What constitutes the theft of an "idea" or "design"?

[BigDogBuford]

Interesting. The exact same debate about vintage/historical material is going on in my corsetry community right now.

[DemoDick]

I would like to say a few things about this thread on behalf of Rebecca, not speaking for her just a little that I know of this situation before it goes off the rails.

I do not believe the collar posted above for Ella was never sold on Rebecca's site or to any customers, she made the collar for her dog origianlly and as far as I know it was a coincidence that it combined 2 of Ana's designs, yes it does happen. I believe they discussed this issue after Ana blogged about this and then contacted Rebecca, Rebecca took the collar off her site as she was not aware she had made the collar that looked similar to a combo of two of Ana's collars and never sold one of them as she felt it was the right thing to do.

The reason this issue is coming up again is I believe from some thing that was started yesterday on PBF. A few friends of Hoyden/Noel, I am guessing that is whom they were referring to as "my friend the collar maker", the reason I guess this is that I know she is into the historical stuff from reading her posts about it, if I am wrong someone in the know can correct me if they care to come out of the closet and be known otherwise I will refer to the person as "said collar maker"

The allegations on PBF were as follows

Rebecca hacked into said collar makers photo account and stole pictures of either designs or collars and then made a bunch of vintage collars based on this. There was no proof shown that this happened, no other said collar makers works posted to show they made the collars first, I myself have not seen them on said collar makers site for sale so I am not aware they exist.

Rebecca showed me a few weeks ago the pictures from a publically available internet site that she was using as inspiration for her designs, now the fact that these are historical/vintage, whatever you want to call it means there are probably lots of the same pics on various sites, books etc. So it is feasible that if 2 people are looking at the same picture and making their interpretation of a collar that was made 50-100 years ago, well then I guess there might be a duplication, but in either case neither of them are original works unless they put their own spin on it etc., and both are basically copying another design anyway..so is it really theirs...not sure about that.

The thing that gets me about this is NO PROOF what so ever has been shown that Rebecca somehow knew how to and did hack into another persons photo account somewhere and take whatever designs these are supposed to be, and yet there are people posting all over that she did this. I guess since "said collar maker" says its true well then it must be true. I could be wrong I am taking Rebecca at her word that this is not something she did and will continue to do so until proof is shown that she in fact hacked into a photo account.

Also...by posting the picture above of Ella you are violating Rebecca's copyright as indicated in the bottom left of her photo..unless you got her permission to post that picture which I doubt

For people reading this thread and thinking it is about what was originally posted about the Paco collar issue, the only reason that situation was brought up again was so when "said collar maker" decides to say Rebecca stole her designs then they will have established a "pattern"....and like I said the proof is in the pudding...post up some sort of proof the shows she hacked your account...but really this sort of thing should be handled between the two individuals in a professional manner and not in the court of public opinion.

if I am wrong about any of this well then I stand corrected but I wanted a few of the "facts" as it were out there since Rebecca will not address this issue on public forums any longer.

I don't blame her.

All of the accusations of "he said/she said" stuff and who hacked what, if anything, is immaterial for me. Look at the product. Look at the timeline and the pieces themselves. The thing that really stands out for me are the striking aesthetic similarities between the two collars, and the timing, which seems suspiciously coincidental. Those are really the only two things that send up red flags for me. But those are big red flags.

Also, I'm sure Michelle will address the copyright issue, as she's the expert in that area, but I'm pretty sure that hotlinking an unaltered (original) photo is not a copyright infringement of any kind. You put it out there for free, it's public domain. Where copyright gets involved is when the photo is IP, identifying watermarks and such are removed, and the photo is sold by a second or third party without the photograph owner's permission. I could very well be wrong in this though.

Demo Dick

[sfbullygirl]

hmmm

[CinderDee]

The thing that really stands out for me are the striking aesthetic similarities between the two collars, and the timing, which seems suspiciously coincidental. Those are really the only two things that send up red flags for me. But those are big red flags.
Demo Dick

What I don't get is how Rebecca was supposed to know that Noel was about to launch a line of collars unless Rebecca is psychic.

