I'm May Not Be A Lawyer But This Much I Know

My sister Dori and I can be easily described as fiber fanatics.  To the extreme.  What can I say, we love all things fiber!  From grabbing a pair of sticks, or a hook, some string and a pattern to make something beautiful to trips to our local yarn shops to frolic happily through all the lusciousness we can get our hands on.  One of those joys is meeting new knitters/crocheters and helping them learn a new stitch or how to pick out the right yarn for a project to teaching them how to read a pattern/chart and all the abbreviations that can be absolutely overwhelming and confusing when you are first starting out. Thus leading me to a very frustrating and completely irritating point.

There are literally thousands of patterns available on the web as well as in magazines, books, leaflets, and the hand-written ones skritched on a napkin while dining.  You can find a pattern anywhere & everywhere.  Many fiber art forms have been around for thousands of years, so the vast majority of patterns you see are comprised of thousand year old stitches.  Sometimes a designer comes up with a new variation of a stitch, bind off method, cast on method or the like.  Even then, any pattern that is publicly distributed, whether for free or for a cost, is only legally covered to an extent.  Let me expand on this statement.

These cotton socks found in Egypt are some of the earliest knitted pieces. From L to R: Textile Museum, ca. 1000 – 1200 AD; Victorian & Albert Museum, ca. 1100 – 1300 AD; Textile Museum, ca. 1300 AD

http://sheepandstitch.com/the-history-of-knitting-part-1-mysterious-origins/

This evening I was searching through patterns, both free and pay-for, to match with some awesome sock yarn to make shawls.  As I am searching through the hundreds of pages of available patterns, several copyright notices were written beyond the scope of what the copyright actually encompasses.  The only part of the pattern that is legally protected is the pattern itself as it is originally presented, ie: any pictures included, title, the written pattern, charted pattern, special instructions, etc..  It does not cover, however, the completed item.  You may do what you wish with your completed item.  You can gift it, sell it, donate it, or wear it while dancing nude through the streets, it is your item and the designer has no say whatsoever on what you may do with the item.

I have been finding designers stating in their "copyright" that you may not sell the completed item for profit without their permission or not at all, that donations are acceptable only with their permission and that a link/reference must be tagged with the completed item.  One goes so far as that once you pay for the pattern and download it, it pops up a disclaimer stating that with the purchase you have entered into a binding contract that disallows you from selling your completed item.  Ummm....no.  That is all sorts of illegal.  You cannot force a contract onto someone, especially when there is no form of notification of said contract prior to the purchase.  So yeah,  I do not have to do any of that.  I can link/reference your pattern to my completed item out of sheer kindness but there is no law stating that I have to.  The only thing I cannot sell, transmit or distribute is the original pattern in its original presented form without prior consent from the designer.  If I alter the pattern at all; say I find a shawl pattern I love but it is not beaded.  I then alter the pattern to include beading.  And I also decide I want a different edging.  I now finish said item, take pictures and present that as my own pattern because it is not the original pattern as it was presented.  Now copyright laws only cover my pattern as it is presented in its original form.  Someone else can come along, make alterations, and it is now their pattern.

What concerns me are these bogus copyright disclaimers that are totally and completely invalid, and frankly laughably ridiculous at best, will scare away those new to the fiber arts.  The majority of patterns do not have these unenforceable disclaimers, but now and again one pops up and I just start frothing at the mouth.  Some people you just wanna grab by the collar and smack them across the face. But then I will happen upon a pattern where the designer states that you may do what you will with your completed item and to enjoy it but to please not sell their original pattern.  Fair enough.

Yup...hasn't changed.

So to anyone who has come across any type of copyright disclaimer stating that you cannot sell, donate, gift or dance nude through the streets with the item that you have made, they are talking out of a malfunctioning colostomy bag, a.k.a., their mouth.  The cops, however, may wanna have a chat with you about the whole nude thing.