The Mythology of the Eamespunk Meme

(((Okay, that's especially funny because it's written by
Eames Demetrios, the Eames heir who runs the Eames office.)))

(((Before my liver is torn out by IP eagles, I ought to remind potential Eamespunks that Eames creations, unlike the long-lost steamy noodlings of the remote Victorian period, are not public-domain or open-source.)))

http://theburnlab.blogspot.com/2008/07/mythology-of-meme.html

Link: BURNLAB Lab Report: Mythology of a Meme.

(...)

"Somewhere in the wet sand below Pacific Palisades, as the grunion ran, using our steam powered digging implements, we went down exactly 10 meters (and here the steam powered devices really did come in handy–holding back both Brendan Fraser and the collapsing walls of the tunnel) and found an aluminized molded plywood time capsule that had been left by the Eames Office five decades before. At first, after we opened the wire mesh door, we saw nothing, then we slowly picked out a small hydromedusan. For a moment we three shared Nevile's iScheutz and listened to Bach, then we looked closer, and just inside the translucent bell we found it, so delicate, but not exactly fragile–a single meme.

"Lifting it gently to the surface we all swore by the molded plastic in our veins not to reveal this meme until the next mid-century but looking in his dull, mad naugahyde eyes, I knew Bruce would never last (and Neville too, but it was not in him to break first)...."

((((The ever-helpful Cory Doctorow, who is obviously a closet
Eamespunk memeticist, writes in:)))

"FWIW, physical objects aren't copyrightable. They can be trademarked
(but that only means that you're not allowed to sell knockoffs without making it clear that these are indeed knockoffs) and there's such a thing as a "design patent" which lasts 20 years and is "thin protection"
that covers only certain kinds of copying.

"I'm pretty sure that anyone who wants can make an Eames-style chair
(indeed, I know of three shops in Shoreditch that sell them) without fear of reprisal."

(((Great news, well, I'll scan a "potato-chip chair," fabbify it in STL, and ship it out via p2p networks. I'm sure that Herman Miller and Design Within Reach would be cool with that, or, at least, legally helpless for the time being. Especially when they see that, instead of being full of solid, nitpicky "Eames quality," my ground-breaking Eamespunk product has been deftly candyfabbed out of raw sugar with a copper nozzle made of leftover refrigerator parts.))

http://www.flickr.com/groups/candyfab/