Discussion about Cantador4u ' s Photobucket account

[RyanW]

I was looking through some images and came across this account. I don't want to be over paranoid, but to find at least 5 of my designs drawn out by someone kinda rubbed me the wrong way. These are not my drawings he/she took them from photos...

My Neckers:

Skinner

Wood Drake

Lorien

There are 100's of them taken from what appears to be here on Bladeforums, I would love to hear your thoughts

The Link to the Said Album:
http://s722.photobucket.com/albums/ww227/cantador4u/Knife Blade Patterns and Designs/

 

[J. Oeser]

Ha ha, I just noticed he actually replicated your logo too.

Found most of my fixed blade patterns. I'd be interested to know more about the basis of the archive. Well over 600 patterns.

 

[Mike Davis]

It is one thing for someone to borrow ideas from someone else's work. It is another thing entirely to just blatantly steal their ideas. I think it is distasteful at best. "Here are some designs someone has designed, sometimes at the specific request of a customer. They did ok with them, why don't you copy them, Might get just as lucky!!" I feel that however nice he thought he was being by helping out the knife making community, this was done in a very bad way.

 

[Dago Red]

What is it they say about imitation being a form of flattery? IDK though, is pretty weird, I keep hundreds of photos of everything I like, knives, pipes, women, guns, but drawings? And then to have them in an online gallery? and he has 29 pages of them? Maybe it's some high school kid. I don't think it'd cut into your business, guys seem to copy or base off of others designs all the time. A lot of time was spent on this. Maybe if you contacted the person they might want to commission you to make one of their modified of your designs.

shit, I just looks at more of their stuff, it's just very weird, can't put my finger on something necessarily wrong about it, only that it's weird.

 

[BenR.T.]

Mine are on there to Ryan, he actually is a member here as well. I just can't think of his screen name right now.

 

[kreole]

What is it they say about imitation being a form of flattery? IDK though, is pretty weird, I keep hundreds of photos of everything I like, knives, pipes, women, guns, but drawings? And then to have them in an online gallery? and he has 29 pages of them? Maybe it's some high school kid. I don't think it'd cut into your business, guys seem to copy or base off of others designs all the time. A lot of time was spent on this. Maybe if you contacted the person they might want to commission you to make one of their modified of your designs.

shit, I just looks at more of their stuff, it's just very weird, can't put my finger on something necessarily wrong about it, only that it's weird.

As for the 'why' of it, I read a post here on BF awhile back of a guy who said he draws all his knives to get a better feel for their design. I thought that was pretty clever and did the same for a little while--just in a notebook, not online or anything like this.


Is it that they're posted online that is raising eyebrows? I'm not sure I understand how drawings are different than if he posted pictures. He's not claiming their his designs or making knives from the patterns. Is the issue that the maker isn't specified a lot?

 

[RyanW]

Weird is right, I am not worried about him making a bunch of money from my designs, I can't even do that . Just made the hair stand up on my neck.

Ben There are a lot of yours on there. I would name names but pretty much covers all of Bladeforums from Bruce Bump to Me!

 

[BenR.T.]

Pm sent Ryan

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

Did he have this description earlier? Cause he does now.

"These are outlines of knives made by other people that I like for one reason or another. Regretfully I've only recently thought about identifying the designer/maker whenever possible. The top image is always the original. If I've experimented with changing some aspect of the design it is always the drawings below."

 

[RyanW]

Did he have this description earlier? Cause he does now.

"These are outlines of knives made by other people that I like for one reason or another. Regretfully I've only recently thought about identifying the designer/maker whenever possible. The top image is always the original. If I've experimented with changing some aspect of the design it is always the drawings below."

I am not accusing him of copying or doing anything wrong, just wondered what people thought about taking peoples photos/knives and drawing them out in a "Design" Format.

 

[Lorien]

it seems odd to me.
it's a step beyond merely 'borrowing' photos that are posted on line, and reposting them elsewhere. To recreate as exactly as possible, in line drawing, the profile/design of a picture of a knife someone else made without consent by the person who made the knife and then having the book open, as it were to anyone...hmmm...

the design is really the only thing a knifemaker can claim is his/her own intellectual property, and it seems that that kind of property is very valuable these days, in an economic environment where mass production is fairly easy to pull off.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!

 

[Mike Turner]

I am not sure what to say about this Ryan and I seen at least one of mine in there as well so I will wait and see what the more intellectual members have to say about it.

 

[RyanW]

Lorien, I agree with you and you have an interest in this as you see the Lorien there.

I have actually been informed who the BF member is that owns the Photobucket account. I don't think there is any malice or bad intentions, but it does bring up an interesting question as Lorien pointed out.

