ACID Advisory Council – Follow Up

For those of you that follow the Rachael Taylor blog and subsequent social media channels you will be aware that Dids Macdonald OBE and the CEO of ACID (Anti Copying in Design) recently invited Rachael to join their official Advisory Council – you can read about it in this blog article here. Dids and her team have always been such a wonderful support throughout Rachael’s own career and they really stood by me every step of the way with the publicised legal battle against one of the UK’s largest retailers. Rachael says “Without them I honestly don’t know how I would have got through it. In the past ACID has presented my case (and many other cases) to the government to stress how much of a battlefield it is for many designers and small creative companies”.

Rachael was thrilled to meet with the wonderful panel in London for the first time in May and it was a real honour for her to be invited to such an interesting and powerful meeting. Rachael truly hopes that she can play a part in making a change for the better within our creative world.

There are many areas that ACID and the panel want to focus on but Rachael personally wants to challenge the education system as she feel that’s something she has gained experience in. Rachael says “I believe that if we were educated in greater detail on copyright and intellectual property during our creative courses, more of our industry members would be able to make better and more informed decisions.

I have creative friends who work as freelance designers, brand owners, teachers, writers and buyers and I’ve heard on too many occasions that they are asked to copy or replicate someone else’s work or style, which is just not acceptable. And yet it seems to be considered a normal request these days. However, this does seem to be more the case with ‘unregistered’ designs, as I don’t think a buyer, organisation or company would intentionally copy a ‘registered’ design now that it is illegal for the sake of a good sales based performance review as they could end up in jail… It’s such a shame that companies don’t see it as stealing when it is. No one would want someone stealing a possession from them, so why are designs not seen as a possession? Someone has poured their heart and soul in to coming up with a unique and original design or vision and it’s taken up their time and energy. Most creatives depend on their original designs for their livelihood so why is it seen as OK to take them?

Designers are highly skilled people, many with multiple qualifications such as foundation courses, BA degree’s and MA’s under their belt. Most will usually take an extra business course as it takes a lot longer to break into the design industry, so why has it took the government so long to even consider the design community as movers, shakers and visionaries of our world?

When I graduated from university we left with no practical business experience and copyright, intellectual property and how to protect your work was never even discussed. I know that this is changing within the current curriculum for many courses, however I do not feel that some educators and students understand copyright enough. Of course there will be exceptions but from teaching my own online courses, lack of knowledge in copyright has been flagged to me on many occasions and people reach out to ACID and Make it in Design as they feel they need further training or expertise. I’ve lost count the amount of emails we get about it.

By all means I’m not claiming to be an expert myself and have always sought professional advice from ACID or Kelly Hudson at McDaniel & Co. However, after experiencing a few intellectual property issues myself, and running a design studio and an education platform I do hope I can help in some way and speak on behalf of the community about the many concerns and challenges that a lot of start up’s and small businesses have to face on a daily basis. I know this is something ACID has already focused on in their future plans as they have always championed for education and awareness so I hope I can help to assist them”.

Prior to October 2014 there was no legislation in place for criminal sanctions to be placed on those that intentionally infringed registered designs.  It seemed that copyright issues within the design industry was not considered to be a priority for the UK government.

However, ACID has been campaigning for many years now and in 2014 Dids and her team changed the government legislation for the better. Companies can actually serve prison time now, so copying is something that the creative and retail industry needs to start taking more seriously. We can’t comprehend how the design industry was left at the back of the queue as legislation within the music and film industries was pushed to the forefront. It has always been clear that you can’t copy music or film, so why not design?

Rachael has always supported and understood the great work that ACID does and would say that after a few first hand experiences of her own,  she was thrown in at the deep end. However,  Rachael has always tried to take positives from the situations she has found herself in and feels that she has adapted a knowledge base and skill set that has now set her up for life. With all this being said Rachael still insists that she is still learning every day and left the ACID meeting feeling extremely well informed and that everything just clicked into place for her. Rachael says “If I’m honest a lot of the technical and legal terms can still leave me feeling baffled at times. However, both Dids and Nick Kounoupias really explained ACID’s grand plan and any legality in plain English for me and I felt I could really understand their goals.

The work they have done is outstanding and 2017 marks their 20^th Anniversary and I know ACID really want to push for equalities with unregistered design rights too and work with the government to shape the future of our remarkable creativity industry for the better”.

Here are some facts and figures that Rachael found to be extremely interesting (Design Council):

• Design is the UK’s top export (BIS)
• The design sector contributes more than 72bn a year to the UK economy
• For every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect over £4 increase in net operating profit
• Design spend in the UK is £33.5 billion

The facts and figures demonstrate how important the design industry is and we can’t understand why it has taken the UK government so long to get behind it. There’s still a long way to go and in general the creative industries are more often that not dismissed, particularly in young education today. We’ve heard too many people say “that you can’t get a real job with art”, which makes Rachael so annoyed. If you take a moment to just sit and think about the world we live in today, almost everything that we use on a day-to-day basis has been designed by someone from the clothes you wear to the toaster you use, the car you drive, the desk you sit at, to the pen you write with and so on. Design is immensely powerful and Rachael and the team don’t understand how it’s not always been perceived that way.

Jargon busters:

Below is an extract taken from ACID’s Summary of Intellectual Property Rights jargon busting pdf. Click this link to download the full pdf: ACID SUMMARY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

The information provided in this document does not provide a complete statement of the present law and you should always take specialist advice in respect of your particular circumstances. Call the ACID general enquiry line on 0845 644 3617 or if you are an ACID member call the legal help line on 0845 230 5742 for more detailed information on your particular circumstances.

Rachael highly recommends the extremely affordable membership provided by ACID in particular their design databank service to support unregistered design rights.

How can you protect yourself online:

• Register your designs or use a service such as ACID’s design databank always do this before releasing designs online
• Only use images that are low resolution and have been watermarked or have your logo/website url on
• If you are sharing new designs online, only show a small selection to attract clients or buyers – you don’t have to show every design
• Consider setting a up a private archive and make sure you thoroughly research any interested parties first (e.g. they have a legitimate website), and have them sign an agreement covering your ownership and copyright
• Use ACID’s IP tracker when sending work to third parties

General tips for protecting your work:

• Sign and date your original drawings
• Keep all original drawings and designs as a back up
• File your original drawings and designs together so you can easily get to them should an issue come up
• Always research potential new clients and companies – ask other designers you know about their reputation if they have worked with them before and take some time to research them online
• Only ever send low resolution, watermarked designs to new clients until you are 100% sure they are trustworthy
• Always read the small print on every contract and don’t be afraid to ask questions