Battling Visual Plagiarism

As a graphic design educator or practitioner, battling against visual plagiarism can be frustrating and daunting.I typically begin each semester with the mantra, “Art is work.” This is reinforced by showing students Ira Glass,’ “The Gap,” where he talks about the creative process and the importance of continuing to make work. I follow this up by showing Kirby Ferguson’s, “Everything is a Remix.” This usually leads to a lively discussion about visual plagiarism, appropriation, fair use, and copyright.Visual plagiarism is a complex issue at best. Most design educators require students to do visual research, just like most designers do. If a students doesn’t do research, they often say it is because they didn't want to be influenced by someone else’s work. In my experience, this is a euphemism for not wanting to put the time and energy into doing the research. We spend our time reinforcing the value of research and how important it is in the design process.After stressing the importance of looking at other people’s work, it’s necessary to follow this up with a discussion about visual plagiarism. My battle against it typically begins by reading our college’s plagiarism policy as stated in the course syllabus:Plagiarism, i.e.: the use of words or ideas of others, whether borrowed, purchased or otherwise obtained, without crediting the source…I next discuss in detail how this relates to visual plagiarism and show examples. I explain that penalties may include failure and further action if the incident is reported to the Dean of Students. I discuss reverse image finding sites like tineye.com and let them know that I will be checking their work here and they should be pro-active and take a look at their own work here to prevent inadvertently taking someone else’s work.Despite these efforts, every semester work is submitted where the “remix” looks more like a “rip-off.” This happened a few months ago when the offending student didn’t bother to look past the screen of the student sitting right next to him and proceeded to present a design that looked very familiar to his classmate. Of course, it presents an excellent teachable moment. In this case, I waited to see if the students themselves would bring it up, which I was happy to see that they did. It’s important to note, that I honestly don't think the student even realized that he was doing anything wrong. We assume when we say that visual plagiarism will not be tolerated, students know what that means.Earlier this week I participated in a workshop about collaborative learning where an English professor discussed using memes as a required assignment. Meme’s are all about the remix and the rip-off. Memes have become a ubiquitous part of our culture. When students grow up in an environment where memes are part of our dialogue, visual plagiarism becomes more complex.It happens all the time and our tools make it easy. The ability to outline fonts, image trace raster images and then make slight alterations to the vector art makes it simple. A few high profile cases include John Williams and his company Logo Garden and Modern Dog’s fight against Disney. William’s position was that he was within his rights to create many of the logos offered on the site because the logos were new vector drawing with slight alterations. In Modern Dog’s case, Disney claimed that the drawings were technical and not creative, so the issue of copyright infringement did not apply.Don’t even get me started on appropriation…In Mark Johnson’s book, Moral Imagination, he discusses how important our imagination is in our ethical deliberation. This makes sense to me and I try to incorporate it into my lectures on visual plagiarism by using the “walk in another man’s shoes” proverb. As much as we would like to believe we are wired to be good and have impeccable ethics, most of us aren’t born that way, but rather develop into ethical people with imagination playing a key role.I’m looking for ideas; as designers and design educators, what works best for you in making sure you, and those you employ or instruct, avoid visual plagiarism?

Branding the Olympics—“worst practices” in design

While the Olympic games themselves are steeped in excellence and “best practices” in athletics—the design of the 2020 Olympic logo has spiraled into an example “worst practices” in graphic design.This past September the 2020 Tokyo Olympic logo that was designed by Kenjiro Sano was scrapped when he was accused of design plagiarism. Sano’s design has characteristics of a logo designed by Belgian designer Olivier Debie for the Theatre de Liege.Initially, organizers defended Sano, but then changed their minds, asserting that using a logo that is not supported by the public is not in their best interests and the success of the Olympics. Instead, they decided to crowdsource the logo design, opening it up to anyone. The organizers received nearly 15,000 entries from people competing for $8,250 and tickets to the opening ceremonies.This week AIGA firmly stated their position with an open letter to the Tokyo Olympic committee. Executive Director Ric Grefé discussed several reasons why crowdsourcing logos is damaging to designers, the highlights follow:

• Crowdsourcing takes advantage of designers, asking them to work countless hours without a guarantee of any compensation. Furthermore, the amount of the proposed award, is much lower than what the appropriate compensation would be for a brand identity that will have global value, being reproduced millions of times.
• By opening the contest to the general public, the committee demonstrates a complete lack of respect for trained and experienced professionals.
• The valuable collaboration with the client when creating a brand identity is completely ignored with crowdsourcing , compromising the ethics and global standards for professional designers.