[sfbullygirl]

The thing that really stands out for me are the striking aesthetic similarities between the two collars, and the timing, which seems suspiciously coincidental. Those are really the only two things that send up red flags for me. But those are big red flags.
Demo Dick

What I don't get is how Rebecca was supposed to know that Noel was about to launch a line of collars unless Rebecca is psychic.

she is psychic and a computer hacker...pretty talented apprantly except for the ability to come up with her own collar designs according to some people

ok I have argued enough for Rebecca's side so I am out...if some proof is offered up to show otherwise well then I will stand corrected

[amalie79]

Also, I'm sure Michelle will address the copyright issue, as she's the expert in that area, but I'm pretty sure that hotlinking an unaltered (original) photo is not a copyright infringement of any kind. You put it out there for free, it's public domain. Where copyright gets involved is when the photo is IP, identifying watermarks and such are removed, and the photo is sold by a second or third party without the photograph owner's permission. I could very well be wrong in this though.

Demo Dick

I've got no dog in this fight, so to speak, but I can speak to copyright-- the fact that the picture in question was posted on this forum probably gives Michelle the right to relink it elsewhere on the site. I don't know all the terms and conditions of posting things on the site, but that's my hunch.

What I do know is that just because you put something out into the world, does NOT therefore make it public domain, and I can't state that strongly enough. In fact, the Orphan Works Bill was recently put before congress; it attempts to make ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING not explicitly registered with a copyright clearing house fair game for ANYONE ELSE; this would mean that your personal photos, your articles, your blog posts are available for anyone else to use-- you could find your photo of grandma staring back at you from an ad for fried chicken. That's not the law right now-- today, that picture is implicitly copyrighted.

Under the 1976 copyright act, the owner of a work has implicit copyright; however, in order to sue for copyright infringement and collect damages, one would have to have registered the work. But you do have cease and desist rights-- you just can't collect monetarily on it. It has nothing to do with image protection-- if I put my picture on my blog, someone can't come along and use my picture for their church flyer or brochure without my permission; I have implicit copyright, with or without a watermark, etc. With the internet, watermarks are a way of keeping that from happening without the owner's knowledge; the world is too big to police everything that happens on the internet. Now, if you're referring to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, it does have specific language about circumventing copyright protection software-- which is one of the big problems with that act, because under other laws, you are able to make personal copies, but according to the DMCA, you're in trouble if you get around that software, EVEN if it's for your own personal backup.

When you're talking about selling copies of something being sold by someone else, that's something that you can collect damages on because it's resulting in a financial loss-- not just making money that wouldn't otherwise be made.

Copyright is having a hard time keeping up with the internet-- making it all fair game, however, is not the answer.

As for intellectual property, legally it gets hazy. Ideas aren't protected, so finding the line between idea and product is tricky at best.

[iluvk9]

WOW. How do you know all this information about copyrights?

[amalie79]

I run a computer lab at a university, so I have to police the faculty and what they're doing/using. I also have family that work pretty intimately with artists'/reprographic rights and used to help out with that when I was in college.

[amalie79]

I also meant to ad that what Michelle is doing in this post is in the context of intellectual discussion-- it's more like quoting from a text, not promotion of something else. I just wanted to address the notion that things on the internet are simply fair game.

[mnp13]

Thank you for all of that info! I knew some of it, but a lot was new!!

The photo that I linked to was already posted on this board, and put up as reference. I did not take it from elsewhere, disparage the dog or anything of the sort. It is the example of the collar referenced in the blog post.

I'm not big on playing "guess who". Yes the people being discussed here are Noel (Pete's Dog Gear) Ana (Paco Collars) and Rebecca (Ella's Lead)

As a photographer my photos are stolen all the time. So I watermark and hope for the best. Matt the Photographer has some jaw dropping work, very distinct to him. Could I copy it? Yup. Would you look at it and say "wow that looks just like Matt's". Yup. And that would seem to be what is going on here

[sfbullygirl]

Thank you for all of that info! I knew some of it, but a lot was new!!

The photo that I linked to was already posted on this board, and put up as reference. I did not take it from elsewhere, disparage the dog or anything of the sort. It is the example of the collar referenced in the blog post.

I'm not big on playing "guess who". Yes the people being discussed here are Noel (Pete's Dog Gear) Ana (Paco Collars) and Rebecca (Ella's Lead)

As a photographer my photos are stolen all the time. So I watermark and hope for the best. Matt the Photographer has some jaw dropping work, very distinct to him. Could I copy it? Yup. Would you look at it and say "wow that looks just like Matt's". Yup. And that would seem to be what is going on here

I might agree with you if Noel's photos were in a public location or she has the collars in question already made and posted on her site or somewhere on a forum..I have yet to see any example of what she says was copied anywhere Rebecca could have seen them. So, then it comes down to her claim that Rebecca some how "hacked" into her photobucket account...how does one prove that ?

