Friday, November 06, 2009
Costume and practice: new suits for Riverdance duo
The IPKat: "Ireland's Sunday Business Post reports that Riverdance duo Moya Doherty and John McColgan are being sued by fashion designer Jen Kelly for using his designs without permission; Kelly is also reported to be seeking royalties on Riverdance's profits."
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4 comments:
It is now nearing the end of 2009. The Contract expired in 2001. What was this designer doing for the past 8 years. It's not a surprise Riverdance is still performing, they publicize everywhere!!! I think this could be a case of someone getting greedy.
This does bring up another interesting issue. How much of a design has to change, before it is not longer the artistic property of the original designer? The color, the shape, the fabric type, or is it a percentage. How much of the original design is "traditional or period?" Then couldn't anyone alter it and make the argument it is a different design? Then... who makes these decisions? This is the bigger question that is being asked and a precedence will be set.
I disagree with Cody, the designer should continue to be paid for his costume designs, even if they have been altered and tweaked. However it is the designer's responsibility to protect their work, and he should have renewed the contract when it expired. I think that it is crucial to protect your designs in the theatre to ensure you get the credit you are owed, but it is your responsibility to keep track of your creations and stipulate if and how much they can be altered.
Oh dear. Intellectual property control in costume design. This is an issue that is hugely relevant in the fashion world; chains like Forever 21 are always getting sued for creating knock-off versions of designers' original works.
However, the designer for Riverdance should have really renewed his contract. This seems like a ploy for getting more money out of a successful franchise. But on the other hand, the designer did really help to define the look and feel of the production; Riverdance would not be Riverdance without its stylized design. The timing is just awkward.
Cody brings up an interesting point about how much change is necessary, but one that I think may be irrelevant. Although there has been a lot of debate around it, the current legal precedent establishes that clothing and fashion designs are not eligible for copyright. I don't claim to understand the details of logic behind this decision, but in the jumbled and largely arbitrary (in my opinion) world of 'intellectual property' the costume design may well have never been the property of the designer. Instead, an agreement was made before the creation of the work, that the producers would pay the designer for the act of designing, not for the right to use the costumes - an important distinction. Assuming they have followed the rules of that contract, there is not, as I understand it, an issue of property here. In some ways, I think perhaps more copyrights ought to be handled this way. After all, a costume designer creates a work for a single client, which is very different from a musician who creates a song independently and hopes that a bunch of people will later hear it and be willing to pay them. This model places the value on the act of creation - the thing that actually has a human and financial cost - not reproduction or performance. Either way, unless there is complication in the contract or Riverdance's compliance, it seems that the legal issue is not a big mystery. Maybe the contract that the designer signed was bad, but it is the main thing that governs their rights.
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