Having researched a lot more into copyright, I have realised that there is not a lot out thier to actually deter people from breaking copyright laws.

The copyright service offer a registering service where you can display that you are a member of its ‘group’. According to its website, ‘

By displaying the notice, you demonstrate that;

• You are aware of your rights as a copyright owner
• You take copyright seriously, and
• You have very strong evidence with which to pursue a case if your work is infringed.’

The actual notice is far from fearful and doesn’t really have an impact to prevent you from stealing content. Other features such as no right click or disabling coping do not seem to have an impact to the younger audience either as there are many other ways to get around these annoying features. Cigarette packaging on the other hand is bold and the strong images displaying the consequences really do put people off smoking, even for the sheer fact that every time they open the packet, they are reminded of what will one day happen to them.

What I also disagree with in terms of the copyright service is that you have to pay, to so called ‘protect’ your work. If you have rightfully worked on something of your own, you shouldn’t really have to pay to keep it.

After looking more into copyright, It amazing how although technology has brought cultures together with mediums such as the internet etc, when it comes to copyright law, we have never been so split. In previous years, countries have always been united in dealing with forgeries as a united front and worked together to protect the rightful parties – this is especially true in cases such as artists creating fraudulant painting and trying to flee the country. In these cases police forces worked together to catch the criminal.

However with the introduction of technology, in many countries (both MEDC’S and LEDC’s) branding and modern copyright laws are laxed or in some cases non existant. This means that it is easy to take a design from the UK and use it limitlessly.

E.g. In the canary islands, there are many cases of small electronic shops using the names and logos of large stores in the UK.

But who actually cares about copyright? One critic recently said: “Anyone who cares about copyright must be a cog in a gigantic money-grabbing corporation because there aren’t any writers, photographers or musicians out there desperately trying to stop people from pinching copies of their work.” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/nov/25/filesharers-freeloaders-creative-industries

Copyright has always been an issue in most industries; however, the only thing which has changed over the years is the speed and quality in which we can duplicate the information. 20 years ago, we could grab a free copy of LP’s by just hitting the record button on the tape player. Now although the quality was bad and took pure skill to press stop just before Blackburn started to whiter on, it still holds the same concept of today’s illegal downloads.

Same applies to design and art. In 1976 Tom Keating became notorious for being exposed as having produced a series of drawings originally created by Samuel Palmer. He was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to defraud and was committed to trial, where it was revealed that he had produced thousands of pictures after more than one hundred artists. However, in recent years, technology has moved on, meaning that the aspect of skill needed to incorporate or use illegal content is non-existent. Living in an information rich environment has meant that everything is accessible to the everyday user, and with this is the openness to copy and paste.

Relating this to us designers, when we publish work to the net, we are accepting the unavoidable fact that we are favouring publicity over our copyright and our own intellectual rights. Yet, when working with a new client, non-discloser agreements are pretty much always signed prior to the design showing any work. Is this just us being paranoid about dealing with someone new? Or do we forget that there are 1,733,993,741 unknown people to us online, which is growing at a rate of 330% every year.

In summary, whether it’s a tape player or internet explorer, copyright infringement has always been a part of our lives, it’s just the medium and speed in which we do it has changed.