U.S. designer Michael Raisch’s response to the controversy echoes AIGA’s stance. With over a decade of experience in sports branding, Raisch thinks that crowdsourcing brand identity devalues creative professional careers and thei contributions to the world. He decided to point to the absurdity of the committee’s decision to crowdsource the logo by opening the contest up to three-year-olds, emphasizing the point that crowdsourcing results in amateur work. Raisch created an endearing video about the experience entitled, “A 3 Year Old Explains the Olympic Logo.”The contest just closed this past week—stay tuned for the results—no doubt more controversy is in store.http://eyeondesign.aiga.org/against-crowdsourcing-logo-design-an-open-letter-from-aiga-to-the-tokyo-olympic-committee/http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/02/sport/tokyo-olympic-logo-scrapped/index.htmlhttp://www.designweek.co.uk/a-three-year-old-could-have-designed-that-the-olympic-logo-made-by-a-toddler/

Dog eat dog world?

Robynne Raye and her partner at Modern Dog, Michael Strassburger, have been involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit with Disney, Target, and the Jaya Apparel group for the past several years. Modern Dog filed a lawsuit against the companies when the artwork from the end papers of their 2008 Compendium showed up on T-shirts being sold by Target. Anyone that I've talked to about the case agrees that Modern Dog should win based on the evidence—as long as they can stay the course and raise enough money to stand up to the stonewalling tactics of the big dogs. The recent shenanigans by the defense makes me wonder about the dog eat dog world we live in.In a Print Magazine blog post from last week about the case, Steven Heller quotes an email from Raye and Strassburger, “After misleading us into thinking they were going to settle our case without mediation, the defense filed a surprise motion on May 14th to have our case thrown out. They no longer deny (or admit) that they copied our illustrations, instead the defense is claiming that your illustrations are not entitled to a broad copyright since the dog illustrations lack “expression” and fall into the “natural world” category.”Raye has posted some of the other comments made in court on her Facebook page. Here are a few highlights:

"Favorite quote from yesterday's Motion for Summary Judgment (said be the defense attorney): 'There's very little creativity going on here'."

"I just think this case has to be one of the most absurd in the history of copyright. They deny copying our dogs for months, then out of nowhere claim that our dogs are realistic depictions from the "natural world" so therefore not protected by a broad copyright anyway."

The image below shows the illustrations of dogs in question. The dogs on green background are Modern Dog's. The dogs in center on white are from the Target T-shirt. I've circled a few strikingly similar ones. You'll find more if you look closely.The defense is trying to claim that the dog illustrations are technical rather than creative—anyone could have done them. Raye and Strassburger dispute this claim. In fact, Raye and Strassburger think the designer used a Wacom tablet to trace the illustrations. A PhD in mathematics from Stanford was among the expert witnesses called. The witness stated that there is less than a 1 in over 2,000,0000 chance that they did not trace the dogs their book.After much time and huge expense, the trial is scheduled for September 2013. I will continue to watch this case with great interest—as well as amazement at how low people can go. I will offer as much support for Modern Dog as I can. I hope you do too.Sources:http://www.printmag.com/imprint/weekend-heller-3/https://www.facebook.com/robynne.raye?fref=ts&ref=br_tfhttp://imprint.printmag.com/buzz-poole/modern-dog-copyright-and-the-burden-of-proof/http://minesf.com/resources/cca/2012/09/10/friends-of-modern-dog/http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/04/19/5-famous-copyright-infringement-cases

Does John Williams have no empathy?

