Let's look at it this way......
If you were in love with Jinny Beyer's MoonGlow quilt, say you saw it here,
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...n-t211614.html, and knew you could draft it and make it yourself without a pattern, and you wanted to enter it for winning into a judged show where there was a monetary prize for winners, would you/could you do that without problems? I doubt it.
Say you made a Judy Niemeyer paper-pieced quilt that your local quilt shop had sold the pattern for and offered many classes in, but you’d chosen all your own colors and pieced it all without using papers and even changed up the center and borders on your own. Could you sell that quilt or teach it independently without requiring your student to buy the pattern from Niemeyer? I believe the answer is no.
The law that I have read on the government site
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap13.html#1301 says:
[h=2]
§ 1301. Designs protected[SUP]2[/SUP][/h](1) In general. — The designer or other owner of an original design of a useful article which makes the article attractive or distinctive in appearance to the purchasing or using public may secure the protection provided by this chapter upon complying with and subject to this chapter.
(2) A design is “original” if it is the result of the designer's creative endeavor that provides a distinguishable variation over prior work pertaining to similar articles which is more than merely trivial and has not been copied from another source.
[h=2]
1308. Exclusive rights[/h]The owner of a design protected under this chapter has the exclusive right to —
(1) make, have made, or import, for sale or for use in trade, any useful article embodying that design; and
(2) sell or distribute for sale or for use in trade any useful article embodying that design.
This why I design my own patterns and don't use for inspirations those designs that are well known, easily recognized, or seem to come from well known quilters. It's just plain safer and smarter, and certainly more respectful of the designer.
"It's not a matter of right or wrong, but what is the wise thing to do."
Jan in VA