Be Original
By Erin Neisewander - eGuide Digital Manager
As a designer, I love being inspired by other designs in our community, it’s what sparks ideas and a lot of the time it’s what pushes us to the next level.
Inspiration comes from so many places, whether it’s learning a new skill to achieve something we saw and admired or sparking a new idea based off of a cool post we saw from one of our favorite social media channels. However, we have to be careful to only be inspired- not copy.
Let’s dive into a few different ways that copyright laws, parodies and intellectual property come into play for designers.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is anything that is created originally by a designer. This means, if you draw something, create a logo, build a website template etc, that is your property as a designer until you sell your ownership rights to a client. The only exception to this rule is if you work full time for an employer and you create designs for that employer on their clock. Then, that work belongs to your employer as their intellectual property.
With your OWN work you have the right to legally protect it by copywriting it, trademarking it, obtaining a patent or having it be a “trade secret” under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.
Fair Use
Per Cornell Law School The Fair Use Doctrine is the exception to the copyright act that makes it legal to use copyrighted works without permission in certain circumstances. These circumstances are as follows:
Scholarly works
News reporting
Criticism
Teaching
Parody
In all of these cases, besides parody mentioning a copyrighted work (if relevant), it is just fine as long as you do not claim it as your own.
Parody can be tricky as it can blur the lines. Take for example the movie franchise “Scary Movie”, do we all know they are getting their ideas from other scary movies such as Scream and The Ring? Yes, of course, but this is a great example of a parody. They tend to blow things out of proportion and go over the top with referencing so as not to directly copy another’s work. Parody takes something we know and love and twists it in a way to make us have a new understanding of the material and laugh at how it mocks the original (in a good way).
How do you know who owns it?
Who owns what goes back to if you have created something solely on your own, sold it to a client or if you created it under an employer.
Creating something on your own for yourself will always belong to you.
Creating something for a client will belong to you until you set out certain stipulations in your contract. You need to pay attention to what rights you are assigning to your client, such as the right to use, reproduce or make edits or adaptations to your work. Unless you assign copyright ownership over, the design is still yours.
If you aren’t sure who owns the copyright to a design or an idea, play it safe and avoid using it. Remember, we all get inspired- it’s how we grow! Copying is never the answer. Be you, Be original.
Help Someone. Have Fun, Be You. Learn & Teach. Finish What You Start.
