FIDIUS – fighting for fair design competitions

Designers of all disciplines increasingly encounter situations where copyright users exploit their creative achievements as a source of ideas to unfavourable conditions. Design competitions are a popular choice when it comes to getting as cheaply and extensively as possible the benefits of user rights. However, the conditions of competitions are often formulated in a way that they favour only the organiser, and sometimes the conditions are not even put down in detail at all. Due to the difficult overall economic situation, designers frequently come to the point where they see themselves compelled to even accept blatantly unfavourable conditions “with their eyes open.”

Lawyers count a fast growing number of cases concerning disputes that arise out of design competitions. What is astonishing is that even well-known companies with a long tradition consider presentations by designers to be some kind of self-service shops: they pay only a small fee for the submitted designs, arguing that the company decided against using the ideas. Later, however, the designers find out that their work is being used nonetheless, though with some minor modifications.

Several lawyers and designers have now decided to put an end to this kind of exploitation. The objective of the association FIDIUS - fair design competitions, which is now in the process of being founded, is to ensure that in the future there will be fair conditions and that competitions strictly and consistently adhered to them. To resolve disputes outside the court and to pledge secrecy on the matter is simply not enough. Numerous victims do not even summon up the courage to claim their rights at all; and many do so for fear of a financial disaster. Accordingly, the number of unreported cases is high, and it is only by informing the public at large that will bring a lasting solution and a change in attitude. This is the task that FIDIUS sets out to accomplish. The name has symbolic meaning: “Fidius” was a Roman God who presided over truth and oaths. He was guardian of contract agreements, praised truth and revenged untruthfulness. FIDIUS is not only a name; it is the association’s programme. FIDIUS will give a “positive award” and a “negative award” every year, one each for a fair and an unfair design competition in the disciplines
- Product design
- Fashion and textile design
- Photographic design
- Communication design

Individual juries, each of which is comprised of one lawyer-advisor and at least one designer, will award the prizes in each category.

“We must ensure that there is fair play again between creative experts and copyright users. Shortly before the foundation of FIDIUS, I was simply tired of observing how designer let themselves be put under pressure by producers and then do not summon up the courage to defend their creative achievements against this self-service exploitation,” member of the FIDIUS jury Sabine Zentek said. “Good design must not become a discount item, and this must also be in the interest of reliable copyright users who are put at a competitive disadvantage by those design-grabbers,” Sabine Zentek continued to explain.

FIDIUS will start its activities in 2006. Until July 30, 2006, designers are invited to submit to the association examples of an unfair and/or particularly fair design competition and are asked to make sure that they enclose the corresponding invitation documents of the competition. Invitations that feature an award of contract, claiming they are looking for the right designer to carry out a given task, will also be considered. Eligible for nomination for the upcoming first FIDIUS award are design competitions from the period 2000 to 2005.

For further information, please contact Sabine Zentek at: Sabine Zentek(at)t-online.de