Equal Rights for Design: Fight the Fakes

At Little Red Rooster we admit to a mild crush on Michelle Ogundehin, editor of Elle Decoration. We love her gung-ho spirit and passion for design.

After a briefing with her a couple of weeks back with our client Silken Favours we left the Elle Dec offices full of inspiration and excitement. Michelle spoke eloquently and passionately about the “Fight the Fakes” campaign and left us feeling invigorated but anxious about British design. Michelle and Elle Decoration are calling on the UK government to afford the discipline of design the same UK copyright protection as is currently granted to works of literature, drama, music, film and art: ie 70 years after the death of the originating author/s.

This is in stark contrast to design, where registered works are currently covered for only 25 years from date of issue. It is so sad that the UK seems to be saying that design is seemingly deemed less worthy of protection. Perhaps even worse is that the hypocrisy of our copyright laws promotes the UK as a default “safe harbour” for copyists, manufacturers producing cut-price fakes of classic designs.

Michelle pointed out to us that if the government stands by Chancellor George Osborne’s stated desire for ‘the words: “made in Britain”, “created in Britain”, “designed in Britain”, “invented in Britain”, to drive our nation forward’, then she can see no impediment to immediate ratification of this e-petition.

We have already said a sad farewell to the majority of manufacturers in the UK but there are still a few out there: Capulet,  Samuel Heath, Breffo, Fracino who all still manufacture in the UK. Would we want to see our design industry fall short like manufacturing? We must act now before it is too late. We call on you to support UK design and sign the “Fight the Fakes” petition with urgency, spread the word!