Thanks, Ghostrider, for good sense. These discussions drive me crazy because, while it is clear that people who buy quilt patterns cannot legally copy those patterns and sell or give them away, the creator of the pattern could not possibly retain control over the items made using the pattern. Suppose he/she stipulated that the item could only be used to cover a bed and not a couch, for a dog bed and not a cat bed, and so on ad infinitum. Of course the designer should be compensated for his/her intellectual property; no one is contesting that, but to say that the person who buys supplies to make an item using that pattern, puts in hours of labor, uses capital goods over which he/she has effective control (sewing machine, cutting mat, scissors, rotary cutters, etc.) has no right to profit from his/her investment is absurd. People get their pay for their intellectual creativity when they sell their pattern. Here's another thing--most patterns I buy come from a third party, i.e., a quilt shop that has already paid the pattern creator or his/her agent. Does that give the retailer a proprietary right in the pattern so that if I am going to use the pattern I have to buy fabric and other supplies from that quilt shop? Give me a break! Use a little sense! froggyintexas
Originally Posted by
ghostrider
With all due respect, JMCDA, you are comparing watermelon and grapes. There is a world of difference between the copyright of a painting and the copyright of a pattern. True, neither can be duplicated beyond personal use, for profit or otherwise, but in the case of the pattern, it is only the written instructions that are copyright protected, not the resulting items made by following those instructions.
Look at it this way. If you published a book of "How to Draw Crickets", you would have full copyright protection on the book. No one could copy your book and sell it...or even give it away for that matter. You would not, however, have any right at all to prevent legal purchasers of your book from drawing crickets just like you taught them and then selling those drawings however and whenever they wanted within the limits of reason (i.e., not setting up a factory in China to mass produce them).
The full intention of a set of instructions (aka, a pattern), is to teach someone how to make something. You cannot turn around and deny them the right to make it. The creator of the instructions has no claim over what is done with the resulting items. None. They received their compensation when the instructions were sold.