Originally Posted by Mattee

Copyright law was not written by McCall's Quilting. It was written by congress, enacted into law, and applies equally to all intellectual property, not just quilting.

(snip)

What they are doing is saying that if you use those instructions, for that version of a maple leaf quilt, you need to ask permission before displaying it, and cite the designer when you do. Derivative means a derivative of that version of the quilt - not of a block that happens to also appear in the the quilt. For example, if I decide to use a monkey wrench block, something that I'm very familiar with, to make a quilt that I make up using my own head, it's not derivative, since the block is in the public domain. If, however, I see instructions for how to make a specific monkey wrench quilt that I really like (which I did last month in a magazine), but it inspires me to make an altered version of that specific quilt (I'm changing the size, the relative sizes of the sashing, borders, and blocks, and color scheme), then it is derivative. It is derivative because I would not have thought of putting the quilt together in that way had I not seen the pattern in the magazine. That is the key that makes it derivative. I did not think of it on my own - I thought of the design because I saw someone else's design.

snip