Our take on the industry wide copyright problem.
So here's my take on the copyright issue that been raising its head over the past 10 years.
In the early days, the world was too big and the issues were too small for anyone to care about. Those operating 10 years ago will remember a time where everything was generic, multicoloured or we stuck to simple, princess, jungle, fairytale, pirate themes and nothing more and guess what. We made stunning amounts of money without the need to infringe anyone's IP.
As time moved on and the digital world grew and print technology or design apps become more readily available at cheap prices, It became an industry norm to have inflatables that infringe copyright and has now spiraled out of control.
Whats happening & why.
The owners of the copyright for brands such as Entertainment one, nickelodeon have been attracted to our industry through various bed press releases.
In 2014 we had our 1st major bad exposure when various frozen parties went bad and ended up in national newspapers and on the BBC news. This brought attention to the mascot and cake industry, which soon spread to our inflatable and soft play industry and resulted in many companies (including my own) receiving copyright cease and desist letters.
In 2016, We had the tragic death of seven-year-old Summer Grant, who died after becoming trapped in a bouncy castle that blew hundreds of yards across a fair in Harlow. The fair featured various rides and inflatables riddled with copyright artwork, which again highlighted a number of copyright issues blasted into the national newspapers and major news networks further drawing attention to the industry.
This lead to many high-profile brands looking directly into our industry. Combine that with increased activity in no-win no-fee solicitor culture, specifically companies such as Simmonds and Simmons who actively chase infringement for profit, and it's been a ticking time bomb before our quiet little industry was targeted.
In recent years this interest has grown and grown to the point of no return we find ourselves at now.
Many large brands had realised just how badly our industry was taking the piss, to be frank, with many manufacturers and hirers at the time displaying many infringed items such as Disney princess, Paw Patrol, Frozen and Superheroes ect directly on websites, Facebook pages, and the like with complete disregard for what they were doing.
When you look back at how Blaazaay everyone was and some still are, it's blatant fraud on a huge industrial scale, It had to come to an end at some point.
Easy to blame Airquee
As much as it would be dead easy to blame Airquee and benefit from the boycott threats as everyone else does, I strongly believe that's not the case and as much as it pains me, I have to defend Airquee and confirm that the licensing companies were the ones that approached our industry manufacturers with proposals.
Sadly, companies like myself, who do not have complex compliance protocol structures, IP lawyers, A team of in-house designers, and the capacity to undertake such meticulous Quality control procedures & large factory amendment budgets to defend large corporations from human rights cases do not stand a chance.
After many manufacturing companies such as Betterbounce being approached by the copyright owners and not being able to tick the boxes. Airquee was the only real logical choice and good luck to them I say. They have merely filled a gap to allow genuine businesses to thrive.
Airquee is fully aware that many of its own customers who purchase fully licensed products also have non licensed products displayed too. If Airquee really were at the center of the blame game, The damage to their own client base would be huge and no one is stupid enough to destroy their own customer base when the IP products form such a small unprofitable proportion of the market such as the 12x12 market.
2019/2020: The copyright owners are now working with "super catchers" as I call them, who operate using computer algorithms. These algorithms are so powerful they can even detect the use of color combinations such as the famous pepper pig pink, sky blue, and grass green. The operators of the algorithm stand to make a lot of money from catching repeat offenders that do not comply and are actively approaching other larger brands to form a collaboration to put a stop to the industry problem.
Brands such as Entertainment one, nickelodeon, Hasbro, Disney, Universal, and Disney are all being recruited to END THE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT once and for all.
One last industry chance & consequences
For some unknown compassionate reasons that I can't for the life of me understand (maybe the thought of bad press closing small businesses at a difficult time without warning). The brand owners have decided to approach industry-related bodies, media hosts, website providers, eBay, Google, Bing, Gumtree, Facebook, Facebook group admins and the likes of Instagram using legislation that makes it impossible not to comply.
These regulations allow the companies above to be held accountable as an accessory to fraud. You will have seen polite warnings from BCN, KBS for example with greater details and noticed eBay listings removed, accounts closed, Facebook pages deleted, and google + removed forever.
When the patience of the collaborated industry warning expires and if the industry fails to comply and doesn't self regulate, It will go further than threat just letters.They fully intend to launch a criminal investigation into the offenders, which can and does lead to trading standards visits and police raids.
The time for ignoring a letter, using velcro artworks, and calling castles "pig casttle1" for example has well and truly ended.
It is only a matter of weeks before the likes of BCN are forced to remove your inflatables and Facebook are already deleting pages like no tomorrow. With outlets such as Gumtree, Marketplace, and eBay deleting listings, there is very little option but to retire the inflatables or have them destroyed/ amended.
THIS IS EXTREMELY SEVERE & TRULY IS THE LAST CHANCE.
I have been as guilty as the next man from turning a blind eye, advertising naughty inflatables, and making items for people that I shouldn't.
Many manufacturers still produce inflatables under the counter as it were and hide behind terms and conditions passing liability onto the client with regards to the copyright infringement.
This is one of the main reasons in my opinion that the industry still has the problem it has today and turning a blind eye is no longer an option for manufacturers. This must stop now.
Where do we go from here?
We will be the first manufacturer to publically put my hands up and suggests that what's been happening in our industry for a long time is wrong and turning a blind eye or being part of it isn't good enough.
The roll-out of Airquee licenses and previous cease and desist letters should have been enough to deter us in the first place.
I strongly believe from the conversations I have had, that there is a real opportunity to take advantage of the unofficial amnesty period that we have been given and should all take notice and act accordingly and I am happy to take the lead.
When the time comes and you are held accountable, It would be much more favorable to have actively made changes from the past and hopefully avoid the severe consequences that will arise.
Lets see if we can all work together to clean up what we can!
Betterbounce Specific and Amnesty offer.
From today, Betterbounce will be offering the following services to our customers in relation to the copyright issue ;
1) We will be no longer accept orders for any nonstandard artwork without official documentation, proof of ownership registered Intellectual property and will no longer hide behind our terms and conditions surrounding copyright. No ifs, no buts and it will apply to absolutely everybody.
2) We will now be happy to release our artwork templates, in order to broaden the scope of designs available and allow businesses to create their own generic brands and move forward with being unique!
These templates will be issued under license to anyone who chooses to accept them on the strict terms that they are not to be used to flout the rules and be used for copyright purposes.
3) We are pleased to announce that we will be holding a copyright amnesty service in which we will be offering the following to our customers:
- Conversion service of infringed products where possible, into non infringed products at cost price. This can include inserting blank panels or printed generic panels.
- Exchange any copyright infringed velcro panels for new at cost price and receive an exchange receipt for later use should you require.
- Destroy or dispose of your infringed goods free of charge and receive a receipt for later use should you require.
Some fully themed wall to wall inflatables may not be cost effective to convert, but there will be no charge to check.
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