Crafty Tuesday This old IP chestnut or there are only so many ways to make a leg
Posted By Kathleen David on September 29, 2021
In one of the doll groups I belong to we had another round of ‘you stole my pattern’.
Honestly there are only so many ways to make a doll leg.
Also, the part she is complaining about. I can find the same leg in half a dozen books I own on doll making.
There are only so many ways to make a costume especially if you are re-creating a character from a film or tv show. This is also true with puppets.
It just amazes me how people will get on their high horse about intellectual property theft when I can point to other people who have done the exact same thing or what they are doing has been done for over 100 of years.
A good example of that are shoulder dragons with moving heads. The mechanism has been used for years in puppetry using everything from piano wire to bike cables. Every couple of years we have to sit through a shouting match between a couple of people who insist they created the original shoulder dragon. I first saw them in the early 80s in an art show at a convention.
Intellectual property is a very specific thing.
There are, basically, five kinds of intellectual property.
Copyright– Copyright is a form of legal protection that protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
This is the one I have dealt the most with in my creative life. I did not know until today that software falls under this category. I thought it was under patents.
Trademark- A trademark is a word, slogan, phrase, symbol, or design that helps to identify and distinguish you/your business as the source of your products and/or services from products and services provided by someone else
Business Logos are a good example of this like Starbucks or Lego
Patents- A patent is a government-issued property right given to an inventor to exclude others from making, selling or using their invention for a set period of time.
These are important for inventors and other people who create physical objects so they can make money on their intellectual property.
Trade Dress- Trade Dress is the visual appearance, characteristics, and overall “look and feel” of a product or its container, packaging, or design, that uniquely signifies the source of the product to consumer
Think the iconic blue Tiffany box.
Trade Secrets- A trade secret is confidential proprietary knowledge that is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable by others that gives you and your business a competitive and economic advantage
These are a little trickier because they have no legal footing like the other four so everyone keeps those close to the vest. When I started working at Michael’s, I had to sign, basically, and NDA about how they do things at Michael’s. I am forbidden to work for another story in the craft industry and if I do move on, I am not allowed to talk about the inter-workings of the company.
When I was at Del Rey, I had to sign a number of NDAs before I could work on several projects. Those are still in effect to this day.
Something that one had an idea for but never executed it cannot be copywritten. The ‘I thought of if first’ does not work unless one actually creates a fix tangible form of the idea. So two authors can come up with the same idea but the one who writes it first wins the IP race.
I have plenty of ideas for stories and the like. My execution of those ideas is less than stellar. When I read something that reads like my idea, I just shrug and move on. I do not throw a temper tantrum and threaten to sue others on an idea that I had that I did nothing tangible with.
Again there are only so many ways to make a leg.
I am grateful that I have a decent knowledge about Intellectual Property.
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