Old 08-22-2010, 07:18 PM
  #221  
dgmoby
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 547
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Originally Posted by alica1367
The officers of our quilt club including myself spent over an hr. at a lawyers office Fri. to start the ball rolling for us to become a guild. When ins. was discussed I posed the ? about copyrights. I mentioned this article to her. Her answer was "a copyright only pertains to the copying or passing around a pattern or book for others to use. We can't photo copy instructions from a book and sell them or give them to others even for free. We can make & sell anything we have made from our own purchased books. Borrowing books from others and making things to sell then giving the book back is a no no. Anything off the internet can be made and sold. If something is on the internet and we make it, we can sell the finished product. If we want to share the info to others we should direct them to the web site. The only time we can't make a product from something and sell it is if it has a patent on it. The patent# must be on the book or pattern." Where publishers & Authors are losing out is in the sales of their patterns & books. I hope I've explained this easy enough for understanding.
This is very interesting. I'm sure, being an attorney, she is also well versed in the portion of copyright laws that pertain to your state, as well as which federal copyright laws pertain to quilt patterns. (I don't believe quilts and architecture, performing arts, computer programs, are in the same category.) Thank you for posting.

This conversation, along with various comments and the very clear direction of McCall's magazine, leads me to believe that if the quilting community slowed their purchasing of these tightly restricted items down, then perhaps things would rapidly change to be more fair, honest and the usage would be clearly documented in the front of said items so that it can be read before purchasing.

Just my thoughts...
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