Belgian woodcarver gets Zara to the knees | Zara Home Inditex Brussels | Belgian (Limburger) beats ZARA in plagiarism case

Left the work of Patrick Damiaens - Right the candle of Zara home

Belgian woodcarver gets Zara to the knees.

Newspaper article published on July 5, 2017

With permission from DE TIJD, Belgian business and financial newspaper

Translation Lis Alvar R,
In the original article, the author Ben Serrure speaks about the Limburger (as a person), this has changed to Belgian. Explication: Limburg is a province of Belgium.

According to the Brussels Courts of Commerce, the chain of stores Zara Home has copied a design of the ornamental woodcarver Patrick Damiaens without any hesitation.

Patrick Damiaens fell of the chair when he received a call from Paris in 2014. A friend of the Belgian (Limburg) woodcarver was surprised with a decorated candle while shopping in the furniture chain Zara Home. Nothing special itself. The design of the candle was like “two drops” to the design that Damiaens had made two years earlier.

Specifically, it was a family shield that Damiaens had carved on behalf of the Dutch family Odink. The family wanted a 3D version of the recently updated coat of arms, and knocked to the door of the Belgian (Limburg), a famous name in the world of heraldic art. After the assignment was completed, Damiaens placed a picture of the result on his website and began working on other work.

Great was his surprise when, after the call, his job was found in the Antwerp branch of Zara Home, daughter of Inditex, one of the world's most valuable companies. Damiaens did not agree with it, and, along with client Odink, hired a lawyer.

On the cover of De Tijd

Belgian (Limburger) beats ZARA in plagiarism case

Belgian woodcarver forces billion company ZARA on the knees

Sales ban

With result. The Brussels court of commerce ruled that Odink did not, but Damiaens could have copyrighted the design, and that Zara Home had committed infringements by placing the candles on the market. The court therefore condemns Zara Home to pay a compensation and a ban on the future sales of the decorative candles, which had already been taken out of business.

The verdict and, consequently, the compensation payable, by the territorial jurisdiction of the court, relate only to the candles sold in Belgium, attorney Dieter Delarue, who acted for Damiaens in the case, explained. But the verdict is a good starting point for further actions. For example, the Limburger now has a starting point to proceed against Zara in Spain, where the ban and the compensation could then be extended to all of Europe.

Zara can still appeal. The company is currently considering any further steps, let attorney Jef Keustermans know.

David vs Goliath

It's by no means the first time that small designers or artists are being copied by fast retailers like Zara. Zara was already under fire for copying small designers, while a company like H & M is regularly accused of plagiarism.

Recently, Belgian lingerie designer Muriel Scherre of La Fille d'O sounded the bell after H & M put a bra in the shelf that looked like a design of her. Scherre said that she did not wanted to proceed, because she thought she had little chances to win against "Goliath" as H & M.

That is why this sentence is so important, Delarue believes. "It is a unique precedent in the sense that it may be the first time that a fast retailer is convicted by a court for something like this, far beyond Belgium.

Elsewhere and earlier, often with symbolic outrage actions via social or regular media. They are of course useful, but they will also be over by time. The Zara's of this world also know that, which makes them seldom impressed and therefore does not give a proper result. Now, of course, they cannot do anything else. "

Sharp

It is apparent that the court in the sentence expresses Zara's conduct explicitly and in strict terms. Answers to the argument of Zara Home's that a friend of Damiaens was required to recognize the design, the court writes the following:

'This reflects Zara Home's approach and attitude in the design and production of the concerned candle: an interesting and existing design that does not have a prominent general reputation may be applied to the goods in question with a view to the optimization/increase of sales and without any acknowledgment of the person who created that work through his own intellectual input. '

"It is precisely the attractiveness to the consumer that Zara Home has put in place to reproduce exactly the work of Mr. Damiaens and not to choose another design," the court continues. 'A clearer proof of the banalization of the sculpture of Mr. Damiaens cannot be offer.'

https://www.patrickdamiaens.info

Did ZARA HOME commit plagiarism? | Inditex | A Candle from Zara Home | A constatation in some branches of ZARA HOME

A constatation in some branches of ZARA HOME

THE NEW STYLE ACCORDING TO ZARA

 

“Taken from the internet”

Did ZARA HOME commit plagiarism?

From the newspaper 

'Het Belang van Limburg' (Belgium) 11 may 2015

by Gunter willekens

Maaseik (Belgium)– Last year, Zara Home, the furniture store which is part of the world-renowned retail fashion chain INDITEX (Better know as ZARA), possibly sold thousands of candles bearing a decoration that very closely resembles a work of art by the hand of Patrick Damiaens, a woodcarver from Maaseik. “We just happened to stumble upon it. The designers at Zara, most likely just copied my work from the internet”, Damiaens says. “Without even asking! At the very least, I demand an apology.”

Patrick Damiaens creates coats of arms and ornaments for customers around the world. He’s a well-known and respected name in the world of heraldic art, and is considered one of the greats. On 27 December 2014 he received a phone call from a French admirer asking him if he knew about Zara Home using one of his designs as decoration for a line of candles.

