This is a very hot topic, which comes up over and over and over again—once upon a time, amongst the bead-stringers with whom I associated and now, on the various fora where bead-makers congregate. Nor is it confined to glass beadmakers or even beadworkers of various stripes.

I've discussed in a previous rant how I feel about teachers who attempt to have their cake and eat it too: let me teach you what I know (and charge you money), but don't you dare incorporate it into your own work, or worse, teach someone else. In that essay I suggest that there is a balance, between the rights of an individual artist to protect her creations, and the ‘creative commons’—all the stuff that's come before, fallen into the public domain, which provided a rich environment for said artist to grow her ideas.

Brighter folks than I have made eloquent pleas for the return of a saner balance between individual and societal rights in copyright law. This situation is a little different: although Kristina Logan does teach, she explicitly states that she doesn't teach “how to make a Kristina Logan” bead.

So, what are the reasons a beadmaker (or other artist) might give for prohibiting copies? —The most obvious is legal: because she retains the copyright; another is that money going for copies represents lost sales; finally, lower quality copies (and almost all are) lower the prestige of the original, because uneducated buyers can't differentiate.

I've already suggested that, under certain circumstances, the moral if not legal justification to protect one's designs under copyright law could be suspect. An obvious example is a copy of a warring states bead—these have been in the public domain for centuries. Going a little further, just how different does one's interpretation of a warring states bead have to be before it's adjudged new and unique enough to justify exclusive rights to it? And do you suppose different folks might draw that line in the sand in different places?

People being what they are, I do.

The most often cited argument against copying beads—at least that I've encountered—is that it deprives the original artist of income. That seems to be pretty straightforward. It's why I would not be willing, under any circumstances, to sell these beads, even though the base bead is constructed differently and the palette lacks the contrast and rich, jewel-like colors Logan typically uses for this design—both immediate tipoffs that she didn't make these beads, if the lack of technique didn't make it obvious already.

Loss of prestige also makes it imperative than any copies of a hallmark design are clearly identified as such. —Yet, even with these caveats, I've encountered folks who feel copying under any circumstances is wrong.

I disagree.

I disagree, because I get the sense that artists who wish to prohibit others from copying their work for strictly educational purposes, as I have here, are doing it because they don't want others mastering their techniques. And, I'm sorry, techniques ultimately belong to everyone; they cannot be copyrighted (only patented). Thus, only if someone evolves so strikingly different an approach that there's no ‘prior art’ can they lay claim to that approach solely as their own—and only for a few years (13 or 17, I believe.) Otherwise, one must find some new way to combine those techniques in a new interpretation. This is called being creative, and it's why no-one would ever mistake a Lani Ching for a Kristina Logan, even though both artists use the same techniques—precision dots and twisting—to achieve their wonderful results.

Moreover, there is a hidden benefit to encouraging (or at least allowing) others attempt to reproduce one's work—nothing else educates the would-be copier how truly difficult seemingly ‘easy’ or ‘simple’ beads made by others truly are. This is why I say no-one ever can truly copy anyone else: beads really do embody the passions of their creators. Every once in a while, I attempt another of these twisted dot florals—just to remind myself how hard it is. And every time, the experience just increases my respect for the original creator of this style of bead.

Perhaps, someday, Kristina will make those twisted dot florals I commissioned from her 4 years ago. I keep asking, at any rate, every time I run into her. In the meantime, my admiration only increases.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.