back to the Flickr discussion where this all came to a head, you’ll see that LogoMaid does admit that their designer stole Dan’s design and apologizes for it. A nice gesture, but you wonder why that wasn’t their initial response. I personally think to see a company drag that mess out speaks volumes, and not in a good way, about how they do business.

For further reading on the stealing of designs, check out Nick Finck’s post on Digital Web. He offers some great links to other sites as well that discuss this issue.