I was also thinking it would be pretty dumb of Rebecca to hack into Noel's account, take pictures, create collars from them and then post a copy of the photo with the collar she made to show the inspiration...someone who was so smart as to know how to hack accounts would then be so dumb as to post the evidence ...something does not add up there for me...so again it comes down to show me some sort of proof that she was the one who hacked oyu photobucket account. Maybe she should see if photobucket can give her some valid certified report showing IP addresses of anyone who accessed her account...but I am sure she may have already thought of this.

[cheekymunkee]

Hold up here, I am just going to state the obvious ( to me any way, I have not read any thread on this but this one) here....so Noel copied vintage collars? Is that not doing what she is accusing someone else of doing? Copying another's work? And speaking of copy rights...did she copyright her collar patterns? If not I have seen designs that Noel has made and sold that were also made by other people. The green Celtic design collar? Seen it. More than once.


I'm not trying to poke any one with a stick here but this all seems pretty silly to me, there are knock-offs every where in just about everything. Unless Rebecca used Noel's PDG stamp she hasn't done any thing wrong. And No offense but Noel has been launching her collar business for as long as I have known her....about 6 years now. Until the product is "out there" it is fair game in the business world. It's a dog eat dog world.

Theft is a pretty ugly word & if someone accused me of it there would be hell to pay. Just sayin'...........

[amalie79]

Thank you for all of that info! I knew some of it, but a lot was new!!

The photo that I linked to was already posted on this board, and put up as reference. I did not take it from elsewhere, disparage the dog or anything of the sort. It is the example of the collar referenced in the blog post.

I'm not big on playing "guess who". Yes the people being discussed here are Noel (Pete's Dog Gear) Ana (Paco Collars) and Rebecca (Ella's Lead)

As a photographer my photos are stolen all the time. So I watermark and hope for the best. Matt the Photographer has some jaw dropping work, very distinct to him. Could I copy it? Yup. Would you look at it and say "wow that looks just like Matt's". Yup. And that would seem to be what is going on here

Copyright's obviously more complicated than what I posted up there-- there's a lot of nuance and a lot of "if-then." For a substantive case, I think a lot of it boils down to proving that the copying COST the creator money. Whether things have been registered or not plays into what the rights are, but that's also in combination with what the intent of the original product was. That's my understanding, at least.

People spend their whole lives working this stuff out. I just try to know enough to keep me and my faculty out of trouble, and leave the rest to the lawyers and activists. It just happens to be a subject that I accidentally know a little about.

Hold up here, I am just going to state the obvious ( to me any way, I have not read any thread on this but this one) here....so Noel copied vintage collars? Is that not doing what she is accusing someone else of doing? Copying another's work?

Of course, I know NOTHING about this particular case, and am only speaking hypothetically-- like I said, I got no interest in taking a side-- but I think this is an interesting issue; this is where intellectual property is a tricky business-- who is the originator of an idea? My uncle is an artist who's been copied mercilessly, and probably to his financial detriment, but finding the line between direct copy, and riffing on an idea or working "in the style of" is complex. For all I know, this instance is more straight forward, but you can see how easily this becomes a messy issue.

[iluvk9]

Renee750il I owe you a public apology, and here it is: I apologize for not checking out the information presented more, and thinking this situation was just being discussed here.

That said, IMO, I do not have any right to discuss the "collar situation" as I am not the owner of any of the collar companies.

BUT, I do have the right to say this and amend my original post and I will....

The internet is a funny thing. It enriches our lives and yet causes so much grief when people write things to hurt others. I see it all the time at work with kids cyberbullying others.

My position now is: IF Liz started this thread for any other reason than to discuss "copying a design in general", she was wrong. After hearing the opinions of the 5 people who have contacted me, my opinion, not that it matters to anyone but me, is that this was not done in kindness and just as a discussion.

Mea culpa.

[DemoDick]

I might agree with you if Noel's photos were in a public location or she has the collars in question already made and posted on her site or somewhere on a forum..I have yet to see any example of what she says was copied anywhere Rebecca could have seen them. So, then it comes down to her claim that Rebecca some how "hacked" into her photobucket account...how does one prove that ?

