Violating Intellectual Property Right
Brother Mohammed and Brother Ahsan: I am not an expert of Allah’s laws or laws of this World, but I am just sharing my opinion in the light of my knowledge. My opinion about the use of picture I have shared earlier. I think my opinion follows the laws of this World and Allah’s laws. If the question is the use of design, then there are two perspectives; a perspective from Allah’s laws and a perspective from the laws of this World. Allah Laws 1. Just like Allah has not allowed people to create borders around a country and restrict movement of people, similarly, Allah doesn’t allow anyone to copy right a design. So brother Muhammad can use the design exactly as it is. 2. Brother Muhammad has no direct agreement with the designer NOT to use his design so brother Muhammad is not bound by any agreement from Allah’s perspective. 3. Brother Muhammad can slightly modify the design and truthfully call it his own. 4. If he copies the design exactly as it is, to be truthful with his customer, brother Muhammad need to tell his customer that he can make the design of XXX designer. Basically giving credit to original designer to be truthful. Human Laws To my knowledge, the clothing design can’t be copy righted so there is no expectation from the designer that other will not copy it. Even if design could be copy righted… 1. The designer has to put design patent mark on the pictures and on his website to communicate his rights. 2. Copy righted design can be copied after the rights have expired 4. A minor modification in design invalidates application of copy right law 5. The expectation with copy right is that no one will take the designer’s business or claim the design to be his own. Brother Muhammad is not competing in business with the designer and he can still give credit to the original designer. 6. I believe copy right laws are American and European concepts and expected to be followed only in these countries. Others countries do not participate or follow those laws. So there are no expectations by the designer that other should follow the laws.