Thing 000891 - Moth Europe

Presentation

In 1928, the first version of the one-person sailing boat called Moth was made in Australia by the boat maker Len Morris. Moth was a cat rigged (single sail) flat bottomed scow to sail. In 1929, the second version was made in the U.S. by Joel Van Sant, who built a similar, small, fast singlehanded racing sailboat. During the early 1930s, the third version was built in Great Britain by a small group of sailors, who called it the British Moth. In August 1960, Pierre Marique, a French naval architect, made preliminary drawings for the prototype of the lightweight fiberglass version of the sailing boat Moth Petrel for Aloïs Roland, who was a boat builder from Belgium.

In 1963, the French Sailing Federation created a competition for naval architects in order to built a mono-type of the various Moth models. Aloïs Roland submitted the plan of the boat Moth Aquilon, which was later named Moth Europe boat, and won the competition. Moth Europe became an international sailing boat class and Aloïs Roland could construct the fiberglass Moth boats.

On February 28, 1966, Pierre Marique claimed that Aloïs Roland copied the design of Moth Europe from his drawings for Moth Petrel. On November 9, 1967, the court case Pierre Marique c. Aloïs Roland took place at the Tribunal de première instance in Charleroi, Belgium. Judge Harmignie held:

[Pierre Marique] specifies that his action is based on authorship legislation for drawing and models. [...] [Pierre Marique] claims to have designed and created, in collaboration with [Aloïs Roland], a type of boat called Moth Aquilon. The boat was built by [Aloïs Roland]. [...] [Aloïs Roland] admits that in August 1960 [Pierre Marique] made a vague unlisted and unfinished preliminary sketch at a scale of 1:10. Roland claims that the sketch was based on an existing sailboat, the Moth Fauroux. [...] [Aloïs Roland] does not dispute that his plan results from a combination of lines, shapes, and plastic forms by [Pierre Marique] representing a sailboat in plan and cross section [...] [Aloïs Roland] developed a plan for a ship, called Moth Petrel, which bore number 601 and date of October 20, 1960. [Aloïs Roland] signed this plan as author. The plan also displayed, [Pierre Marique]’s signature next to the word “approved” [...] [Aloïs Roland] had changed certain characteristics of said boat and made several types of supposedly new Moth sailboats and baptized them as Moth Aquilon, Aquilon II, and Europe. [...] [A]ccording to [Pierre Marique], all the plans and the boats are identical and are derived from the initial plan which conforms to this vessel’s technical criteria and extraneous details (for example, the kind of materials used to built it). [Aloïs Roland] sees the plans as a creation of his hand. [...] [I]t must be considered whether the legislation on copyright for designs and models, to which [Pierre Marique] refers, applies in this case [....] Whereby, in effect, the design of a new kind of Moth sailboat can be protected by this law if it is materialized in plans that show originality, not from a scientific point of view, but from an aesthetic one. [...] [T]he aim of the parties was the creation of a racing yacht capable of winning races [...] The shape given to the boat was above all, and shows itself to be, for a technical effect [...] [A]ssuming that an original aesthetic effect was produced, it would still have to be investigated whether this effect was separate from the technical effect [...] [I]t is for [Pierre Marique] to prove [...] [but] he does not, and did not, offer to do so.

The court concluded that the design for the boat Moth Europe could not be protected by the droits d’auteur because the shape given to it was primarily based on technical criteria and that the aesthetic effect of the boat Moth Europe couldn’t be separated from its function.

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Questions

• What if common things become included within art practices ? (functionality)