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user123
Been dithering whether to write about this and decided to just in case this ever happens to anyone else.
Just over a month ago I had some really exciting news- our very own Gary the tiler, the sweetheart (!) passed on my name to one of his customers as a mosaic artist capable of doing some work for her.
She had seen two designs produced by the Italian /worldwide Sicis company which she loved but felt were too pricey and on Gary's very helpful suggestion decided to give a mosaic artist, in this case me, the job of recreating the design, imitating style, colours and subject matter.
Note the word imitating, she was quite happy when I put forward intitial doubts about copyright, putting forward the need for me to change things slightly, a bit more movement in the flower petals maybe, different ripples in the water, but really, the overall image should look like the Sicis one. Especially it was noted that she wanted the same colours, the same iridescent tiles, the same photographic style, rather than a more (to me more exciting) organic style.
Now you must understant that I have never ever been asked before, to copy a 'look', and, very excited about a big job, financially worthwhile (yey, one step closer to my van!), that would be seen in the South of the country and would likely create more business for both me and Gary in the future. Husband and me had a chat, decided that surely nobody had a copyright on flowers, and as mosaics are handmade, the copy would not be identical and felt ok with that for a while. Told both Gary and customer that I would be more than happy to go ahead, asked for £500 deposit to cover tiles and my designs etc, got the deposit and bought £250 worth of glass plus £30 worth of mesh to fix it on. The work was supposed to be sent to the client where Gary would then fix and grout it in situ. (And he can d o epoxy - it was just so perfect!) Finished designing the first flower, 90cm x80cm, took the tesserae of its mesh and started cutting and sticking in the Sicis style.
All sounds good, doesn't it. Until onthe same evening I noticed the faint copyright sign on the SICIS photo. Alarm bells rang. Thought maybe there is more to this copyright thing with mosaics than I thought. So emailed various very well known mosaic artists, amongst them Sonia King whose book I had bought, and who since had become a facebook friend, as well as some other well established mosaic artists and a friend of mine I remembered who would know more about the law in these matters.
The message came back loud and clear - don't touch it! Copyright in these matters does not ony extend to the action of exact copying, but also to 'imitating' a look, a style, especially if the same subject is being worked on.
I could have changed the flower to a completely different one Sicis do not offer (but really they got the lot that lend themselves to mosaicing) and made in the style, or use the same flower but not make it in the same style. Changing a few colours here and there and make the flower petals move a bit more in the wind or whatever would not be legal, it would still have meant breach of copyright. Then, just to really put the frighteners on me, I was told again, by all my main three advisers, independently, that not only would going ahead with the project mean I was doing something illegal and would have to hide the work, or the fact that I had done it forever and a day. Signing it would have been folly, taking photos of it to show as work examples in the future or God forbid putting it on my website would have been absolutely impossible.
So I immediatley stopped work, contacted the customer and told them the bad news, who had been pleasant and friendly throughout and said the magic words, "don't worry we'll figure something out, a different design or whatever, we don't want to get into trouble".
So what could be done. I put forward loads of suggestions, using different flowers, a different style, introduce different kinds of glass and colours and materials even, or my personal favourite, set the flowers in front of a landscape of tonally matching colours, which would change the look but would be absolutely stunning on the 2.50m x 1.25m canvas.
Or, as the customer told me of different interests she had, maybe just make any other mosaic alltogether.
Emailed the suggestions. Excited about creating a new design I could be proud of, liked the people who I had only met over the phone and Gary confirmed how nice they were, so just waiting what the final choice would be.
Then came the phonecall. It was all off. I should have known all this before I accepted the job, I was told, she did not want any other flower, look, style, colours subject matter, she didn't want an exact tile for tile copy, just the Sicis look with the same flower. You have a bunch of tiles, one specific flower, one certain cutting style, same colours, you tell me how that would not add up to a copy.
Oh, and to top it all, one of my contacts told me of some poor artist who got sued by Sicis, big time, for copyright issues with regards to work they had done.
So I had no choice to say if there was not leeway with regards to design, I would have to let this go. Customer rings back after half an hour, asks me to send her the glass and that she would make the mosaics herself (I understand she has done mosaics as a hobby). However, she wanted me to send her all my designs and a little package of precise instructions how she could copy the Sicis work! Aiding and abetting? I think not. Run for help to my mosaic friends who send me helpful legal links that all my designs are copyrighted to me automatically and that the customer does not own the right to them wether they decide to go ahead with the commission or not, unless I specifically offer to sell those rights.
Concerned that the customer's decision to recreate those panels herself wa s gunshot reaction and she would end up with a whole heap of glass which she would have no use for in the end I offer to send her the cheque for the glass I had bought, (£250), but insist on keeping the other £250 as that was to cover me for the designs, the time involved sourcing the correct glass etc.
Poor Gary is caught in the middle.
So when you start to do something in good faith and then find out that it's illegal and potential business suicide, surely that must give you the right to stop? I did everything in my power to change the design to make it legal, but if no room for sufficient maneuvre is given, what else could I do?
So send off nice email offering cheque instead of glass explaining my reasons why, and get a curt onliner "send the cheque as you can't to the work"
I'm gutted, to be honest, at the loss of the creative opportunity, feel sorry for Gary who put himself out for me, frustrated with the limits of imagination of the customer and cheesed off at losing the money for the job, too, obviously.
I know this has been a lengthy novel, but I'm not the only arty person on here, and if anyone asks you, can you do me one of those, you have to keep copyright issues in mind, and what it may mean for you if you ignore them. Equally I am grateful that I have learnt a hard lesson in a painful but at least safe way - I know stuff now I had never even thought before. Still smarts though.