The recent Logo Garden scandal has many graphic designers up in arms. From the Action Alert sent by AIGA to warn graphic designers about possible theft and plagiarism of their logos, to the blog post "Love Thy Logo" on RockPaperInk by Bill Gardner, it is clear many are appalled.When Gardner found more than 200 of his own designs offered on the site, he documented Williams' outrageous and unethical behavior along with examples of the slight modifications of well-known logos like the identity for World Wildlife Fund and Time Warner Cable that are also on the site.Clues concerning how Williams' feels can be gleaned from his recent guest post for the entrepreneurs blog On Startups, "No Capital? No Problem. What You Get For Free Is Priceless."  He gives readers a pep talk about starting their own business and the value of organic growth. He never clearly gives them a picture of how using one of his logos fits into this picture, but goes about instilling a spirit of comraderie with them accompanied by the claim that his experience with branding led him to make an easy to use logo maker available to startups and DIYers. As Gardner asserts in his post, these startups and DIYers will most likely have no idea where the work came from or that it is not his to sell.While many may be glad that the slight modifications that Williams made to the logos may actually increase his liability by demonstrating his willful copyright infringement, what bothers some designers most is the question of how he can do this to his colleagues. As Gardner says, "You'll note I avoided going on a tirade about the issues with the $100 internet logo firms. They have foibles that too deserve penance but designers have no forgiveness for theft. Thou shall not steal another designers work."One wonders what led Williams to take this path. Was it lack of integrity, greed, or simply no empathy for his colleagues? A recent article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, 'Why Should We Care?'—What to Do About Declining Student Empathy, discusses educators' concern about a decline in student empathy. The troubling conclusion of a recent study by a team of social psychologists is that American college students have been scoring lower and lower on a standardized empathy test over the past three decades. The article talks about what the reasons for this decline may be as well techniques to improve levels of empathy. Besides the social benefits, research also links empathy in students with better academic outcomes. Educators are concerned because when used with skill, empathy can guide us to balance the needs of ourselves, those around us, and our larger social contexts with judicious care. Taking on another person's thoughts and identifying with their emotions are traits at the core of empathy. Williams disregard for what the implications of his "logo maker" are for his fellow designers makes one think that he has not considered what it would be like to walk in their shoes.What do you think is behind Williams behavior—lack of integrity, greed, or simply no empathy?Sources:http://www.aiga.org/common/newsletter/source/August2011_Action_Alert.htmlhttp://www.rockpaperink.com/content/column.php?id=88http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/54498/No-Capital-No-Problem-What-You-Get-For-Free-Is-Priceless.aspxhttp://chronicle.com/article/Why-Should-We-Care-What/128420/

Is everything a remix?

Beginning graphic design students often wrestle with the idea of originality. They argue that "nothing is original, it's all been done before." They will resist doing research because they claim that they don't want to "steal" someone else's idea. The concept of research and re-purposing ideas are not always easy ones for them to wrap their heads around.Emulation (aka copying) is a vital part of learning and developing our creative skills according to New York-based filmmaker Kirby Ferguson. He says, "Nobody starts out original." History shows us that a long line of inventors, artists, designers like Thomas Edison and Apple Computer follow what Ferguson feels is the formula for creativity: copy, transform, combine. This video does a great job of putting it in perspective.Source: http://vimeo.com/25380454Where do you think the line falls between emulation and innovation?

Design plagiarism or regurgitated clip art?

T-shirt graphics created for the newly formed political party "No Labels" are the cause for a heated debate about design plagiarism. The artwork created by Fly Communications looks very close to artwork produced by Thomas Porostocky in 2004 (shown at left on totebag).Creative director Dave Warren of Fly Communications insists he came up with the concept on his own using royalty free clip art. Porostocky said he's stunned by the blatant plagiarism.What do you think? Is it just a case of regurgitated clip art or is it design plagiarism?Source: The Daily Heller, 12/14/10

What's the difference between appropriation and plagiarism?

In an article for Design Observer designer and author William Drenttel writes about how ideas come from many sources in graphic design: they recur, regenerate, take new forms, and mutate into alternative forms. In the world of design and photography, there seems to be an implicit understanding that any original work can and will evolve into the work of others, eventually working its way into our broader visual culture.Drenttel goes on to talk about how the charge of plagiarism is not a simple one. He says, “Designers should take note: the idea of borrowing ideas is getting more complex everyday. Inherent in the modern definition of originality, though, is that ideas are extended, language expanded, and syntax redefined. Take a psychologist’s ideas and experiences, as explained through the eyes of a journalist, and turn them into a play, a work of fiction—this is a work of complex, ‘appropriation,’ I believe the design world benefits greatly from such an understanding of complexity.”How does a designer know where the boundaries are when finding the line between appropriation and plagiarism?Source:http://www.designobserver.com/observatory/entry.html?entry=2837