~~~Copyright for Knitters~~~

[Jan in CA]

I thought I was too stupid to come up with my own patterns too, but after hearing what Rebecca said to the last person who said that, maybe it would be safer for me to be confident, brave, and give it a try

[Stiney]

I thought I was too stupid to come up with my own patterns too, but after hearing what Rebecca said to the last person who said that, maybe it would be safer for me to be confident, brave, and give it a try

After all, what's the worst that could happen? When it comes down to it, it's just string.

[Jan in CA]

After all, what's the worst that could happen? When it comes down to it, it's just string.

Please remind me of this when I'm attempting to knit my own tank top pattern.

[momwolf]

So if I buy a book with a bunch of different patterns ( like 100 Knitting Projects) and knit them I can't sell those items?

[redheadrachel]

So if I buy a book with a bunch of different patterns ( like 100 Knitting Projects) and knit them I can't sell those items?

That's correct.

[momwolf]

Well that is just plain crazy. Why sell a book of patterns that people can't sell.After all we knitters need money to buy YARN,NEEDLES,MORE YARN,MORE NEEDLES After all aren't these people designers for knitting? Don't they already get a profit off every book they sell

[rebecca]

I thought I was too stupid to come up with my own patterns too, but after hearing what Rebecca said to the last person who said that, maybe it would be safer for me to be confident, brave, and give it a try

LOL, I didn't mean to sound harsh, I was fussing at ek for calling herself s _ _ _ _ _ because she ISN'T, she's a wonderfully intelligent girl! And, trust me, if I can play around with yarn and knitters graph paper and sketches and come up with something...so can YOU!!! GO FOR IT!
I will give you the best piece of advice that I got from the lady that was my test knitter in '05 when I had my socks published by knitpicks. I was so lucky, you see, she owned one of our yarn shops and had been in the knitting biz for 30+ years and had been published a # of times. She told me to sit down and read over patterns in Knit Simple, Vogue, Interweave Knits and study the way the patterns were put together because these publications' patterns were written in the knitting "norm" for patterns. And i did, I read patterns, not just those for socks, etc, but all kinds of patterns. And that helped me more than anything. Because I was okay with the design, had the socks ready, had previously "designed" (I still say "made it up") a few things but had never written a pattern because I was SCARED to death to try! After following her advice I can now write patterns much more easily with each pattern that i write.
Also, if you have questions...ASK! There is NO such thing as a dumb question! There's such a wealth of knitting knowledge around here that I don't think a question can be thought of that will go unanswered!...a knitting question that is

[Zeeza]

My thoughts on this, You can buy the pattern(blueprints) to make a house. And you can sell your house for profit. Blueprints are copyrighted. I don't see the difference really, the designers should be proud to see their work on people they meet. Regardless of how they acquired it.

[Susan P.]

Lisa Kay posed a vital question.

A transference issue into cooking. Not sure if you have it there but people here used to make a LOT of rice crackles for not only kids playlunches but for fetes and so on. They are made based on a cereal and you add copha and coconut and cocoa etc to it. Rice crackles have been around for probably 50 years or so. Anyway, all of a sudden, the manufacturer (Kelloggs??) basically said that people who made them for fetes etc were breaking copyright and little old ladies were basically threatened with law suits if they continued to make them for charity causes and school fund raising etc. RIDICULOUS!! The company sells product so what is the issue! I suspect it was *perhaps* (not sure) some folk were using other cheaper substitutes. Or perhaps the rice crackle had become so much of cookery folk lore it was bigger and more well understood than the maker was.

I think if you want an item for charity you almost need to ask the maker or designer to be a sponsor and the material aspect of their sponsorship is the pattern the item is made from.

At least these people are reasonably contactable. These days you could take WEEKS to get through a similar request process in a large company.

If I generated a business using someone's knitting pattern on which to base my product and they had a strict copyright policy I think I would offer them a small percentage of the sales as a trade off. Shame when it comes to a 'one of' item and a charity issue however some businesses and people are highly selective about the charities they support also.

[ekgheiy]

I thought I was too stupid to come up with my own patterns too, but after hearing what Rebecca said to the last person who said that, maybe it would be safer for me to be confident, brave, and give it a try

Do let me know how that works out for you.