How do you know if someone has copied you? How similar can a product be without actually having copied your work? Is it all a case of just how much of your idea appears to be in this new product?
I’m struggling with all these questions this morning and to be honest I’m a bit out of my league. I guess I’ve always been a little paranoid about this kind of thing and I’ve got friends who have had their work copied so I’m not exactly naive on the subject but it’s still a little upsetting.
I’ve had someone before ask me questions about a product of mine and then go on to produce a similar item, this happened to me a few months ago. Whilst annoying, there are other similar products out there, so I can’t really complain about that one. It is annoying that she asked sizes etc and even uses the same subject matter though. It also doesn’t help that she is a much more sucessful and well known maker so therefore people are bound to see her product before they see mine!
This time though it’s one of my products that I haven’t seen anything similar of. When I came up with the idea I even searched around the internet and various selling sites like Etsy to see if anyone had a similar idea but I didn’t find anything. Now this morning, I’ve found it – and it’s a new company. I’ve sold these products of mine all over the place, I sell particularly well in America so I have no idea who could possibly be seeing my design and dare I say – copying it! Another slight issue is that this new company have a major distributor for their product.
But what can I do? How can I prove it? Have they really copied me or is it just a major coincidence? Will continue to struggle with these questions for the rest of the day whilst I try to bury my head in the sand and hope it all goes away! That’s healthy, right?
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Sarah, It may be worth joining an organisation such as ACID – Anti- Copying in Design. They offer a mediation service to negotiate with any copyists. http://www.acid.uk.com.
Louise
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Hi Sarah. What’s happened really sucks, poor you! Although you are not alone I always feel a bit paranoid about my own designs being copied too. I remember reading something on Etsy to do with copyright and so on, but it’s more than likely to be for American designers. http://www.designspongeonline.com are doing a series of articles to help independant business people at the moment too, but again it’s an American site. But it might be wotht a look? I hope this helps a bit. Keep smiling! Sophia
Hi Sarah, I’m sorry to read about this, I don’t have any answers for you. You might be interested in this post I was just reading don’t know if you’ve already seen it, apologies if you have, I thought you would find it of interest..http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/my_weblog/2009/04/a-complete-rip-off.html#comments