Ever stopped to think why clients, who consider plagiarism to be among the most serious of offenses when it comes to their corporate products, think nothing of lifting ideas off a great event pitch presentation...and handing them over to their 'trusted' agency to execute? There are two possible explanations.
The first is that they believe that it can't be a particularly serious offense in the BTL industry considering that the agency at the receiving end of the idea-theft comes right back to the same client (for the next project) in the hope of eventually being awarded the business. After all it is a big client, and in a industry where the agencies' earning is a percentage of the billing, size does not only matter, it's everything. The second reason is the event industries' failure to put a cost to intellectual property. The prospect of copying something that has no financial value specifically assigned to it, does not seem to be a particularly serious offense - it's not like it's costing the agency anything!
There are several possible ways to get around this problem, each more difficult to realise than the other! For one, the big players in the industry can come together and develop a cost structure for pitch presentations. Another possibility is for an organised body like the EEMA to develop a common legal services wing that takes up such issues. Whatever the route we take, what seems insurmountable is getting BTL agencies to agree on a modus operandi and putting in precious time and money to make it happen.
The history of the formation of the earliest unions show that an occurence of catastrophic proportions is what it takes for people who have been wronged for years to stand up and speak out. Trade unions, for example, originated in Europe, during the Industrial revolution of the 18th century, when the employers' bargaining power catapulted because of the sheer volumes of unskilled labour looking for employment.
Makes me wonder when we will have our own 'industrial revolution'...if that is what it takes
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