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TwitterInspiration vs. Imitation
They say imitation is the best form of flattery but in the real world it can mean trouble.
A couple weeks ago, I talked about liking the new American Express commercial with smiley faces.
According to Fast Company, this is actually a ripoff of Francois Robert, who in a legal debate, “was informed that the “idea” of photographing everyday objects to reveal their “human” characteristics couldn’t be copyrighted. Case closed.”
Ken Carbone, the writer of the article, also points to a few more examples where the inspiration vs. imitation was questioned.
New commercial for Amazon’s Kindle
vs. much viewed and loved Oren Lavie’s beautiful music video, Her Morning Elegance
via Fast Company
The Kindle advert is just a cheap imitation and is no where nearly as good as the Oren Lavie video.
For some reason though I don’t feel as strongly about the faces in objects case. Surely the idea of faces in objects isn’t particularly original anyway?
I totally agree that the Kindle doesn’t do Lavie’s video justice even in the form of imitation. And yes, the happy faces photos, we’ve seen.
Yes, everyone has seen happy and sad faces because Francois and Jean Robert have been producing books with faces since 1978. Francois and Jean Robert have helped all of you SEE the world in a different way because of their books.
An original idea? Perhaps, perhaps not… but they have produced 4 books with copyrighted images.
Ogilvy & Mather approached Francois Robert in 2006 about using his faces for an Audi commercial, didn’t use him, but used the “faces idea” anyway… then the same agency uses “faces” for American Express in 2009. Coincidence? I think not.
The agency basically used Francois Robert’s book as a story board to create this commercial. The shopping bag, wallet, are headphones compared side by side are almost identical.
The question still is, who owns an idea?
Is is OK to steal the idea for commercial gain in the case of Ogilvy & Mather?
Is it OK because agencies do this all of the time?
What if it were YOUR idea? YOUR music? Your industrial design?
How would you feel?