‘David and GOLIATH’?

marxvsbmw.jpg

Gerhard Marx is suing Ireland Davenport and BMW for copyright infringement in the South African High Court on 9 October. Last night, prominent South African artists raised about $55,000 by auctioning off their works in a campaign called ‘david & GOLIATH‘. Owen Dean is representing Marx and has been quoted as saying that ‘his client has developed a reputation that might be held “in lesser esteem if it is known that is has been used for commercial purposes.”‘

commercial-archive probably has the best account of the story – including links to an entire archive of artists who use maps in their work. The similarities in the concept of the BMW ad, though, are remarkable and I’m going to be very interested in how BMW tries to argue this one out of court.

Heather Ford

2 responses to “‘David and GOLIATH’?”

  1. thescott

    interesting indeed!

    i remember when this ad was presented to us, over a year ago.

    ultimately, we have to trust that the advertising creatives behind the work are doing so from a purely original point of view.

  2. Heather

    Exactamundo, Scott. A company gets an agency to do their creative work, and (as you say) trusts that they are doing everything in an ethical, legal manner. And yet, BMW here is the defendant – not Ireland-Davenport, and so it becomes important for creatives to really understand the law, develop an industry code of ethics that they submit to, and that clients look at these issues as important when choosing agencies to do work for them. This is not copyright infringement. It’s plagiarism. And plagiarism needs social and professional codes to guard against. The law is a pretty blunt instrument here, I think.

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