Just over a month ago I had some really exciting news- our very own Gary the tiler, the sweetheart (!) passed on my name to one of his customers as a mosaic artist capable of doing some work for her.
She had seen two designs produced by the Italian /worldwide Sicis company which she loved but felt were too pricey and on Gary's very helpful suggestion decided to give a mosaic artist, in this case me, the job of recreating the design, imitating style, colours and subject matter.
Note the word imitating, she was quite happy when I put forward intitial doubts about copyright, putting forward the need for me to change things slightly, a bit more movement in the flower petals maybe, different ripples in the water, but really, the overall image should look like the Sicis one. Especially it was noted that she wanted the same colours, the same iridescent tiles, the same photographic style, rather than a more (to me more exciting) organic style.
Now you must understant that I have never ever been asked before, to copy a 'look', and, very excited about a big job, financially worthwhile (yey, one step closer to my van!), that would be seen in the South of the country and would likely create more business for both me and Gary in the future. Husband and me had a chat, decided that surely nobody had a copyright on flowers, and as mosaics are handmade, the copy would not be identical and felt ok with that for a while. Told both Gary and customer that I would be more than happy to go ahead, asked for £500 deposit to cover tiles and my designs etc, got the deposit and bought £250 worth of glass plus £30 worth of mesh to fix it on. The work was supposed to be sent to the client where Gary would then fix and grout it in situ. (And he can d o epoxy - it was just so perfect!) Finished designing the first flower, 90cm x80cm, took the tesserae of its mesh and started cutting and sticking in the Sicis style.
All sounds good, doesn't it. Until onthe same evening I noticed the faint copyright sign on the SICIS photo. Alarm bells rang. Thought maybe there is more to this copyright thing with mosaics than I thought. So emailed various very well known mosaic artists, amongst them Sonia King whose book I had bought, and who since had become a facebook friend, as well as some other well established mosaic artists and a friend of mine I remembered who would know more about the law in these matters.
The message came back loud and clear - don't touch it! Copyright in these matters does not ony extend to the action of exact copying, but also to 'imitating' a look, a style, especially if the same subject is being worked on.
I could have changed the flower to a completely different one Sicis do not offer (but really they got the lot that lend themselves to mosaicing) and made in the style, or use the same flower but not make it in the same style. Changing a few colours here and there and make the flower petals move a bit more in the wind or whatever would not be legal, it would still have meant breach of copyright. Then, just to really put the frighteners on me, I was told again, by all my main three advisers, independently, that not only would going ahead with the project mean I was doing something illegal and would have to hide the work, or the fact that I had done it forever and a day. Signing it would have been folly, taking photos of it to show as work examples in the future or God forbid putting it on my website would have been absolutely impossible.
So I immediatley stopped work, contacted the customer and told them the bad news, who had been pleasant and friendly throughout and said the magic words, "don't worry we'll figure something out, a different design or whatever, we don't want to get into trouble".
So what could be done. I put forward loads of suggestions, using different flowers, a different style, introduce different kinds of glass and colours and materials even, or my personal favourite, set the flowers in front of a landscape of tonally matching colours, which would change the look but would be absolutely stunning on the 2.50m x 1.25m canvas.
Or, as the customer told me of different interests she had, maybe just make any other mosaic alltogether.
Emailed the suggestions. Excited about creating a new design I could be proud of, liked the people who I had only met over the phone and Gary confirmed how nice they were, so just waiting what the final choice would be.
Then came the phonecall. It was all off. I should have known all this before I accepted the job, I was told, she did not want any other flower, look, style, colours subject matter, she didn't want an exact tile for tile copy, just the Sicis look with the same flower. You have a bunch of tiles, one specific flower, one certain cutting style, same colours, you tell me how that would not add up to a copy.
Oh, and to top it all, one of my contacts told me of some poor artist who got sued by Sicis, big time, for copyright issues with regards to work they had done.
So I had no choice to say if there was not leeway with regards to design, I would have to let this go. Customer rings back after half an hour, asks me to send her the glass and that she would make the mosaics herself (I understand she has done mosaics as a hobby). However, she wanted me to send her all my designs and a little package of precise instructions how she could copy the Sicis work! Aiding and abetting? I think not. Run for help to my mosaic friends who send me helpful legal links that all my designs are copyrighted to me automatically and that the customer does not own the right to them wether they decide to go ahead with the commission or not, unless I specifically offer to sell those rights.
Concerned that the customer's decision to recreate those panels herself wa s gunshot reaction and she would end up with a whole heap of glass which she would have no use for in the end I offer to send her the cheque for the glass I had bought, (£250), but insist on keeping the other £250 as that was to cover me for the designs, the time involved sourcing the correct glass etc.
Poor Gary is caught in the middle.
So when you start to do something in good faith and then find out that it's illegal and potential business suicide, surely that must give you the right to stop? I did everything in my power to change the design to make it legal, but if no room for sufficient maneuvre is given, what else could I do?
So send off nice email offering cheque instead of glass explaining my reasons why, and get a curt onliner "send the cheque as you can't to the work"
I'm gutted, to be honest, at the loss of the creative opportunity, feel sorry for Gary who put himself out for me, frustrated with the limits of imagination of the customer and cheesed off at losing the money for the job, too, obviously.
I know this has been a lengthy novel, but I'm not the only arty person on here, and if anyone asks you, can you do me one of those, you have to keep copyright issues in mind, and what it may mean for you if you ignore them. Equally I am grateful that I have learnt a hard lesson in a painful but at least safe way - I know stuff now I had never even thought before. Still smarts though.
that soooo many others would have done...
