BE CAREFUL ABOUT POSTING YOUR RENDERING/CONCEPT WORK!

[sensor]

it happened to me one time with a small 'custom' builder when they used a frame design of mine without(in other words STOLE!)permission...now its happening on a bigger scale to one of our own :x
our member(and freakbike,slow-n-low,as well as other sites) kamillos has had one of his designs stolen by a bike company and they are planning to start production(of course this was all w/o permission!)....
in case you guys want to see exactly what happened heres the LINK!
some of you may recall when rhlkustoms had his designs and body stolen! the guy took a picture of rob on his broken arrow bike and covered the face with his own! hows that for messed up!!!
i know we all like showing our work but be careful about it!

 

[chimichanga]

WOW! I wonder if he can sue?

 

[sensor]

yeah since his stuff was branded.
ive talked with my lawyer about this stuff ever since i started thinking about going into business for myself but it wont be an easy fight.

 

[chimichanga]

what's the name of the company that stole his design? we can flood their inbox with angry emails.

 

[fatkid]

Unfortunately, unless the other party is selling prints of the original artwork, no copyright was infringed upon. It is perfectly legal to make and sell something that someone else posted for the world to see. The only way to help protect your intellectual property rights on something like this would be to file for a design patent BEFORE showing off your design. Then, and only then, do you have any legal recourse if someone copies the design. This is a common misconception with copyright law. Copyrights are made to protect the labor you put into something, like a painting or photograph, not the idea behind it.

That being said, it's in bad taste to rip off someone's idea, even if it's not technically illegal.

(PS I am not a lawyer, I just used to work for one)

 

[herr_rudolf]

True! But still... What about the intellectual rights? I've been wondering about that...

Cause there's also something like 'intellectual right'. Me, for instance, being an illustrator/designer I have the intellectual rights of ALL the stuff I've drawn in the past. If I do a commisioned piece like an illustration for a magazine, the illustration can only be used one time by that magazine in that issue. If these magazine-guys want to use the illustration again (in another issue or on a shirt, or sticker or anything) they'll have to contact me and ask for my permission (and to pay me!) to use the illustration a second time. Unless there was some sort of agreement before and unless the intellectual idea is bought-out by that company they have no right to use my illustration. (That's why a logo-design can cost thousands of dollars for instance. And that's why you can publish songlyrics.)

I'm not a lawyer either... So for me these rights-stuff is still very foggy.

And I know it's not fun to take a company to court. They'll probably have more money and possibilties to end the fight in their favor. Even if you have the law on your side the costs of a lawyer is to high for the individual...

Best thing in Ratrodland is to make such cases of ripping off individual designers/builders well known to a public as large as possible. Everyone on this forum should know about what this company has done and people must make up their mind on doing business with them. Or rather NOT doing business with them...

Unless, thát's illegal ofcourse.... :?

 

[schwinnmesa]

I sold a NOS Schwinn springer fork tube to this guy on the Schwinn forum awhile back. He told me that it was his last part he needed for his masterpiece -- a Schwinn that was composed of all NOS parts. Interested, I asked him if I could see a picture of it but he denied since he had many ideas of his own that he wouldn't risk them being in public view.

 

[yoothgeye]

Anything that you love and can't imagine being used by someone else or wrongly, keep it in a photo album on your coffee table and show it to friends only. The end. I'm really not that paranoid about things, but in this world today there is hardly anything that is actually new, and if something new does come around and you don't jump and run with it, someone else will.

I remember years ago when I was in the "import scene" I was looking through my Sport Compact Car magazine and saw a photo of my friend's car, that I took! They were using it to advertise and sell the body kit he had on his car. Even though I would have never made any money off of it, it really upset me that they were just grabbing photos off the internet (his picture was on cardomain.com)to use in their print ads.

I did e-mail the company and eventually they quit using the photo, but it ran in countless tuner type magazines.

