Wegner's The Chair - A Question of Ethics

[Derek Cohen]

I plan to start work on Wegner's The Chair in earnest after Christmas, when I am on leave from my practice. The day time job is too consuming at present, and with social arrangements there is just not enough time on weekends.


I shall be writing up the build on my website and blogging it on the forums. The idea of sharing dimensions taken from an original chair here has given me several headaches - keeping in mind that this is a chair in production (I am not sure if it is still under copyrite).


I do not see a problem making a copy for oneself. I assume that someone who wishes to sell the chairs commercially will require CNC machines (There are several replicas in the market place, and these are "photocopies" - similar in looks but missing relevant details). My dimensions will not help this group. And anyone who wants to go commercially by hand from the plans, well all I can say is good luck! Consequently, I will assume that the only ones interested in the dimensions (not published plans, per se), will only be building a chair for their own use (in a similar manner to the replica Maloof chair plans that are available).


Let me know your thoughts on this please.


Regards from Perth


Derek

[Jamie Buxton]

If you're concerned about the ethics of revealing dimensions in your blog, surely you can write the blog without mentioning the dimensions.

[jason thigpen]

I see no problem with building it to the exact dimensions. You are building it for personal use and not to sell. And you are posting the build online as an educational resource on hand tool work. All sounds legit to me.

[Lee Reep]

That's a tough call to make. I think I would err on the side of caution. The fact that you might include dimensions of components on your website and blog could be considered "publishing" to me, but I'm no legal expert. It seems like maybe just documenting your build and techniques would be the safest bet. If your dimensions were only overall dimensions, such as "I chose to make the seat height of my build "X" inches/mm." then you are only providing guidelines to the design, and not enabling or promoting duplication of a design that is possibly copyrighted.

Maybe some woodworking lawyer can chime in.

[Mel Fulks]

I truly appreciate ethics but I vaguely remember a couple of unsuccessful attempts by designers to legally prohibit others from using "their" designs. The word " replica" was specifically coined to mean a copy made by the ORIGINAL artist. So the word itself is being "copied" without authorization . A chair might be considered comfortable or not just by being a bit too large or too small, so I don't think holding back dimensions is anything more than a slight obstacle .

[Mike Henderson]

The chair is out there, available to almost anyone who wants to measure it. Publishing your measurements is not a copyright infringement.

Mike

[Andrew Bell]

If its an ethics v law question then it gets confusing,

In Australia at least, legally recipes don't have copyright in the ingredients or quantities ~ however the instructions in the method of putting them together does does. If you use someone else's ingredients and come up with your own method then you are free to use the rest. Given that your woodworking method is likely to be your own then the copyright question is most likely going to be moot from a legal perspective.

From a practical standpoint, even if you did not provide dimensions and assuming that noone else has access to one of these chairs, if you have anything in your photos with a known size, this can be used to reference the rest of the dimensions in that photo, which can then in tern be used to derive and probably then derive more measurements to pull from the other photos; so withholding is probably only going to slow someone down if they were determined enough.

From an ethical point of view, I don't feel that I should impose my morals on anyone else, so its up to you....

However after after hitting post, you would want to be sure that there was no trademark or patent over the design however this is going to kick you if it exists regardless if you publish the dimensions or not

[John Coloccia]

I see no problem with describing the chair to whatever level of detail you wish.

[Jim Belair]

The chair is out there, available to almost anyone who wants to measure it. Publishing your measurements is not a copyright infringement.

Mike

I agree with this.

Neither is making a copy for yourself. Going into commercial production or even making a single unit for sale would be another matter.

[Prashun Patel]

I wouldn't publish the dimensions on the blog. Honestly, it'll be TMI for most readers. If they really want them, they'd write you personally. If the question crosses your mind, then I'd err on the side of the conservative.

I'd only publish specific dimensions if there's something special about it that you wish to point out and make people think about, like an abnormally high armrest.

[Paul Saffold]

It seems to me the simpilest solution is to contact the manufacturer to find out their policy, then go from there.

Caleb James has a blog I follow. In it he discusses making multiple copies of Wegner chairs and detailed weaving instructions.

http://kapeldesigns.blogspot.com/201...aper-cord.html

[Jim Matthews]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Those that want an original are paying for the expertise and logo.
Those that want a great chair are paying homage to a maker's genius.

It's the buying and selling of copies that's a fraught enterprise, worthy of scorn.

[george wilson]

This is WAY too complicated!!!! Just build the chair. It isn't a secret aircraft or something like that.

[Rob Lee]

Hi Derek -

I would boil it down to this...

If your article slant is "Here's what I did....", then i believe you're OK.

If your article slant is "Here's how you can do it....and avoid buying one", then you have crossed a line (incitement to infringe)...

Cheers -

Rob

[Mel Fulks]

The designer pieces made by their own employees for the purpose of selling as many as possible are by necessity pretty doable by anyone who wants to make one. I don't see any way around that. And some subtleties to some things can only be seen by an expert .For instance, to most of us one violin looks another , but an expert can tell an Amati shape from a Strad shape from across the room. But both instruments might be fakes. Somehow Samuel Mc Intire was able to carve so well that his stuff is never mass produced and the best work of his rivals has often been attributed ...to McIntire . And to take that another step ,a lot of his work was on furniture made by someone else. Why is he hogging the credit ?