Originally Posted by joycedodie
At Quilt Guild last week am attorney gave a talk.
He started with-Goodness all of you ladies will be needing my help someday-IF anyone of you here has been copying each others patterns and just giving them away to all that wants them. Then he laughed. He gave a great talk on copyright laws.
If I get a "FREE" pattern and someone wants it I always put
on the copy printed by permission of--then whomever I got it from.
You know, this is a BRILLIANT idea for a speaker at a guild meeting. You just have to peek at the copyright thread currently running to see the amount of mis-information and lack of knowledge of a very relevant subject.
But having the attorney there, especially giving examples that are faced daily in the quilting world, would be very enlightening.
And even if they do not specialize in copyright cases, if they were made aware of the general and specific issues ahead of time, they could prepare. I'm sure every guild has at least one lawyer member (or a close relative of one that could be dragged in ;-)).
It could be like "Bring Your Lawyer to Guild" Day.
And, in case there isn't anyone related, I'm sure a local lawyer would be thrilled to address a room full of that many potential clients.