Illustration Do you know your intellectual property rights?

illustration  do you know your intellectual property rights?

Do you know your intellectual property rights?

Illustration web design by its very nature is a subjective and occasionally divisive issue. One designer’s idea of a great design can be completely different to another’s. So who is right? There is no definitive answer, but does the fact that one design is more popular than another make it a better design? If a design is copied, or inspires similar output, does that make it a good design?



The answer in our opinion would have to be yes. Remember when Apple first released its all-white, shiny button site back in 2001? There were hundreds of copycat sites, inspiring (or is that influencing?) web designers to adopt much of the Apple design ethos. In one way Apple should be flattered that they had inspired a generation of web designers. On the flip side, they don’t want anyone abusing their intellectual property. Where this becomes an issue is where the lines are blurred. The law goes some way to protecting designs, but what and who exactly does the law protect? Illustration.

Taking a look at who, and without taking sides, it is rare to see an individual seeking compensation from larger businesses and corporations for design infringement. The opposite scenario is a more likely. Why? Businesses typically have more to protect, as they have a recognised brand. They will have an army of designers spending hours creating a design – well, this is what they will tell you. Typically, individuals don’t have the financial clout to pursue any claims. An area that needs serious consideration is how a design is used. Does an individual recreating a design, not for profit, or telling others how to recreate a design infringe a copyright? Apparently so, an example being a small project called Popular UIs run by Luke Chesser. The site demonstrates how to recreate popular UIs. It doesn’t endorse that designers copy designs, but simply gives guidelines and help. MailChimp decided they didn’t like this, so they asked Luke to remove any MailChimp-related content. See bit.ly/1344dRq for the full story.Illustration.

 The design community is happy to share, but it seems that the bigger the business, the less likely this is to happen. However, it does raise the point of where design inspiration comes from in the first place. Nothing is original, so where did MailChimp get their inspiration from?Illustration.

Articles source : Web Designer