But a person should ask to use them
so you are saying that even tho the person paid for the pattern they still have to ask to use it - how about the person have to send in a registration card - that ought to do it. Then if they don't have permission in triplicate proving that it's ok for them to use the pattern they bought we'll toss them in the jail that McCalls used in the article.....
What happens somewhere down the road when the designer is no longer around -or no longer in business - or the magrag doesn't exist? the pattern is virtually 'dead' from that time on because permission cannot be granted.
What happens a decade or so down the road when a child or grandchild proudly shows off grandmas quilt at a show?
no thanks, I decline. I'm even more convinced that I don't want to take a chance on using any magazine patterns, or 'store-bought' patterns..... and hopefully, even tho I use EQ some designer won't crawl out of the woodwork sometime in the future and claim a quilt design that I did in EQ because it "looks like it might be a derivative work"
and some quilt police won't run up at a show demanding I provide proof that I didn't use somebody's pattern without separate permission to show the quilt...