 

[skillsthebarber]

when I was in Design school a hundred years ago they told us that as far as intellectual property on a design goes, all someone has to do is alter the design 10% for it to be legal for them to use. I dont know if thats still in effect but it was in the early 90's

 

[yoothgeye]

when I was in Design school a hundred years ago they told us that as far as intellectual property on a design goes, all someone has to do is alter the design 10% for it to be legal for them to use. I dont know if thats still in effect but it was in the early 90's

Yeah, in my graphic design class the teacher would let us steal graphics off the internet and flip them and call it ours.

 

[herr_rudolf]

when I was in Design school a hundred years ago they told us that as far as intellectual property on a design goes, all someone has to do is alter the design 10% for it to be legal for them to use. I dont know if thats still in effect but it was in the early 90's

Yeah, in my graphic design class the teacher would let us steal graphics off the internet and flip them and call it ours.

It happens all the time and they actually teach that at (some) schools! I had a teacher at my advertising/designschool who's motto was:
"It's better to steal a good idea than to come up with something mediocre of your own"
I thought that was stupid and immediately doubted my education and started thinking about going to art academy after my design-stint.

@ yoothgeye.
Yup. Or what I've heard: Change 7-10 parts of the design and it's legally yours to use.

By the way, it did happen to one of my designs in the past... As a graffiti-writer I came up with this pussycatlogo for myself wich I've used litteraly hundreds of times in the streets and in art. You can imagine my surprise when I came across an advertisementpaper of a national budget shoestore-chain. Because of me putting up that image (MY image) everywhere illegaly I didn't want to take legal steps and take this company to court. The fault is not with the shoestorechain but with the (probably Asian) designers making the shoes in the first place. They 'get inspired' by all of the designbooks (then, and internet nowadays) in wich work of graffitiwriters from all over the world are featured. Rugged Magazine (Carrhart) did an article about copying the work of streetartist. Here's the part they did about me. (left = my artworks, right = bad copies on childrens slippers) :

The main article was about a graffiti writer who did take a big company to court. The law was on his side in the end but all he got was just enough money to pay off his legal bills...

 

[skillsthebarber]

Yeah, in my graphic design class the teacher would let us steal graphics off the internet and flip them and call it ours.

there was no internet when I was in school, but my instructors would have given me an F if I would have tried that.


herr

I used to be on another forum where people customized sneakers, an asian company copies at least 3 of his designs and made shoes from them. No different. They used his logo and everything. It was crazy to see a bootleg shoe version of the custom one he had painted himself.

 

[Beau]

Most of the bikes built on this forum are going to resemble or look like something someone else made.

Just think, if the cantilever frame was never copied...

I sell artwork and furniture. There isn't a damn thing I can do if people look at my stuff and copy it. Any one of you could.

Oh well.

 

[herr_rudolf]

Most of the bikes built on this forum are going to resemble or look like something someone else made.

Just think, if the cantilever frame was never copied...

I sell artwork and furniture. There isn't a dang thing I can do if people look at my stuff and copy it. Any one of you could.

Oh well.

There are several bonafide reasons for us as individuals to make 'some sort of copy' of an original for our own use. But it's a whole different story if a (big and in some case 'respectable') company copies the original from the individual to make money and take full credit for that...

Also the way the original is copied is of importance. Check out the link Sensor posted in the first post. That bike is quite unique and it seems to have been copied inch by inch...

Edit: I think the age of the cantileverdesign is that old that it is allowed to be 'copied'. Not entirely sure about that though... I think it's just like it is now allowed to use the original Disney characters (mickey, donald, goofy, etc.) by other brands than just the Disney company since 2 years. Another example is the publishing of Elvis Presley-recordings by other labels than the official RCA recordcompany. Copyrights and designpatents have a timelimit and I'm almost sure that the cantilevers' copyrights timelimit has passed....

 

[g-ratter]

Most of the bikes built on this forum are going to resemble or look like something someone else made.

Just think, if the cantilever frame was never copied...

I sell artwork and furniture. There isn't a dang thing I can do if people look at my stuff and copy it. Any one of you could.

Oh well.