 

[SharpByCoop]

it seems odd to me.
it's a step beyond merely 'borrowing' photos that are posted on line, and reposting them elsewhere. To recreate as exactly as possible, in line drawing, the profile/design of a picture of a knife someone else made without consent by the person who made the knife and then having the book open, as it were to anyone...hmmm...

the design is really the only thing a knifemaker can claim is his/her own intellectual property, and it seems that that kind of property is very valuable these days, in an economic environment where mass production is fairly easy to pull off.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!

Lorien, ^^^ on the money.

The elephant in the living room: Having such clear access to these easily-transferable designs opens the door to having them copied. Young knifemakers don't have the financial resources to go through a design-owning process, or to fight copies after the fact.

Well-meaning as it may be, asking permission first: A. To copy, B. To publicly host, would have been responsible. And even then, a clear explanation of the long-term intent needs addressing.

I'm listening.

Coop

 

[brownshoe]

Someone admires art and draws out the shape or design. This is as old as charcoal and bark. Someone copies a piece of art into their sketchbook. This is as old as books. The modern sketch book is the computer. Artists naturally like to share their sketches, the modern way is on-line. What this person has done is the modern version of what artistically inclined sketchers have done for years.

Just because you are paranoid, does mean you are irrational. Don't look for nefarious reasons for things with equally plausible simple explanations.

Tony Bose gives away his designs and helps people make them.

 

[BenR.T.]

You can't click "print" in someones sketchbook.
I don't think he has bad intentions by copying them or posting them.
But, It does make it very easy for someone else to print them and make exact copies without so much as a please or thank you to the original maker/designer.

 

[North]

From my admittedly brief knifemaking experience I know there is much more to making a knife than just a traced design.

If someone duplicates your design does that harm you somehow? I don’t know, but I do know that the copiers of Jerry Fisk’s Sendero design don’t seem to have hurt Jerry any. The same could be said of Bob Loveless and of course others. Maybe it depends on how good the design is or how good the maker is at the multitude of aspects of knifemaking as a business.

If it is something that bothers you, and you feel the design is your property, perhaps you should consider seeing if your designs are eligible to be copyrighted. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap13.html#1301

Bill

 

[Lorien]

Lorien, I agree with you and you have an interest in this as you see the Lorien there.

actually it doesn't bother me at all, since I intended from the outset for that design to be 'open source'.
I imagine that the rest of you knife makers did not come up with your unique designs in order for them to be open source, otherwise you'd all be putting the drawings of your designs up on your photobucket....

 

[RyanW]

Someone admires art and draws out the shape or design. This is as old as charcoal and bark. Someone copies a piece of art into their sketchbook. This is as old as books. The modern sketch book is the computer. Artists naturally like to share their sketches, the modern way is on-line. What this person has done is the modern version of what artistically inclined sketchers have done for years.

Just because you are paranoid, does mean you are irrational. Don't look for nefarious reasons for things with equally plausible simple explanations.

Tony Bose gives away his designs and helps people make them.

It is not the same thing... and I am not worried or I wouldn't have posted his copies of my designs in this thread.

Ask Benchmade, Spyderco, Busse, Claudio Cas (too many to list) if they want people replicating their knives.

 

[daizee]

I've looked at the site - surprised to even see some of mine there. I'm very slightly flattered, but...
My feelings are the same either way:

We have our own designs. If we wanted to share drawings of those designs, along with photos and the knives themselves, we would have done so.
It is not hard to 'reverse engineer' a drawing from a photo, and I'm unsure of the trademark status of our work, so I don't think that intellectual property has been stolen per se. However, it is VERY POOR FORM to reproduce what are essentially specs of other people's work and then to share them.

If he wanted to make drawings of knives he likes, make mods per his own preferences, and then share THOSE, no problem! But attempting to reproduce our designs and share them on our behalf without consent is VERY POOR CITIZENSHIP, not to mention generally rude. I spent a year making drawings before making knives, and then 15 hours or so per blade in actual manufacturing time. If someone else wants to make a copy of a complete knife, they should do their own work, and I have no problems with them doing so, provided credit is given for the original design. We see this all the time on the forums with regard to Loveless patterns, for example.

For some designs that are Open Source, as Lorien pointed out, I have no issue.
My own are hardly groundbreaking or deeply innovative, but the attempt to share my work without my consent is upsetting.
Additionally, the content is essentially pulled from BF, and shared in another forum. If it were done HERE, at least we would have been expected to see it and it would have stayed in the community.
This appears to be a tone-deaf result of the overshare culture. It bothers me.

There is a distinction between copyright theft and poor citizenship. One has legal ramifications, the other only social.

-Daizee