Originally Posted by Rachelcb80

I think just as any fabric designer, paint company or artifical floral company can't tell you what you can do with their product once you buy it, a pattern designer can't tell you what you can do with your finished quilt. I think it all goes back to as long as you aren't claiming the design as your own, you're within the law with whatever you do with your quilt.

Originally Posted by Olivia's Grammy

After all the pages of this thread. I'm afraid to buy another pattern. I haven't sold my quilts, yet, I usually give them away. But if I wanted to sell a quilt, is there a quilt police checking every quilt ever sold? I understand it's an ethical question, but it sure is taking the fun out of quilting and replacing it with fear. When a LQS makes a quilt for a sample and then later sells it, do they have to have to asked the designer? Who has this kind of time? Find the designer's address, write the designer, wait for the answer. In the mean time has the buyer changed their mind? How much of the quilt design can you change, the color, size, quilting design stitches? I could not make something exactly the same if I tried nor would I want to.

Originally Posted by walen

If you aren't making a living by designing and selling patterns or quilts, then you do not have anything to worry about as far as breaking copyright laws.

So...let's quilt!

Originally Posted by ajpadilla

From the U.S. Copyright Office: "Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work."

As a designer myself... I agree. There are many traditional quilt blocks that have been around for centuries (that in itself places them in the public domain). Not only that, you can find certain designs in different cultures. Who is to say who came up with the idea first? Ideas are in fact a part of our collective consciousness as the human race.

In this case, what is protected is the kit itself, along with its instructions. This has happened to me several times with tutorials. The objective of a tutorial is to teach something... a method or idea. If somebody takes that idea and turns around and teaches it to somebody else, that is fair game. What that person cannot do is take my written instructions and photos/illustrations and use them as her/his own.

Does this help? I do think it is too bad that this whole copyright issue has tended to make quilters a little paranoid. Even though I design myself, I certainly wouldn't want fellow quilters to feel stifled about letting their own creativity lose! However, when in doubt, it is always best to ask. Even though designers do not always have things clear, either.

If you Google "copyright" you will find many articles covering the topic that might shed some light for you.

Originally Posted by bearisgray

One of my English instructors used this term:

intertextuality -

Example: I think "West Side Story" has a lot of the same story elements as "Romeo and Juliet" - which was probably based - more or less - on real life events

Originally Posted by PatriceJ

that may be a convenient philosophy, but it is not entirely true.