I totally agree with this statement. If the pattern is put out there to use then let us use it. I feel that as long as you put the designers name or what book it came from that should be good enough for anyone. This is one reason I very rarely use a pattern. I do not display mine but have been asked by some who's patterhn I used.

Conversations such as this hurt business. One person who hears gossip from so and so (in this case, the quilt show director who invented the ridiculous rule that has nothing to do with true copyright law). The rule requires innocent people to perform the equivalent of 'go jump in a lake' in order to submit a beautiful quilt that took hundreds of hours to make. Of course they're going to jump in the lake! And those who find jumping in the lake annoying, simply skip entering a show completely.

So where does this lead us? The owners of the lake get tired of telling people to quit jumping in the lake, so they put up fences (I.e.: ignore emails asking for permission to jump in the lake.) And when the innocent people go public, disheartened because they can't get permission to jump in the lake, it gives the owner a bad reputation, which is completely undeserved. People stop buying quilt patterns, the numbers of quilts entered in shows dwindles down to women who are artistic enough to create their own patterns (I'm not one of them, by the way) and the industry suffers, especially the pattern designers who so graciously share their talent with the rest of us!

Here's another conversation on quilting board, in a thread called "question about copyright"

... an added note. I ripped up my subscription renewal to McCalls magazine and went with Fons & Porter Love of Quilting instead. If McCalls is this inept at checking facts then anything else they write about is certainly not trustworthy either.

I will continue to support both the local quilt shop AND pattern designers. :thumbup:

Here is a great website that further dicusses it. This person is not a lawyer as I understand it, but cites cases.

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/...aftSites.shtml

It seems this discussion of copyright and how we all "think" this issue should be handled is irrelevant in this case. The show has it's own rules, and if the poster wants her quilt shown, she has to abide by the rules, no matter what we think of them, and no matter what actual copyright law states.
I would think that if you get no response by calling McCalls, and no way to contact the original designer (via her website), perhaps you can provide "proof" to the show organizers that you did indeed try, and perhaps you can just credit the designer in the information tag attached to your quilt? Maybe at this point, contact the show's organizers and ask what to do if you are unable to get a response from McCalls? Good luck!

Thank you for posting this! :thumbup: I knew I'd seen this somewhere, but couldn't find it this morning in all my bookmarks.

The show organizer is making a good faith attempt to do things correctly, even though it's misguided. You can't blame them for that. I would think the organizer would be relieved to see the facts shown on the tabberone.com website. A thoughtfully written email to the organizer, including the link Feline Fanatic has given us could make things much easier for everyone involved.

I sponsor a local quilt show every year. If you enter a quilt (free entry) it is hung up. No rules other then the deadline to enter. Viewer's Choice Ribbons and no quilts are judged. No money but a gift baskets for the winners donated by the show vendors. The only label for each quilt is a number to vote for it. No names or info unless it's on the quilter's label on the back or if the quiltmaker want to attach any personal info. There are usually around 100 quilts entered. Simple and no hassles and we draw a bigger crowd every year. I've been to countless state and local fairs and have seen many quilts made from popular purchased patterns. Never any permissions required to enter the quilts at any of them.

This gets discussed in my other crafting circles as well... Knitting and diaper sewing. In both of those the agreed on consensus is that legally, you are allowed to do whatever you want with your finished product. You can sell it or display it under your own brand name. You couldn't sell it as "McCall's such and such quilt" but you can sell it as "Susie Q's Quilty Quilts" without any legal repercussions. Even if a pattern says you can't, there have been no cases of successful legal action. You can't deconstruct someone else's finished product and create a pattern and sell the pattern. I will add that there are acceptable community practices though, and I havent been in quilting long enough to know what they are like I do in diaper making. And I'm not a lawyer, just sharing how these discussions have happened in other crafts. And I realize this isn't helpful to the posters specific issue is her quilt show requiring specific documentation (which kind of goes back to those community standard I mentioned before.)

We should reverse the process! I think all of us before buying a pattern or quilt book should send a message saying I will buy your book or pattern only if I have permission to display the item I make from your pattern. No permission given then don't buy. If enough quilters would do that I think many of the too strict regulations would be removed very fast.