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Don't Egg them on
With Joseph Joseph's recent victory against a Chinese knock-off manufacturer, good progress had been made in the fight against design piracy. In Scandinavia, however, a more complicated issue is unfolding.
A Swedish company called Designers Revolt, a self-described distributor of "modern classic designer furniture," has a very "99%"-esque pitch: "We believe that the designers behind all the wonderful pieces of furniture [we distribute] would turn in their graves at the exclusivity their designs have achieved due to the artificially inflated prices charged by licensed manufacturers," says their mission statement. Expanding on that, they write:
Who would not want to own an Arne Jacobsen designed Egg Chair? Or better still a set... However, few could ever consider this when the price is comparable to the cost of a new car. The suggested price from Fritz Hansen for a leather Egg Chair is at least 9,000 Euros, meaning a group of four would set you back over 36,000 Euros!So, why is the price so high? The reason is simply a lack of competition and this is not only the case with the iconic Egg chair, it's the same with most classical designer furniture. In much of Europe furniture designs are classed as works of art, which means they have copyright protection for 75 years after the artist's death.
Furniture producers holding copyrights for these designs therefore have a monopoly and can control prices, keeping them inflated and only within reach of the wealthy few. People who love designer furniture are forced to buy from producers protected by these far-reaching copyright laws and have to pay an inflated price, the 'high street price'.
That last paragraph dashes any hope that Designers Revolt is a licensed manufacturer that is going to legally offer the furniture at a lower price. Turns out, they distributes knock-offs. So how do they get away with it? As a Finnish business newspaper explains, they capitalize on a copyright loophole having to do with different laws in the UK and the EU:
In Britain the intellectual property protection expires after 25 years, whereas, for example in Finland the protection lasts for another 70 years after the originator's death. Hence in Britain furniture designs for example by Alvar Aalto, Eero Saarinen, and Eero Aarnio are no longer copyright protected.According to the vendors' interpretation, an item that has been legally imported into Britain can then be moved to another country inside the EU, even if the direct importing of copied furniture—for example from China to Finland—would be illegal. The companies themselves do not have operations in Finland. Technically the purchaser of a product—the end-customer—is also its importer.
The legality of this is obviously being called into question, and the same newspaper article linked to above says that Finland's design sector "is striking back" against Designers Revolt; however, they're vague on the specific legal action being pursued. We'll keep you abreast of developments.
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Comments
Well, I support copyrights 100 percent.
However, there are more variables involved here.
If the designer is dead, copyrights loses part of their purpose, since they are directly connect to intellectual property, and, well, if the intellect who designed a certain object is no longer with us, technically, there is no intellectual property anymore.
This leaves us with only the legal exclusivity production rights, which are indeed a kind of monopoly.
Of course, the companies who own the production rights must be protected as well. I am not against it at all, because, in the first place, without a good production company, designs would never reach the market in larger scale.
However, I often think why people are so attached to the classics. People buy such classic furniture because famous companies offer them, or companies produce them because the people demand them?
Would not it be nice if both the companies and the consumers give up the attachment to the old, to create space for the new? Would not it be better for the evolution of design? Would not it create much more opportunities for the many talented young designers, who often find it very hard to manage to get their designs to production?
All I know is that this is very complicated...
I support everything they stand for. Leave it to the Swedes to do it right. There is absolutely NO excuse for the prices being charged for in-production furniture. Shame on anyone who supports the status quo. In point of fact most of these pieces of furniture would not be affordable to the long dead people who designed them. Shame.
I think a point to make is how these laws come to be and how little input there is from the common citizen and how little society is involved in shaping frameworks especially in very important issues like copyright.
I personally believe there should be some kind of protection for people who put work into something and to have rewards for their work. But not to the detriment of society.
Are overpriced yet well designed furniture classics a detriment to society? After 75 years definitely.
Should a pharmaceutical company own a drug, overprice it when people are dying, yet for copyright reasons they are the only ones to produce it?
How long can someone own something important to humanity that is reproducible? Perhaps it is not only a matter of how long but a matter of under which circumstances.
Intellectual property is rubbish. Our societies use it as a crutch to protect gaping holes in the logic of our economic models.
I agree that this is a difficult topic. However everyone that really has an idea about modern classic furntiture knows, that the designers never intended their products to be prestigous objects - in fact they hated it. The Eames' for example wanted to build good and designy furniture for the masses, and get rid of the heavy, victorian style that was popular. They supported flexibility and playfulness instead of conservatism and prestige. Now their furniture has become just that - prestige objects that rich people have designers put in their home, with no idea, about the history of these objects and the actual thought and spirit that was put in them...also i think these days, modern classics are used as a kind of shortcut by many designers and architects...instead of creating something on their own, something new and exciting, just put an egg chair or an eames lounge chair in there, if you want to be especially hip make it a vintage one and boom - there you have your designer appartement. Don't get me wrong, i love these classics and i own quite a collection, but to me they are more of an inspiration, i admire the way of thinking and the spirit of the designers - you can't put a price tag on that, however i think the high prices charged nowadays are not for the right reasons...
as an industrial designer i am paid for my products in proportion to the physical cost of their making.
honestly i believe that hyper over pricing of any product, be it furniture or fashion clothing, is a form of profiteering.
therefore illegal.
it would be ridiculous to try to resrtrict the sale of designer furniture in the name of The IP of a designer that does not even exist anymore.
eviva designers revolt, let's hope this concept spreads to fashion, medical sector and cocktails in trendy bars.