What are plagiarism and copyright?

Plagiarism is essentially the act of claiming that someone else’s work is your own, without consent of that person. It gets a bit more technical and complicated when part of the work is yours and part of it is someone else’s… but basically if you don’t fully acknowledge that part of the work is not your own, then this is plagiarism.

Copyright is the legal rights of the creator of a piece of content (artwork, music, film etc.) that means that they control the way in which that piece of content is reproduced, distributed or edited. Again, it gets a fair bit more complicated than that, but essentially its the rights of the creator of a piece of ‘intellectual property’.

Who owns copyright?

In the UK, if you created the design on your own, you own it! Things are a bit different if you collaborated on the design with someone else.If you created the design for a client, you still own the copyright. The client might ask you to release the copyright to them, but you could charge them for this.

How long does copyright last in the UK?

In most countries copyright lasts a minimum of life plus 50 years for most types of written, dramatic and artistic works, and at least 25 years for photographs. It can be different for other types of work.

Specifically in the UK, the rules differ depending on the type of content:

Written, dramatic, musical and artistic work: 70 years after the author’s death
Sound and music recording: 70 years from when it’s first published
Films: 70 years after the death of the director, screenplay author and composer
Broadcasts50 years from when it’s first broadcast
Layout of published editions of written, dramatic or musical works: 25 years from when it’s first published
- (GOV.UK, 2023)

What can we as designers do to protect our work from plagiarism, and avoid plagiarising?

We don’t want to have our work copied, and we don’t like it when others copy our work. Some things we can do to avoid having our work plagiarised include:

Use a watermark or trademark on our work: You could add your name and the ® next to it as a deterrent. You should be aware however that this isn’t a registered trademark until you register it officially.
Protect your design with a registered mark, or the next step up, a patent: These methods can be costly and may not be appropriate for all types of design, however they can work well for example for product or fashion designers (Omotoso, 2023).

In order to avoid plagiarism ourselves, we should always ensure that the work we’re producing is our own. If we’ve used another designer’s work as inspiration, and the work is notably different, then we may be able to claim ‘fair use’ or ‘parody’ (Kramer, 2018), however if in doubt it’s always better to acknowledge when you’ve used someone else’s original work even for a small element of the finished design.

P.S. I lied about the bears, sorry!

Thanks for reading my blog.

References

'Register a Design’ (2023) Gov.Uk. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-design (Accessed: 25/4/23).

'How copyright protects your work (2023) Gov.Uk. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/copyright/how-long-copyright-lasts (Accessed: 25/4/23).

Omotoso, M. (2023) How to Protect Your Designs From Being Copied. Available at: https://fashioninsiders.co/toolkit/legal-corner/how-to-protect-your-designs-from-being-copied/ (Accessed: 25/4/23).

Kramer, L. (2018) Things every designer should know about intellectual property & copyright infringement. Available at: https://99designs.com/blog/design-resources/copyright-infringement/ (Accessed: 25/4/23).

#007 - Plagiarism, Copyright, and Bears! (Oh my..)