Ethics of Jewelry Replicas

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I recently received an email from an astute and highly moral man seeking to recreate a ring design he’s seen. I was so inspired by the email that I’ve decided to share it with you all as well as to post my response:

“Mr. Megé:

May I ask you a question based on the blog post you wrote on “Fraud or Inspiration? — Ethical Practices in Jewelry Design”?

Could you help me on a specific example? I am thinking about getting custom work done by a jeweler in my area. However, the custom design I would like to have done is based on an original design done by another jeweler. I have done my own sketch and have changed the design slightly to better fit what I believe my girlfriend would like. Do you think it would be ethical for this local jeweler to do my custom work? Can I let them have a picture of the original design so that they can see what I’m basing mine off of? The picture would be able to help them in ways that my low-level drawing cannot.”

-John D.

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Dear John,

I don’t believe you should have any reasons to be concerned about infringing on another artists’ work. However, you should still be careful not to overstep the boundary between inspiration and art plagiarism.

Historically artists were copying works of old masters in order to learn from them. It was always completely acceptable as long as these pieces were not offered for sale or misrepresented as being originals. Anyone can create a different version of any design as long as:

1. it is a singular end product
2. it is an entirely manual process of recreation with the minimum use of technology
3. the original design is given proper credit and necessary acknowledgements
4. no registered copyrights or patents are infringed

Your first course of action should be to contact the manufacturer of the original piece and ask for a custom version. It is important to give them this opportunity. If the original manufacturer will not be able or willing to create a custom version, the next logical step is to go to an independent jeweler.  It is important for the jeweler to be a reputable and creative person. You want to ensure that he/she has a history of artistic expression and created their own original designs in the past. A bench repairman who specializes in exact replicas is not acceptable.

It’s ok to provide the jeweler with an image of the ring. However, it must be explicitly stated that no molds of the finished piece will be taken.

After the piece is completed, you might want to send the original manufacturer an image of the finished piece and express gratitude for the design used for inspiration.

In summary, it’s ethical to create a single piece of jewelry entirely by hand (without the use of CAD/CAM or taking a physical mold of the sample piece), which is based on the image of a particular design. When it is done through a meticulous manual process of recreation, re-designing, and re-inventing, the end result is no less ethical then the movie The Birdcage being based on La Cage Aux Folles or The Man with One Red Shoe following in the footsteps of Le Grand Blond avec une Chassure Noire.

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To the reader:

There are a few possible variations of the above scenario in which replication would NOT be considered art plagiarism:

1)    The customer possesses the piece on his person as the rightful owner and wishes to replicate it. It must be reiterated that this is acceptable provided that the piece will be done by hand and no mold will be taken.

2)    The customer is unaware that a comparable design exists.  He/she makes a drawing of the piece. One fine day, walking through a shopping mall, the customer sees this piece created by another company. It is discovered that the jeweler matched this customer’s sketch to some other mold he/she had already owned.

3)    If the customer has a pair of earrings and one is lost, it is alright to create an exact replica of the other one. This is due to the fact that it would be comparable to a simple repair. Two earrings are in actuality one item. One earring is an element of the other. Just as if an element of a ring or pendant is missing or broken it is alright to replace it, so is it the case with earrings if one is missing.

In case you were wondering, John notified us that he did contact the original designer and they gave him permission to recreate their design.