Ripped off: makers share their stories of being copied

In an increasingly digital world, intellectual property theft is on the rise, often unknowingly. Social media makes it incredibly easy to infringe copyright – by simply reposting someone’s copyrighted work, for example – and the latest generative AI programs, such as Midjourney, are currently at the centre of controversy because of the way they scrape artists' work from the web without their consent. 

Against this landscape, copying will no doubt become increasingly normalised, although no less illegal. Ignorance cannot be an excuse for the large international brands that are most often accused of copying design and craft, but lengthy supply chains (which mean that they don’t always know the creative origin of what they are selling) and the probability of them getting away with it, are exacerbating the problem.

London-based maker Lee Borthwick knows the problem all too well. In 2017, she was excited to be contacted by four separate US art consultancy firms about a commission for one of her ‘mirror tapestries’. The companies were competing for the same work for a hotel project in Florida, and she had sent drawings and proposals to all four. After a while though, communication from all of them petered out. Later, she became curious about how the project had turned out and looked at the hotel’s Instagram page. ‘I scrolled down to a see a picture of the dining room and I was like: “Oh my God. That’s my design”,’ she says. ‘I was really upset.’

Once she had discovered which of the initial four companies had fabricated her work without her knowledge, she took legal action (helped by her US agent) against both the art consultancy and the project management company responsible for the hotel build. More than two years later, before it went to court, the case was settled in her favour. ‘It was the right thing to do at the time, but it was very stressful,’ she says. After legal fees, she got around $1,000, with the knock-off version of her work allowed to stay in the hotel as part of the deal.

The internet is awash with stories of those who have been copied, usually with a David-and-Goliath theme of big businesses ripping off small creators. In 2020, furniture retailer Swoon Editions apologised to designer Simone Brewster after it produced a cabinet she designed for it as a freelance project; this year designer Adam Nathaniel Furman had his handblown glass Glowbule lights (made by Curiousa) copied by a Chinese firm. Both took to social media to voice their anger, gaining momentum for their cause, but Borthwick says: ‘I never wanted to go down the social media route. I didn’t think it would do any good if I wanted to actually get some money from it.’

Borthwick says she changed the way she works to avoid it happening again. ‘If a consultant gets in touch now, I don’t send drawings. I don’t make specific suggestions. I just direct them to my website and say: “You can have something like this”.’

She's not the only one to have adapted their methods because of the fear of being copied. Stained-glass artist Jennifer Hackett, who works under the name Glass by Butler, says she changed her technique when pieces that looked exactly like hers started turning up on Instagram, with others claiming credit: ’It’s one of the reasons my work became so large and detailed. I tried to become uncopiable,’ she says.

Dids Macdonald is co-founder of Anti Copying in Design (ACID), which describes itself as the UK’s leading design and intellectual property campaigning organisation. She identifies the overarching problem as ‘a copycat culture'. She says: 'People think they can take the fast track to market riding on the coat tails of someone more creative than themselves. There’s no room for that. Creativity needs to be recognised, valued and rewarded.’ The lobbying and membership organisation welcomes craftspeople (glassmaker Adam Aaronson is among its founding members) and benefits include free initial legal advice and an ‘IP databank’ where you can upload your creations as you make them, to give what Macdonald calls ‘a design audit trail’ if work is stolen.

‘If you make work that is “an original expression of ideas”, then you have a bundle of economic rights, which includes copying,’ says Oğulcan Ekiz, a lecturer in law at Swansea University specialising in intellectual property. ‘Copyright arises automatically; you don’t have to make a formal application. As long as it is an “original expression”, you will be protected.' But the disadvantage of this is that the burden of proof is on the one claiming the copying. 'The only way to be sure is to take legal action and see what happens.’ A judge will look at whether something could have been independently created, and look for clues in the copies, such as whether there are unlikely similarities (a mistake carried over between the two, for example). They will also look for a causal link – in Lee Borthwick’s case, she had a chain of communication with the company that copied her work, and she had sent them drawings.

As Ekiz points out, ‘copyright protection doesn’t extend to the style of something, or the technique. That’s why it’s hard to know when certain techniques start, and “free and creative choice” ends’. This poses a problem for craftspeople, whose techniques may have been passed down the generations; even developing a totally new, unique method might not stand up in court if it’s possible that someone else could have done the same thing independently.

Macdonald says that many cases are settled before they get to court – and rarely with the perpetrator admitting responsibility. She is a great proponent of mediation as a less costly, lower-stress alternative, and for reaching out in the first instance ‘in language that is non-confrontational’.

The UK has a small claims court for intellectual property infringement (for claims up to £10,000), so it needn’t be as daunting as you think, but it is going to take a lot to turn the tide on the bigger issue. ACID is now 25 years old and ‘there is still an awful lot to do, in many ways,’ says Macdonald. ‘I wish I had another 25 years. Someone stealing your livelihood isn’t acceptable. And IP infringement is just a sanitised word for theft.’