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Germany's museum of plagiarism takes a bite out of design crime.
By Hugh Eakin
The Metropolis Observed
June 2002
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Since 1977, the Plagiarius Award statuette has been bestowed upon the "most
brazen" bootleggers of design--companies that have ranged from anonymous
Asian vendors to giants like Ikea and Calvin Klein.
Photo by Courtesy Aktion Plagiarius
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The awarding of Germany's most closely watched design prize earlier this
year came with the usual high-profile ceremony. Presented at Ambiente,
a giant international consumer-goods trade fair held in Frankfurt, it was
given in a state-of-the-art reception hall overlooking the city's modern
skyline. The audience was punctuated by design company CEOs and TV cameramen.
Speakers included Petra Roth, mayor of Frankfurt, and Dieter Hundt, head
of the German Federation of Industrial Employers. But the prizewinners were
nowhere in sight. In fact, none of them had been invited or even notified.
Moreover, the prize trophy is a black garden gnome figurine (an icon
of the German middle class) with a gold Pinocchio nose--hardly suited, it
would seem, to the sleek world of design.
Or is it? The prize is the Plagiarius Award, which aims to bring notoriety
to the "most brazen" acts of design plagiarism on the world market.
And it is not just a question of fake Rolexes and Polo shirts. Among the
2002 honorees are such disparate creations as a cutlery set, a coat rack,
and pneumatic cylinders; one of last year's prizes went to a new municipal
streetcar. Now in its 26th year, the Plagiarius has become something of
an institution in design-obsessed Germany. It has also made its founder
and guiding spirit, Rido Busse, a legend in his field--the J. Edgar
Hoover of industrial design.
"Anything can be plagiarized," says Busse, who also runs his own
firm, Busse Design, in the southern German city of Ulm. "It's
as simple as knowing the market. If a design sells well, someone is going
to rip it off. It's that easy." The practice of stealing design concepts
is a global industry estimated to be worth about $300 billion a year, according
to the German Chamber of Commerce. Patents are slow and often expensive
to obtain, and they don't always protect designs worldwide. Moreover, as
Busse explains, design plagiarism, as opposed to outright fakery (exact
replication of a design to pass it off as the original), is often difficult
to prove. Clever plagiarists will steal a concept, repackage it with a few
minute changes, and pass it off as a new original. A recent survey in Germany
estimates that only ten percent of all cases of product imitation are decided
in favor of the plaintiff.
While Busse likes to paint a bleak picture of design theft around the world,
his own (truly original) crusade against such piracy has never been better.
His primary weapon has been the annual Plagiarius. He came up with the idea
at a trade fair in 1977, when he discovered a Hong Kong vendor promoting
an imitation of one of his designs--and undercutting the price sixfold.
"I wanted to defend myself," Busse recalls. "I remember thinking:
How can I respond to this? What can I do as a single individual?" He
went out and bought a simple garden statue and painted it all black with
a gold nose--to signify the illicit earnings from product imitation. Busse
christened the figure Plagiarius and, in an impromptu press conference,
announced the first award.
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The Museum Plagiarius in Berlin houses 150 knock-off products, each paired
with its "inspiration." The pairs are not exact matches (note
the right-hand calculator is a "Shrap"), but they are very close:
with the exception of the logo, the two electric kettles have identical
packaging.
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Photo by Courtesy Aktion Plagiarius
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The idea caught on, and today the bestowal of the little dwarf has become
a carefully choreographed publicity stunt organized by an independent lobbying
group, Aktion Plagiarius (www.plagiarius.com). By using designers themselves
to identify plagiarists, the award has extended its reach across the industry:
any company in any country that discovers its product has been plagiarized
can place the alleged rip-off in the running for the Plagiarius. One of
the honorable mentions this year went to a Slovenian company for stealing
an espresso-cup design from another Slovenian company. And the award has
created additional honors for special cases of plagiarism. There is a Persistent
Plagiarism prize for repeat offenders and a Sordid Mind prize that goes
to a retailer who sells plagiarized products.
So successful is the Plagiarius that Busse has opened a permanent museum
of design plagiarism in Berlin, supported entirely by corporate and private
sponsors (seating for tired visitors has been donated by Frankfurt designer
Till Behrens, whose much imitated Swing Chair inspired last year's Jubilee
Plagiarius award). Inaugurated last fall in the Kulturbrauerei, a former
brewery complex cum cultural center east of the city's center, the museum
gives the initial impression of an industrial-design Noah's Ark: everything
is displayed in pairs, and the specimens range from glass-mounted door handles
and stainless-steel orange juicers to electric haircutters and plastic garbage
cans, from industrial vices and car heaters to Furby dolls and Nintendo
Gameboys.
On closer inspection, however, the pairs are not exact matches. The right-hand
object is usually cruder, or produced with subtle differences in color scheme
or detailing. These wares are a representative selection of Busse's sprawling
collection of design rip-offs, which he has always acquired in tandem with
the originals: the left is the ur-product; the right is the pirated version.
(Due to its unwieldy dimensions, last year's award-winning streetcar is
represented by large photographs of the original and its knockoff.) The
collection includes more than 150 pairs; each year up to a dozen new ones
are added.
Although Busse insists that the museum's purpose is merely to educate the
public about the damage done to the industry the exhibited pieces provide
a fascinating and encyclopedic look at the art of design plagiarism itself.
For one thing, they reveal that the practice is not restricted to a particular
sector, although Busse says that low-tech objects--because of their relatively
simple construction--are most at risk. Just as significantly, the collection
dispels the notion that product imitation is the province of unscrupulous
Taiwanese industrialists and Chinese sweatshop owners. "Last year we
had more German plagiarists among our prizewinners than foreign plagiarists,"
Busse says, showing clear satisfaction in exposing his fellow countrymen.
"And they are ripping off both other Germans and foreigners."
Beyond public attention, what can something like the Plagiarius and its
new museum actually accomplish for designers? According to Busse, the mere
threat of a Plagiarius citation is enough to pressure some five to
ten percent of accused imitators each year to either stop producing their
products or buy the rights to them. (Though the opposite reaction also occurs:
Ikea raised an enormous legal fuss after it received a Plagiarius in 1997
for stealing a beverage pitcher design from a German company called Authentics.
The award was not overturned, however.) Busse also cites the heightened
sensitivity of industry leaders and government officials in Germany
to design crime. In recent years improved patent laws have been passed,
with tough new penalties for design piracy. Still Busse is skeptical that
the courts are making any impact. "Will they ever sentence a design
plagiarizer to five years in jail?" he asks rhetorically. "They
should. It is their duty. But they don't trust themselves in this matter."
In the meantime, the best consolation for a victim of design theft may be
the chance to put the culprit in the spotlight--and have the pilfered design
find a place in the new museum. This year's second-place Plagiarius
went to New York's Calvin Klein Eyewear, whose superlight Titanium Airlock
eyeglasses imitate the Titan Minimal Art eyeglasses of Silhouette International--a
company in Linz, Austria--right down to the shape of the accompanying black
case. But although the Silhouette glasses, which were created by in-house
designer Gerhard Fuchs, have received a good design award and are protected
under a European (but not worldwide) design registration, the company is
unlikely to take legal action against Calvin Klein. "The probability
that we would win in an American court against a big American company is
very slim," says Silhouette design manager Siegfried Huber. "But
of course we are pleased about the Plagiarius. That our designs have been
copied by firms like Calvin Klein just means that we are good at what
we do."
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