About Copyright

[Rstripnieks]

Today I was wondering about copyright and it really got me thinking about my and other engravers designs. Me like many engravers starting this decade learned most from same books and mostly same people (all we could find in internet) like Sam Alfano ,Steve Lindsay and many other master engravers and we all saw the same pictures ,videos and tutorials and recently I realised that like it or not I have all those designs sitting in my consciousness
And from time to time when I think about design and filling empty spaces those designs and solutions are sitting in my head and then I have to think :"did I just came up with that or did someone else did ..." That is getting me worried all the time because im already influenced by those people and I cannot avoid that so I end up constantly checking pictures if I havent repeated someone elses work and thats frustrating .
Now its the reason why I try to avoid looking at other engravings because I have amazing picture memory.
Also does that mean if some simple border or scroll layout everybody could think of was engraved on watch case for example could never be repeated from other engraver?
Does shading solutions have copyright?
How possible is that engraver who has engraved his entire life infinite number of items unknowingly almost repeats some other engravers work ?

Dont get me wrong I have never intended to copy or repeat someone's work ,I just started to wonder about it and what are opinions of other artists?

 

[tdelewis]

I don't think copyright has any meaning to someone who wants to be in ethical and copy another artist. It is unethical to copy another's work but not everyone is ethical. It is just something that is happening in our society today. Although I haven't seen another's work copied anywhere except for some like Nimskey.

All of Sam's work that he shows here is copyrighted. If he were to see his work appear with some others name attached to it he would need to get his lawyer and go after that person. If that happens that is what he should do. If one person is made to pay, I'm sure it would discourage others.

Remember though, that at one time pick pockets were hung in front of public gatherings. Most of the pockets were working the crowd watching the hanging.

I have always said that engraving is like handwriting. Everyone will develop his own style if he or she is any kind of artist.

Just a thought.

 

[monk]

i think it's highly unlikely that a newb would even come close to copying the work of the aforementioned masters. at least in an accidental way. if you fear coming close, create a page of scroll spines, and the individual line components that come together to form the final design. use those elements for reference. when finished with a given design job, by all means post your work. not to fear at all-- to be enjoyed always.

 

[Rstripnieks]

That isnt what I meant Monk

 

[DKanger]

Use the site search in the upper left of the top blue bar. This topic has been hashed and rehashed so many times that it's now hamburger.