What do you mean you can not do anything? If it is an copy ( and not something in the public domain such as a "craftsman design" whatever) and you can prove when you made it you can force them to stop production. But it is going to cost in lawyers fees.
If you are in the USA and actually took the time to copyright your work with The Library of Congress then you can even collect the lawyers fees. Copyright is easily done on line for about $35. You can even do a grouping of your work for that $35. Every year I copyright my portfolio created during that year. The paperwork sites in my safty deposit box just in case.

 

[herr_rudolf]

Most of the bikes built on this forum are going to resemble or look like something someone else made.

Just think, if the cantilever frame was never copied...

I sell artwork and furniture. There isn't a dang thing I can do if people look at my stuff and copy it. Any one of you could.

Oh well.

Also... of more importance in your case:

If a company decides to copy your furniture and take legal steps and patent YOUR design BEFORE YOU DO (or like you should have done), I think they can actually make it illegal for you to make and sell that particular furniture YOU'VE designed in the first place...

Think about it...
:shock:

 

[fatkid]

I think there needs to be a little clarification here between copyright, patents, and intellectual property. Copyrights are there to protect your labor. If you paint a picture and someone uses a photograph of that picture in their ad/illustration/graphic/artwork without permission, they are violating your copyright because they are taking the labor you used to create it without permission or compensation. They are stealing your time, in essence. This usually comes into play in a commercial environment, copyright doesn't usually matter in academic circles because the students aren't making money on their work, they are learning from it, but it can get annoying if some student "borrows" your work in a project and ends up getting famous or something.

Let's say that an individual draws something on a napkin and posts it on the internet and someone takes that sketch and turns it into a reality. This could be a car, a house, or a watch. Unless the person owns the intellectual property rights for the design through a patent or something similar, they have no legal recourse. You don't gain ownership over a design because you rendered it up and made it pretty. You have copyright over the image you created, NOT the idea the image depicts (especially if what the image depicts is trademarked, but I digress), because you are protecting the labor you put into the artwork. Does this make sense?

Like I previously stated, it is really lame when someone blatantly rips someone off. Some people don't know any better, others don't care. As a product designer myself, I see it happen all the time and it is really frustrating. It basically comes down to what many have stated previously in this thread- if you have an idea that you want to protect, keep it to yourself, get the appropriate intellectual property rights, and only share it when necessary, preferably using a non-disclosure agreement with all parties involved.

I am not a lawyer and this should not be taken as legal advice. I am just someone who has been around IP for a while and this is what I understand. Some of this may be incorrect, but as far as I know, it's pretty accurate. I hope this helps.

 

[CCR]

when I was in Design school a hundred years ago they told us that as far as intellectual property on a design goes, all someone has to do is alter the design 10% for it to be legal for them to use. I dont know if thats still in effect but it was in the early 90's

they had an auction for all the equipment at a local boat factory that went belly up, in order to purchase the molds for the boat shells you had to sign an agreement that the molds would be altered in physical shape by 10%

... i think everybody there wondered how one does that exactly :lol:

I also remember electra stating they finally received the patent for their townie bikes "flat foot technology" ... i remember trek / schwinn / raleigh / and several others were producing "crank forward" bikes.

 

[herr_rudolf]

@ fatkid.
Sounds logical to me. As far as can follow this in English... :wink:
(For a Dutchman these sort of theoretical discussions can get quite difficult to comprehend..)

Please note: I referred to school and teachers because of them actually stimulating students to use other peoples' work instead of coming up with their own ideas, because it being 'the way of the world'. You know, a chicken 'n egg situation...
I didn't want to be part of that.

 

[motopsyco]

fatkid is right on the money with this one, anything that I post on the Internet is either completely free to share and use or altered in some way to prevent an outright copy of the design from being built without some serious reverse engineering.
On the net there is no sanctity of privacy or intellectual property. It's literally open season on anything posted anywhere, regardless of how private or proprietary someone thinks it is.
If something means enough to sue over it might be worth getting the copyright on...