Damiaens headed over to the Antwerp branch of Zara Home to take a closer look at this infamous candle. “There’s no doubt about it”, he says. “The candle unmistakably bears the coat of arms that I had designed and carved for a Dutch customer back in 2012. Mind you, it isn’t an exact copy. It’s virtually impossible to recreate in candle wax. It is, however, almost identical.”

“For an outsider, all coats of arms may look alike, but because of the different combinations of numbers and letters, helmets, crests and necklaces etc. there are literally tens of millions of possible variations. It’s easier to win Euromillions than it is to accidentally create the same design.”

The branch of ZARA HOME where I bought the candles

A constatation in some branches of ZARA HOME (Inditex)

Copy/paste

Patrick is in the habit of posting pictures of his work on the internet. The designers at Zara Home were probably scouring the internet for some inspiration for a design to put on the candle and simply decided to copy/paste one of his designs. “The depiction on the candle is without a shred of doubt based on my drawing, which was later used by Patrick to create a woodcarving. 

But nobody asked for my permission either”, heraldic artist Nagtegaal confirms. “One might think that copyright doesn’t apply to coats of arms, because they’re so old”, Odink, the owner of the copied coat of arms, says. “My family’s original coat of arms dates back to the seventeenth century. 

But this is a contemporary version, completely authentic. I commissioned Damiaens to create it two years ago. As a customer, I was actively involved in the creation process and it was all quite expensive and rather time-consuming to have it made and registered as well. How on earth is it possible for a multinational to use it for commercial purposes without my permission? This just isn’t right.”

Did ZARA HOME commit plagiarism?

Discussion

In the beginning of January, Odink and Damiaens sent a registered letter to Inditex, the parent company of Zara Home. “Believe it or not”, Patrick says, “but one day after our letters had arrived, all candles were removed from Zara Home websites across the world. Very impressive.”

Zara Home claimed, though, that one thing had nothing to do with the other. Nevertheless, all candles were removed from all Belgian and Dutch stores as well. “Just to avoid any discussion with you”, Zara Home explained in a letter to Patrick Damiaens.

“Zara Home categorically denies having made an error”, Patrick says. “They claim my work isn’t copyright protected and furthermore maintain that they never used my version of the coat of arms. They somehow, unwittingly, managed to create an exact copy. They must be joking!”

Seeing as the candle was sold for 16 euros and the production costs amount to only a few euros at the most, Zara Home, with its hundreds of shops in dozens of countries around the world and a web shop that caters globally on top of that, probably managed to squeeze quite a bit of money out of the whole deal. 

“How much? We can only guess”, Patrick says. “But Zara’s money doesn’t interest me. All I want from them is an apology or an admission of guilt. To use someone else’s design to make some money, how distasteful is that?”

Silence gives consent

One day after Patrick Damiaens had contacted Zara Home, all designs were removed from websites across the globe. At the same time all candles were taken out of stores worldwide. “But ten days after we confronted Zara Home, we still hadn’t received an answer. 

Even though we called and e-mailed the company at least twice a day, among other things to ask Zara Home if they were aware they were plagiarizing, adding the Flemish saying ‘Zwijgen is toestemmen’ (silence gives consent).”

PLAGIARISM?

The conflict between Patrick Damiaens and Zara Home is reminiscent of the case of Luc Tuymans, earlier this year. The famous Belgian painter based his painting ‘A Belgian Politician’ on a picture of Jean-Marie Dedecker taken by Katrijn Van Giel, photographer for De Standaard. The county court in Antwerp decided that the world-renowned artist had committed plagiarism and ordered him to pay damages in the amount of 500.000 euros per reproduction. Tuymans decided to lodge an appeal against this decision.

Katrijn van Giel was defended by Antwerp barrister Dieter Delarue, who is slightly disinclined to utter the word plagiarism, “because this word is nowhere to be found in copyright law”, Delarue argues. “What we can say is that placing the design on the candle and the subsequent sale of the candle constitutes copyright infringement. After all, the design on the candle is a reproduction or at the very least an adaptation of the original drawing of the woodcarving. 

In order to make such a reproduction or adaptation, it is mandatory to ask for prior permission from the artist who created the original artwork. The fact is, the latter has the exclusive right to reproduce, adapt, exhibit and distribute through sale or otherwise his or her own work. If one does not ask for permission before reproduction, we can speak of a violation of the artist’s rights.”

Arguably, there is little to no doubt that the artists of the original drawing/woodcarving can call Zara to account for their actions. Delarue doesn’t give a definite answer when it comes to a possible compensation. “The nature and size of the claim depend on the client. If a client wishes to be financially compensated, reasonable royalties, i.e. the compensation one would have received if agreements had been made, are taken into account for this type of violation.”

 ©Translation Dennis Hermans

Did ZARA HOME (Inditex) commit plagiarism?

https://www.patrickdamiaens.info

 Please feel free to leave a comment on our FB page

LINK