
EU expands copyright to furniture and extends term by a century - mirceasoaica
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/08/3d-printers-break-eu-expands-copyright-furniture/
======
jordigh
So, I just went to Wikipedia to try to understand design patents. They differ
from copyright in that to defend them in court, you don't have to prove that
the infringing item was copied from your design, right? (Their terms are also
much shorter than copyright, but historically both patents and copyright were
no longer than at most a couple of decades.)

What's the societal purpose of design patents? I get the purpose of utility
patents: tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise not to compete
with you for a while. Utility patents are an alternative to trade secrets. But
with a design patent, what is society getting in exchange? Giving designers
more of an incentive to produce original designs? Does originality suffer
without it?

I guess now that copyright is going to cover furniture, the difference is that
the term is ridiculously longer (effectively indefinite), but designers also
have to prove that there was deliberate copying if they want to sue for
infringement?

~~~
KaiserPro
The benefit to me, is that if I create a design, I can then make money from
it.

Someone like Amazon can't just come along, copy and paste, and steal my idea
and make money from it.

On a more general term, this would surely encourage originality, as there is a
direct incentive _not to copy_

However I can see the other side of this argument, where big corporation buy
up a large number of Design patents and use them to institute a tax on a
certain item.

~~~
jordigh
Yes, but designers are a minuscule part of society. Laws shouldn't benefit a
few at the expense of the many. I guess incentivising originality is the
benefit to the many. Are we better served by original furniture designs than
by the ability to build our own furniture, however it may be shaped?

~~~
KaiserPro
Should they not be paid for their work?

I don't see how it is an advantage to allow people to rip off original
designers, present it as their own work and charge a premium.

~~~
EdHominem
You know, maybe not.

We don't guarantee that effort equals reward anywhere else. You can go tilt
against windmills all day, everyday, and find that either because nobody
wanted them tilted (hah) or simply through poor execution, you can't make a
living at it.

Why does some work deserve a hundred-year monopoly on anything like it, but
other work does not?

Why does designing a chair deserve it, but designing a website UI (not the
content) not?

And if building a Web UI out of standard parts (ie legs and cushions in the
chair metaphor) does deserve protection, when do other people get to use a
slider in combination with a dropdown, or whatever my minor innovation was?
How long do I deserve to keep the world from using the standard toolbox just
because I was first?

The process of invention, and the domain (chairs, programming, UX design) seem
obscure and complex to the naive viewer and yet obvious to other
practitioners. Unfortunately our system is based on asking people who do _not_
work in the field what elements deserve protection.

That's what protected slide-to-unlock.

------
gulpahum
Laws about making copies for private use differ from EU country to another.
The author is only talking about UK, which has strict laws about copying for
private use. For instance, it is illegal to copy CDs [1] or entire books [2]
for private use in UK.

In Finland, it is legal to copy CDs (even the ones in public libraries!) [3]
and entire books [4] for private use. So, I don't think that 3D printing of
furniture is affected in Finland. I can happily continue printing my Ikea
chairs.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12021607/Why-
in-2...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12021607/Why-in-2015-is-
ripping-CDs-still-illegal-in-the-UK.html)

[2] [https://www.reading.ac.uk/library/finding-
info/copyright/lib...](https://www.reading.ac.uk/library/finding-
info/copyright/lib-copyright-photocopying.aspx)

[3] [http://www.kysy.fi/en/kysymys/it-helsinki-city-library-
legal...](http://www.kysy.fi/en/kysymys/it-helsinki-city-library-legal-copy-
cds-and-dvds)

[4] [http://blogs.helsinki.fi/copyright-within-
teaching/exception...](http://blogs.helsinki.fi/copyright-within-
teaching/exceptions/private-use/)

------
pmontra
I wonder who's being affected by this law. Very few people buy designer
furniture costing thousands of Euros. Furthermore you can have 100,000 songs,
1,000 movies, 100 clothes but only a few chairs. So the Chinese will keep
selling cheap furniture with some changes to the design and the EU
manufacturers won't make much more.

