Copyright

[ssc456]

Guys,

Where would a company or individual stand in replicating (or damn right copying) a layout and colour scheme of someone else.

Here's an example, this is an image from Sky Sports News (although I must admit this looks different than normal but you get the idea). If I wanted to recreate this as a dashboard of information.

Clearly not using the image of the lady in the middle.
Replacing the titles with "Dashboard information"
Replacing the league information on the right with "Top Employees"
Replacing the information along he bottom with "Message of the day".

Something along the lines of that. . .

And then the person or company wanted to take what they had created and sell it as a commercial product. Could Sky or Sky Sports News take any action?

Essentially all that would be kept is colour scheme, layout and "feel".
Is there any copyright covering those items.

 

[setishock]

Broadcast company's are very protective of their productions. If you listen to the very end of a sports broadcast in the US, there is a person saying that the preceding telecast including graphics used is covered by copyright laws and may not be reproduced with out permission of the (insert league name here).

So it'd be a safe bet it's pretty much the same around the world.

 

[lhamil64]

Unless you're directly copying the graphics, I think you'd be OK. I think you can use it as inspiration so long as you make your own background images and such.

You would run into issues if you took a screenshot, blanked out the video and somehow managed to remove the text and put your own because that would be using their exact images.

 

[setishock]

Hmm I'd error on the side of caution. Besides if this person or company is a graphics designer, why not design something off the top of their head? Using some one else's design shows a lack of imagination.

 

[ssc456]

Hmm I'd error on the side of caution. Besides if this person or company is a graphics designer, why not design something off the top of their head? Using some one else's design shows a lack of imagination.

True! However there is a huge market for "gimmicky" copied graphics.

I'm a developer for a sales dashboard company (amongst other things) and we of course have our own look and feel and our own "home screen" with our companies branded look and feel. But the screen rotates between several screens and we have 1 or 2 screens like an old fun fair horse race style screen that tends to draw more interest from our customers.

It seems if people see something that they are used to seeing but it is slightly different then they take more notice than something that is completely different all together.

This project actually isn't for my company but the evidence is from my company.

 

[root]

the theme you;re talking about there:
headlines along the bottom of the screen, information displayed on the right hand of the screen has been a popular news format since before Sky existed.

don't use the graphics, and probably best to stay away from the exact colours.
but the actual theme.

which can be described as a table that's not copy righted.

consider it like this.
If you copy word for word romeo and juilet then you fall foul of copy right laws.
there is no copyright (and can be no copyright) on girl meets boy stories.

what you can copy in this.
Layout, colour scheme. (e.g. red/blue, might be an idea to stay away from the exact shades)
what you can't copy:
Sky sports logo
Picture of woman.
textured backdrop on score box
textured backdrop on headline ticker.


Some may argue that the clock shouldn't be copied as it's in company colours, However, red/blue is a generic colour combination. so I'd probably disagree with those people. (And suspect that if it came to it a judge would too). but as I said, personally I'd stay away from the exact colour scheme).


But, just to echo what a lot of others have said, it's really not that hard to come up with a simple layout for presenting information, why not just invent your own.

 

[ssc456]

But, just to echo what a lot of others have said, it's really not that hard to come up with a simple layout for presenting information, why not just invent your own.

Thank you, very useful.

Oh there will be plenty of original ideas going in as well but as I say there does seem to be a huge interest from our current customers in things they know and see on a daily basis but with slightly different information.

Particularly the likes of say BBC news 24, this is a very popular display to see in Receptions, banks, shops etc so if it looks like that but has information in relevant to the company itself it's gimmicky and as I say it seems to draw a lot of interest.

However the primary goal would always be to push the original company branded screens!