I was also thinking it would be pretty dumb of Rebecca to hack into Noel's account, take pictures, create collars from them and then post a copy of the photo with the collar she made to show the inspiration...someone who was so smart as to know how to hack accounts would then be so dumb as to post the evidence ...something does not add up there for me...so again it comes down to show me some sort of proof that she was the one who hacked oyu photobucket account. Maybe she should see if photobucket can give her some valid certified report showing IP addresses of anyone who accessed her account...but I am sure she may have already thought of this.

Hypothetically, if someone retains legal counsel for a civil matter, the very first thing the attorney advises is not not make any public statements regarding the matter. So that may explain the silence.

Thanks to amalie79 for correcting my erroneous use of the term "public domain" as well as somewhat clarifying the copyright/IP issue.

Demo Dick

[sfbullygirl]

I might agree with you if Noel's photos were in a public location or she has the collars in question already made and posted on her site or somewhere on a forum..I have yet to see any example of what she says was copied anywhere Rebecca could have seen them. So, then it comes down to her claim that Rebecca some how "hacked" into her photobucket account...how does one prove that ?

I was also thinking it would be pretty dumb of Rebecca to hack into Noel's account, take pictures, create collars from them and then post a copy of the photo with the collar she made to show the inspiration...someone who was so smart as to know how to hack accounts would then be so dumb as to post the evidence ...something does not add up there for me...so again it comes down to show me some sort of proof that she was the one who hacked oyu photobucket account. Maybe she should see if photobucket can give her some valid certified report showing IP addresses of anyone who accessed her account...but I am sure she may have already thought of this.

Hypothetically, if someone retains legal counsel for a civil matter, the very first thing the attorney advises is not not make any public statements regarding the matter. So that may explain the silence.

Thanks to amalie79 for correcting my erroneous use of the term "public domain" as well as somewhat clarifying the copyright/IP issue.

Demo Dick

great that is why if Noel has prrof of hacking and cyber theft she should have gone to an attorney or at the very least contacted Rebecca privately instead of unleashing her cronies to post up a long ago issuse with Paco Collars that they had no business posting...other than to make Rebecca look bad in the court of public opinion.

oh..and I do have evidence this is what they are doing, not everyone behind the scenes agrees with their actions

[DemoDick]

great that is why if Noel has prrof of hacking and cyber theft she should have gone to an attorney or at the very least contacted Rebecca privately instead of unleashing her cronies to post up a long ago issuse with Paco Collars that they had no business posting...other than to make Rebecca look bad in the court of public opinion.

oh..and I do have evidence this is what they are doing, not everyone behind the scenes agrees with their actions

You need to read between the lines of the post you were responding to. I was being subtle. If Noel has retained legal counsel after making public statements, then her attorney probably advised her to not say anything to anyone, which would explain her both initial actions and subsequent silence.

Demo Dick

[sfbullygirl]

yeah I knew what you were saying...thanks...my point being Noel does not need to post she has her others doing it for her to sway public opinion without giving all of the pertinent facts...this is the internet for gods sake if someone posts something well then it must be true.

This may also be the same reasons Rebecca is not posting

[DemoDick]

yeah I knew what you were saying...thanks...my point being Noel does not need to post she has her others doing it for her to sway public opinion without giving all of the pertinent facts...this is the internet for gods sake if someone posts something well then it must be true.

This may also be the same reasons Rebecca is not posting

I wasn't aware that Noel had the gift of mind control.

I also wasn't aware that you had *all* the pertinent facts and that we should take your word as truth.

Demo Dick

[sfbullygirl]

yeah I knew what you were saying...thanks...my point being Noel does not need to post she has her others doing it for her to sway public opinion without giving all of the pertinent facts...this is the internet for gods sake if someone posts something well then it must be true.

This may also be the same reasons Rebecca is not posting

I wasn't aware that Noel had the gift of mind control.

I also wasn't aware that you had *all* the pertinent facts and that we should take your word as truth.

Demo Dick

well now you do

never said my word was truth what I said was if Noel's friends want to bring all this crap out into the public light then show some proof that Rebecca or her husband's IP address accessed her photobucket account and downloaded pictures of collar designs. If that can be shown then I stand corrected on all things said since I have yet to find any collar made by Noel posted on any forum or her website that looks like any of the Vintage Collar Line that Rebecca recently launched.

You as a peace officer should understand that all facts should be submitted in order to ascertain guilt or innocence...and perhaps you have seen something I have not, and that is fine. As I have said this should be between the involved parties and not innuendos and half truths spread across dog forums to smear someones name, but since it has now been brought to this level I just want make sure that Rebecca's reputation is not unfairly characterized.