as far as practice is concerned, regardless in art or design, or even scientific academics, there's this thing called "acknowledging source". and the word is not COPY, it's reference or precedence or inspiration. never copy.

COPY is a negative word in the design world. for this, i stand by nada's aggresive stance towards the issue. not every designer out there is a trained designer, where even some are actually self taught by referencing works of others. there is a danger to this, for a designer have to be trained and well versed in the designer's ethics.

i'm quite worried, as i've earlier mentioned before in other topics, about people calling themselves designers, when they're not trained as one. designer is not just a post that u hold, it's the hold attitude. u dont become a designer overnight, and designing the cover of a school magazine doesnt actually make u a designer. but then again, a life time of doing posters wouldnt actually make u a designer either.

looking back at the topic, ALL designers (including artists) MUST acknowledge their source of reference. not doing so wont make u an irresponsible designer, but it'll make u an irresponsible prick not even worthy of the word designer. there is no such thing as a designer who doesnt acknowledge source.

i've given lectures on this, so i could go on and on, but then u'd have to pay me

pergh... if that were my student, i'd make him my ex-student ASAP. later, i'll track him down to whichever design school he applies to continue his studies, and inform the administration about his/her previous behaviour.

yup, every design school in malaysia and virtually everywhere else in the world will teach u about plagiarism and copyrighting, and how that differs from referencing, precedents or idea generation. we have to understand that it's impossible to come up with something absolutely original nowadays, what we do is to be innovative in designing, and no two design are the same, bcoz each goes through a different design process and methods of development that differs from one designer to the other.

but sometimes what i'm worried about is the other self-taught designers that do not understand about ethics and professionalism in design.

u can watermark artwork, but u cant watermark design. that's two different thing.

for example, how do u watermark a webdesign or a template? as for me, how do i watermark buildings that i design? matilaaa... and for example, i do lots of scifi/fantasy designs. not artwork, but designs. i couldnt care less about the artwork. but those designs are original designs. good 3D artist can build a 3D model of some weapon designs that i did in a matter of hours. so how do u protect that?

simple: dont show off ur works.

LOL. the vicious cycle starts again.

dont confuse urself between plagiarism and imitation. imitation is the best form of flattery. it means ur work is really good that others start to refer to it, tries to be like u, think like u, produce like u. when people start referring to u in the design world, u know u're that good.

plagiarism is just WRONG. plain and simple.

there's a fine line there, but there's an accepted consesus amongst designers on this issue.

plagiarism is taking works of others without permission, and some even dare to claim its their own work. for example, u steal mona lisa, and claim its your work.

imitation, on the other hand, openly credits the source, with or without permission. for example, u painted an exact copy of mona lisa, and claims that the copy is ur work, but the original belongs to da vinci.

style, on the other hand, is even more subjective. but i believe among artists and designers, style is something that is acceptable to copy. come to think of it, no one can actually claim a particular style belongs to him. u can associate a style with a person, but style cant be "owned" legally.

i mean, what if i copyright my style of "painting using right hand"? should anybody painting with their right hand get a permission from me? that's absurd .

it's the same about certain colours and all. we can associate red-yellow with selangor, but at the same time it's mcdonalds'. petronas intentionally picked a designer colour: colour that does not exist naturally. there was an issue on this long time ago, but dah lupa lah. they wanted to claim the colour was theirs or something. i was in school at that time...

u are the saddest designer wannabe that i've ever met/read about. period.

dont call urself a designer. u're a disgrace.

the saddest part? u'll stay that way and wont know what u're missing.