Originally Posted by
Manalto
If you mean to say "I can't understand/see why a person can't" it's because that is considered "Commercial Use." Most patterns prohibit that. Why can't you do that? Because you would be making money off of someone else's intellectual property. Doesn't that sound a little like stealing?
No, it doesn't sound like stealing to me. That person made the choice to sell that intellectual property in order to profit from it. Her intellectual property -- the written pattern -- which she chose to sell for profit, is a pattern with which to make useful articles. The useful articles made from her intellectual property,
are not her intellectual property! You are not stealing from her if you put 100 hours into making the useful article, and then sell it to recoup the value of your time. She has already made her due profit from your purchase of her pattern. What you do with the pattern represents your work, not hers. If you bought one copy of her pattern and copied it 100 times and sold them for your own profit -- that would be stealing.
Edit to add, I'm speaking of someone making a few items from a pattern; I'm not talking about someone renting factory space, hiring workers and mass-producing a million articles using the pattern. I believe that would truly be 'commercial use', and an arrangement would have to be made with the pattern designer.