Presents! Again!

One of my co-workers got me one of the bestest co-worker presents I've gotten. It was perfect, really - that gift you spent all winter hoping some one would get for you, but never actually said anything about. I'm convinced she has ESP.

I love to look at the stitches and daydream about using them in things. There's an "embossed" vine with leaves pattern that is begging to be on the front of one side of a cardigan. The calendar is in my office, so getting to look at the weekend's stitch helps mitigate the Monday-ness at the beginning of a week.

I've already used the calendar to make two Warm-Up America squares.

Even better, I got to make the squares using some of the yarn a church friend gave me. It's like a win-win-win.

Knitting and Fine Print

So, I'm considering a project or two and came across yet another pattern with fine print. Most free patterns posted by normal knitters (as opposed to patterns in books or written by knitting rock-stars) are copyrighted and have a note about approved use - usually something friendly along the lines of, Don't re-sell this, Don't post it on the internet as yours, etc.

But increasingly, I'm seeing nasty notes (like this one, from a Ravelry user - you'll need a Ravelry account) telling people they may not re-sell the pattern, may not use the pattern to teach a class, and may not even sell things made from the pattern. This, ladies and gents, is bullshit.

It'd be akin to providing instructions on making a birdhouse and then telling people they aren't allowed to sell a birdhouse made from these instructions for profit. Or writing a book on writing and telling people they can't sell stories written using these techniques. The copyright doesn't extend to the materials used or the time spent on the project - only to the pattern itself.

Not only do you have no legal standing to tell people that, it's not practical to enforce. So, you post your pattern and some no-good-nik like me makes a sweater from it and sells it, earning over $150 from the sale. Just to catch me, you'd have to be keeping an eye on all hand-made sweaters posted on sites like eBay and Etsy - it'd be a full-time job. Once you catch me, you'd have to find me and tell me, "Hey! You no-good-nik! Stop that, or else!" To which I'd sneeringly reply, "Or else what?" Then you'd actually have to take me to court, where I'd win, but we'd both be out much more money than either of us could have made from selling sweaters. Very worst-case scenario, I get ostracized from the knitting communities.

The concern for people who post patterns seems to be that some one will see their pattern, make hundreds of products from the pattern and retire on the French Riviera off the profits. While this may be a reasonable fear, I think you should just start charging for your patterns, stop putting them up on the internet, or devote more time to selling your creations and less to developing new patterns.