Example

This chair is extremely popular in cheap restaurants, plastic made
[https://dearchiworld.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/no-14-chair-
mi...](https://dearchiworld.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/no-14-chair-michael-
thonet/)

The Thonet company still sells it (couldn't find the price) and I found it on
Alibaba starting from $25. It's so old that's out of the reach of the law but
if it wasn't do we really think they're not going to tweak the design and that
their EU customers will care and go buying from Thonet instead?

~~~
toyg
If cheap manufacturers were forced to significantly tweak the design, it would
become easier to spot a fake, which means expensive restaurants would more
willingly pay the difference to get originals.

If everyone could just slap the same glowing apple on their laptop lid, there
would be less incentive for people to get original Apple laptops. Same here.

~~~
VLM
"it would become easier to spot a fake"

For a theoretical example look at the situation with Wooton desks and their
multiple trim levels. They'll just be more trim levels to work around the
copyright.

Obviously the specific example of Wooton desks don't matter because that
design is about 150 years old. But it is an example of a general class of
problem. In my infinite spare time I enjoy fine carpentry for relaxation, as
do a couple other people here, and on my infinite list of things to do is make
either a copy of a Wooton or make a Wooton / 43 folders mashup. And running
off extra copies doesn't take much extra time, and selling extra copies is an
interesting way to pay for your supplies. So this kind of thing could
theoretically impact small craftsmen not just Chinese factories.

~~~
toyg
_> They'll just be more trim levels to work around the copyright._

Which is why there are judges and court cases to decide if design patents are
infringed, otherwise we'd have machines that simply compare pictures. If your
desk is exactly the same as the original bar a few trim levels, a judge will
likely find you're infringing.

 _> So this kind of thing could theoretically impact small craftsmen not just
Chinese factories._

That's entirely possible, but not a new phenomenon. Can small craftsmen make
_and sell_ statues of Han Solo without infringing Disney's copyright?

~~~
VLM
Woodworking is smaller than you think. If I take a Chippendale table and
replace the (creepy) animal like curvy legs and those (creepy) ball and claw
feet with straight square footless legs, that both is, and is not, a minor
trim variation on a Chippendale. On one hand its just different actions at my
workbench, on the other hand that's an entirely different product that being a
Hepplewhite style table.

Both styles are over two hundred years old and being free for all to use has
increased the size of the economy not collapsed it. I like the analogy with
Wooton from 150 years ago. I should be able to make and sell copies of a
Wooton to my hearts desire. I don't think retroactively increasing copyright
to 151 years will suddenly retroactively make Wooton invest more in fancy desk
designs thus retroactively increasing hiring in his plant in the late 1800s or
whatever ridiculous mantra is recited in favor of imaginary property. Likewise
in 2170 I should be able to sell Han Solo figurines, although I'm willing to
bet if our corrupt system is still even operational then, I still won't be
able to do so legally and unfortunately Hollywood will probably still be
churning out sequels remakes and reboots. Copyright duration needs something
like the Laffer Curve.

~~~
toyg
_> being free for all to use has increased the size of the economy not
collapsed it_

Considering the sad state of English manufacturing, including furniture,
that's a controversial statement. It was undoubtedly a good thing as the
English industry was small and growing, much like loose open-source code
sharing is a good thing for the still-burgeoning software industry. But that
industry is mature now; profits are razor-thin and fundamental innovations are
very rare. In such a scenario, commercial viability in high-cost countries
usually hinges on design and marketing differentiating you from competitors.

 _> I don't think retroactively increasing copyright to 151 years will
suddenly retroactively make Wooton invest_

Yeah, I agree that retroactive application looks stupid with such long terms.
Still, the concept overall is consistent with the long-term industrial
direction that developed countries are set on. I don't think established
interests would be so aggressive on copyright if they could see other
realistic alternatives to "let's just leave it all to the Chinese".

------
japs
As a person who values good design (and has spent what many would think way
too much for a table lamp), I don't see this law as totally absurd: they are
basically putting design and works of art (think paintings, pictures, novels)
on the same level.

The real problem is that copyright law is flawed, and terms should be reduced,
both for designs and for works of art.

