The architect Marcel Breuer probably never thought one of his seating designs would prompt a legal battle. But when furniture manufacturer Knoll spotted that a German company, Tecta, had, since 1982, been making a tubular steel stool – more precisely the B9 that Breuer designed in 1925 for the Bauhaus architecture school canteen – it took its case to a court, which eventually ruled that Tecta should hand over all the profits it had made from its version.
And yet the decision highlighted a grey area in furniture design copyright. Tecta argued that it had signed a contract with the Berlin Bauhaus Archive, based on an agreement with Breuer’s widow. Indeed, it won its own case against another company producing a version of the stool on the basis that the design was subject to licensing laws. But Knoll was able to produce documents signed by Breuer himself in the 1960s, which it acquired when it took over the company that had bought the rights directly from the designer.
That such disputes occur is not surprising, given the complexity of the issue. Rules vary around the world but in Europe there has been legislation since 2003 protecting registered designs that show some novelty or distinctive character for 25 years across 25 countries. Most manufacturers now take full patent protection on most designs, on the off chance they will become classics and inspire cheap copies.
Still, with lucrative older designs, such as the furniture classics of the 1920s to 1960s, everything is on a case-by-case basis, depending on the owners of the rights. “Furniture is one of the most copied categories in our remit,” says Did Macdonald, chief executive of trade organisation Anti-Copying in Design, “and it gives rise to a lot of conflict because the law is so complex.”
The value of the market for classic reproductions also makes it rife for wrangling, especially when one compares the prices of licensed versions versus unofficial copies. An official Panton Chair by Verner Panton and made by Vitra? Around £180. A copy? As low as £70. A licensed Arne Jacobsen Egg chair from Fritz Hansen? From about £3,200. A copy? About £800. The homemaker might well wonder why he should spend almost £6,000 on an official Eames Lounge Chair with ottoman when a near identical, high-quality reproduction – copy or fake are pejorative terms – can be found priced about £500.
But that throws up another issue: does the buyer know what he’s getting? “Simply proving ownership of a design is one battle but there is also the issue of honesty,” says Graham Jones at Knoll, which makes Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona chair too. “There is a lot of selling of copies using words to disguise the fact that they are not original but assuming that, because it is that much cheaper, the customer will realise.”
It might be argued that phrases such as “inspired by” and “virtually identical to the original” – both of which crop up regularly on e-tail sites – are attempts to blur the issue. But does the market for these reproductions – which has seen accelerated growth since the 1990s – really affect makers of the originals?
Jones argues that spending time and money to secure and defend a design copyright is both a responsibility to its creator and a business decision, since a proliferation of copies invariably makes prices on originals seem excessive. Sherman Coakley at retail and design company SCP adds that poorly made knock-offs can damage brands as well as discouraging investment in innovation.
Yet, most manufacturers of originals concede that few sales are lost to them, since the type of person who will spend a lesser amount on an unlicensed copy is unlikely to have been able or prepared to spend five times that on an official reproduction anyway. “There is a group of consumers who would not dream of buying a copy of a chair any more than they would of a Prada bag or a Rolex watch,” Jones explains. They are buying not only the cachet but also the investment security of a brand and “that customer is our market”.
Still, in the furniture world, brands are not as obvious. Moreover, the design and the designer are typically more important than the manufacturer. So, if the shape of the chair is the same, and one can still namecheck the creative mind behind it, who cares which company made it?
Again, the owners of copyright say their products are of higher quality, in terms of raw materials, craftsmanship and man-hours, than other reproductions. Knoll’s Barcelona chair, for instance, has cushions using 126 pieces of leather, handsewn by one maker over two days, while the official Egg chair has a complex base made of injection-moulded aluminium and upholstery requiring 1,300 stitches. “Quality-wise, the copies are useless and investment-wise they are worth nothing,” says Jan Helleskov at Fritz Hansen. “We have been making the Egg chair since the beginning and you can see that 30 years later they are more expensive.”
Christian Hawley at Nest, an e-tailer of licensed products, agrees. “The fact is that the quality just isn’t the same, especially with more complex, upholstered pieces. The whole experience, from admiring the item to sitting in it, is different. Until you experience that, it’s hard to persuade some customers the distinction is really there.”
Angela Bentley at Design Icons, another e-tailer, acknowledges that there are cheap reproductions made in China, for example, that “would make their original designers turn in their graves” but says that others, manufactured in Italy, for instance, are frequently made using the same methods and materials – even leather from the same tanneries – as the licensed versions they replicate.
“Nobody is saying that products by, for example, Knoll, wouldn’t stand head and shoulders [above] a poor reproduction. And nobody is saying that these poor reproductions don’t damage everyone in the furniture business,” she says. “But you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between the licensed product and some other reproductions. And such items sell to increasingly design-aware customers who want the best possible balance between quality and price.”
Indeed, some suggest the contemporary furniture market is troubled by the monopolies companies hold over certain designs and the inflated prices they can charge as a result. Coakley says there are originals he won’t buy “because there are [legal] versions in the mid-price range that are just as good”, citing Fritz Hansen’s much-copied 3107 chair by Jacobsen. “When the design is in the public domain, it’s down to the market which version sells best. Licensed manufacturers claim to have some connection to the heirs of the designer but I just don’t know what that really means now. In some cases, it doesn’t even mean the licensed version is necessarily close to the original design.”
The issue clearly divides people. For some, “inspired by” reproductions are a means of getting as big a bang for your buck as possible, in keeping with the spirit of 20th-century designers who aimed for mass-produced, democratic items, not totems of luxury. But, for others, adherence to licensed originals is important for authenticity and as a matter of conscience.
“Because a design is so widely known does not mean it’s not owned by anyone,” Jones says. “If enough people do karaoke versions of ‘Let It Be’, the song is still owned by Lennon and McCartney, isn’t it?”
But then even a good cover version can get you humming.
