OOOPS! Something NOT to do on this site!

[miccisue]

Here's the dumb question of the day......when is something considered in the public domain as opposed to being copyrighted? I mean, there's only so many ways you can do a ripple afghan, or cabled afghan, or stockinette blanket, or cap, or drawstring bag, and the list goes on. How can someone copyright something that is basic stitches and patterns? Is it considered different if you just change the number of stitches in the project, add an extra row, throw in a different row in the middle.......sometimes it gets so confusing, at least to me. For example, I was making afghans off a Red Heart pattern, but I screwed up and forgot to put the checkerboard effect in, so I just kept doing the stitches so they came out in "stripes". Can I claim that as a copyright? It's not the pattern I intended, but I ended up liking it. How do I know someone else on the face of the earth hasn't copyrighted an identical pattern?

I guess this is niggling at me because I'm thinking of trying to make a bunch of stuff for a craft show next year, but don't want to step on any toes. But how does one know for sure? If someone taught you a pattern, but you don't know where they got it, what would you have to modify to make it so you're not infringing on anything?

It makes my head hurt......................

[dmknits]

This might make your head hurt even more, but I came across this interesting site the other day:

Tabberone's Trademark & Copyright Page

[suzeeq]

Generally basic stitch patterns are not copyrightable, but the way those patterns are written and presented are, along with the photos for them. For instance, the Knitting Fool website has st patterns from the Barbara Walker books. However, her format is very different, kind of like a table, rather than the usual format for writing patterns. And she has her own color pictures of the sts; Barbara Walker's are in B&W.

The same holds true for project patterns; there's only so many ways you can present a topdown raglan, or garter st scarf, or triangular shawl. It's how you write the pattern that makes it unique.