~~~
EdHominem
In art the _only_ thing that matters is the presentation so there's no
societal need for me to copy your art because it serves no function.

But with something like a lamp (or chair) the presentation is also the
function.

If you're the first person to put a switch on the lamp as opposed to the
cable, simply because you're the first to source a good enough switch to
survive in that form factor, do you deserve protection for that cost/benefit
tradeoff? For a century?

And doesn't that penalize the switch maker? They do all the work and you're
merely the first to slap it on your design so you claim exclusive right to use
it, destroying their market for their product.

------
scholia
From the Guardian story at [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/29/buy-
design-cla...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/29/buy-design-
classic-now-about-to-rocket-in-price-copyright-law)

"Take, for example, the famous Eames walnut and leather armchair with matching
ottoman. The officially licensed and copyrighted producer, Vitra, sells them
for £6,814 in John Lewis. Yet copies made in Chinese factories sell over the
internet and in some stores for as little as £399."

Later:

"With an estimated 54 factories in China making Eames furniture alone, he
[David Woods, a copyright laywer] predicts the closure of websites producing
bargain basement, mass-produced copies of furniture, 'as after all, this was
their business model'."

------
carlob
So [http://voga.com](http://voga.com) is dead?

~~~
aswerty
From my understanding of it, yes.

------
ashitlerferad
I for one look forward to IKEA violating the GPL on copylefted furniture
designs.

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MistahKoala
"This change means that people will be prohibited from using 3D printing and
other maker technologies to manufacture such objects, and that for a full
century."

Undermining the premise of an argument in the first paragraph with a complete
mistruth doesn't bode well for the ground it's built on.

To say that this change will prevent makers from using 3D printing to produce
furniture is significantly more absurd than the idea of protecting makers' own
designs from unscrupulous exploitation by manufacturers.

~~~
pjc50
> this change will prevent makers from using 3D printing to produce furniture

Surely that's (part of) the intent of the change?

~~~
MistahKoala
It won't stop them from using 3D printing to produce furniture, though. It's
absurd for the article to say that it will as the only thing it's intended to
prevent is protected designs being ripped off. If someone wants to design
their own furniture, they'll still be free to do that, as well as make it
freely available if they wish.

------
mlinksva
Anyone have a link to the EU ruling? I read the Guardian article this blog
post riffs on yesterday, searched for ruling, and couldn't find.

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snsr
This is possibly the dumbest idea I've ever encountered.

~~~
pavlov
That's how a lot of people felt about software copyrights in 1976, when Bill
Gates wrote this letter to the nascent computer community:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists)

If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what
keeps you paid, and it's hypocritical to want to deny the same protection to
other creative professionals... Especially considering how hard it is to make
a living as a furniture designer compared to a software developer.

(That said, I would definitely vote for shortening copyright terms across the
board. Something like 50 years from creation date would be fine IMO. These "X
years after death" provisions are ridiculous because they only serve to make
payouts to descendants that didn't participate in the original creative work.)

~~~
jordigh
> If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what
> keeps you paid,

I work in a company that does assessments for other companies. I write in-
house software to perform those assessments. They give us the data and we give
them reports.

There's no "IP" [sic] involved in any of this. There are service contracts and
so forth, but my salary would come just as well if our customers had our
source code (not that any of them would know what to do with it). Our company
provides a service in the form of trained professionals who know how to
perform the assessment aided by the software written by people like me who do
it. I guess maybe our brand name is important, so perhaps trademarks help us,
but that's a completely separate matter from what you are blanket calling
"IP". We do not rely on patents (design or not) or copyright to get our pay.

~~~
collyw
I bet a lot of companies values would go down if the saw the general
shoddiness of code in our industry.

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SubiculumCode
ah the rentier economy.

