More discusion about copyright issues
#41
Why get someone in trouble.
Copyright is very technical and very tricky. I like to stay completely on safe side. I think you did the right thing.
One time in surfing the net, I ran across a finished quilt that was for sale on a private website. It was an exact replica of a famous designer(Nancy) in her Landscape Book. I wrote to Sewing with Nancy and gave her the website. She wrote back and said it was violation of copyright, and thanked me. The private website, removed the Replica Quilt.
Traditional Quilt blocks are not copyrighted, to my knowledge, so they can be created and sold, at least this is my understanding.
One time in surfing the net, I ran across a finished quilt that was for sale on a private website. It was an exact replica of a famous designer(Nancy) in her Landscape Book. I wrote to Sewing with Nancy and gave her the website. She wrote back and said it was violation of copyright, and thanked me. The private website, removed the Replica Quilt.
Traditional Quilt blocks are not copyrighted, to my knowledge, so they can be created and sold, at least this is my understanding.
#42
Food for thought from Leah Day at the Free Motion Quilting Project entitled Copyright Terrorism:
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...terrorism.html
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...terrorism.html
#43
It is the written instructions AND the patterns (line drawings) that are copyright protected. The owner of the original design has every right within the law to control the intended use of the design and if they say that the design is to be used for personal use only then that is all that can be done with their design both patterns and intstructions.
#44
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Ohio
Posts: 2,148
Please refer to this
http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/...Patterns.shtml
http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/...Patterns.shtml
#45
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Illinois
Posts: 9,018
I always read the copyright BEFORE I buy any pattern or book.... and never buy any with copyright that is restrictive--can't sell items at craft fairs, etc.... Another set of patterns to avoid are the Atkinson's.... can't make and sell these either....
If your pattern came from somebody else's pattern you saw it is still theirs--is the way I understand it. The IDEA came from 'their hard work....' or that is the way I understand it...
If your pattern came from somebody else's pattern you saw it is still theirs--is the way I understand it. The IDEA came from 'their hard work....' or that is the way I understand it...
#46
Food for thought from Leah Day at the Free Motion Quilting Project entitled Copyright Terrorism:
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...terrorism.html
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.c...terrorism.html
I guess if I break a law, a rule here in little old rural Idaho and the big guns want to come and get me, I'll face it then. I shall make quilts to gift with fabric that have selvedges that forbid certain uses after I purchased it and let the chips fall where they may!
I find most of this so very confusing, if not down right ridiculous for the average quilter.... and if someone should sue me, they can have half of the nothing worth grabbing I possess. Except my DH and fur babies! :0) JMHO
#47
How does a person obtain a copyright? Is it done on each pattern/design? I would think there is some type of paperwork or something they have to do to get the copyright.
How do we know if there is truly a legal copyright on a design/pattern or if someone is just stating they have a copyright.
How do we know if there is truly a legal copyright on a design/pattern or if someone is just stating they have a copyright.
It is generally accepted that anytime someone creates something, it is protected under copyright (providing it is an original work). It is their intellectual property, and no part of the WORDS OR IMAGES may be reproduced for sale without their written permission. Whatever other wording a designer/author adds beyond that is just posturing on their part.
If infringement is suspected, the designer has to register their work with the copyright office in order to seek legal damages.
#48
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Here and there
Posts: 1,669
Thanks, Ghostrider, for good sense. These discussions drive me crazy because, while it is clear that people who buy quilt patterns cannot legally copy those patterns and sell or give them away, the creator of the pattern could not possibly retain control over the items made using the pattern. Suppose he/she stipulated that the item could only be used to cover a bed and not a couch, for a dog bed and not a cat bed, and so on ad infinitum. Of course the designer should be compensated for his/her intellectual property; no one is contesting that, but to say that the person who buys supplies to make an item using that pattern, puts in hours of labor, uses capital goods over which he/she has effective control (sewing machine, cutting mat, scissors, rotary cutters, etc.) has no right to profit from his/her investment is absurd. People get their pay for their intellectual creativity when they sell their pattern. Here's another thing--most patterns I buy come from a third party, i.e., a quilt shop that has already paid the pattern creator or his/her agent. Does that give the retailer a proprietary right in the pattern so that if I am going to use the pattern I have to buy fabric and other supplies from that quilt shop? Give me a break! Use a little sense! froggyintexas
With all due respect, JMCDA, you are comparing watermelon and grapes. There is a world of difference between the copyright of a painting and the copyright of a pattern. True, neither can be duplicated beyond personal use, for profit or otherwise, but in the case of the pattern, it is only the written instructions that are copyright protected, not the resulting items made by following those instructions.
Look at it this way. If you published a book of "How to Draw Crickets", you would have full copyright protection on the book. No one could copy your book and sell it...or even give it away for that matter. You would not, however, have any right at all to prevent legal purchasers of your book from drawing crickets just like you taught them and then selling those drawings however and whenever they wanted within the limits of reason (i.e., not setting up a factory in China to mass produce them).
The full intention of a set of instructions (aka, a pattern), is to teach someone how to make something. You cannot turn around and deny them the right to make it. The creator of the instructions has no claim over what is done with the resulting items. None. They received their compensation when the instructions were sold.
Look at it this way. If you published a book of "How to Draw Crickets", you would have full copyright protection on the book. No one could copy your book and sell it...or even give it away for that matter. You would not, however, have any right at all to prevent legal purchasers of your book from drawing crickets just like you taught them and then selling those drawings however and whenever they wanted within the limits of reason (i.e., not setting up a factory in China to mass produce them).
The full intention of a set of instructions (aka, a pattern), is to teach someone how to make something. You cannot turn around and deny them the right to make it. The creator of the instructions has no claim over what is done with the resulting items. None. They received their compensation when the instructions were sold.
#49
I have more than a few friends who have spent years in court fighting infringement claims against companies that thought they could make and sell items with the artwork of the artist on it without permission - every time the big company lost. (think cute snowmen on gift items and a big national store) I have many times had studios teach my designs without permission and without even purchasing the patterns for each student in the class - each time I have found out about this I have confronted them and been compensated for my lost income.
The US Supreme Court stated in 1879 that copyright protection in a pattern does not extend to a dress made from that copyrighted pattern. Then, in 1908, the US Supreme Court stated that a copyright owner cannot invoke restrictions on use of a copyrighted article by printing those restrictions on the article, it required a contract between the parties. A contract requires agreement between the parties before the transaction. And the federal courts have long maintained that the owner of a copyrighted article loses control over that particular copy once it has been sold or given away.
No permission is needed to make and sell articles. Only ONE copy of a pattern is needed to make more than one article. And the copyright protection that is automatic under the law is the protection of ownership, not enforcement of the copyright. A copyright MUST be registered with the copyright office before any civil action can be initiated. The exclusive rights provided under copyright law do not become effective until after it is registered because if it cannot be enforced in court then there are no rights simply upon fixation.
We have researched thousands of federal court cases. There are no federal court cases that have gone to trial over the use of a pattern to make and sell articles. The closest one was from the 1930s where a designer had copyrighted a drawing of a dress. The designer then tried to sue someone who making copies of the dress to sell. The federal court in New York rejected the claims saying that it was the drawing of the dress that was copyrighted, not the dress itself. And that is consistent with federal decisions on other copyright matters.
#50
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Northern California
Posts: 7
I was inspired by a design I saw on a set of dishes. I did not copy the design exactly but it is very similar to the design that inspired me. Is it a copywrite issue to be inspired by a design and then made into an entirely new medium? In this case, dishware design to fabric quilt. I have no intention of selling this quilt but I may display it at a fair.
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