Then every single professional designer of my acquaintance is “scummy,” because, without exception, every single one of them began her or his career with this step, and routinely engages in this activity as a means of understanding her or his trade.

To argue that designers and makers shouldn’t copy the things that they like is like arguing that musicians shouldn’t sing other peoples’ songs.

I have, and will continue, to advocate that makers duplicate the things that they love. I learned to write by literally copying out the passages that inspired me, in the same way that my daughter learned to speak by copying the words she heard. Copying is the only path to mastery. I promise you that the designer of this credenza began his career by duplicating the works he found inspiring. I further guarantee that this designer saw various iterations of moons and credenzas and luminescent design, and made this design by copying the elements of other designs he found pleasant.

Copying is life. Literally. We are descended from molecules that figured out how to copy themselves 4 billion years ago. Every novelist copies Cervantes. Every detective story copies Poe. The school backpack only dates to the mid-1960s, and every designer who’s made a non-hiking pack since then has copied the two designers who had the idea of (copying) a hiking pack at a smaller scale for students to carry.

For a site that usually takes the side of artists and creators, your attitude surprises me.  Here’s an artist/designer who has come up with a piece that’s striking and somewhat original and you’re saying he has no moral right to have his creativity respected.

Cory, you were wrong to suggest that people create their own knock-offs, no matter the scale of their production or the monetary harm if would or wouldn’t cause.  

It’s about having respect for those who come up with cool things.

This is no different from that skateboard truck lazy susan table you blogged a while back.  ”expensive and ripe for a homebrew remake” is how you termed it. (It was $1,800.)  Later there was a boingboing post on how to make them for $70 and now you can buy ugly copies on Etsy for $100.  

Yes, I believe that hurt the original designer and you had a hand in it.

And please, lord, don’t let that song stick in my head.

Making a commercial-scale, unacknowledged replica of a designer’s design is plagiarism. It may also be a copyright infringement, but the real issue is that it’s intellectually dishonest.

Seeing something nice in a shop (or on the web) and figuring out how it’s made and doing it  at home for yourself or for a gift for a friend is neither infringement nor is it plagiarism. It’s both honest and desirable — and what’s more, it’s how most designers have learned their trade in the first place.

Honestly, this is so simple that I can’t figure out exactly what your point is. This designer made a “enquire for pricing” limited run of 24 credenzas. Do you seriously think that it harms him in any way, any imaginable way, for individual makers who think he had a nice idea, to go shopping for junk-shop furniture and trying to see if they can replicate the effect in their own homes?

Something that’s virtually indistinguishable from the original is y copy, not a homage or using the same idea. 

Besides, I bought a book a couple of years ago with a huge glow-in-the-dark moon on the cover.  Clearly this furniture designer is just a thief, a pirate, a veritable murderer of originality and eater of babies.

But more seriously this idea of individual genius just as to die the mythological hero’s death it always deserved to. Seriously, it is way overdue for sleeping with its mother and killing its father before facing the wrath of the furies… or furries maybe.

We’re stupid. Therein lies our genius.

See, now this just makes it clear you are not an artist. It’s called; “homage”, or “influenced”, or “inspired”.

“Ships with an accompanying CD of original music designed specifically for this piece.”

Still, pretty wicked.

(Also – credenza, what a great word).