Originally Posted by
Bree123
There are 2 camps: the first believes that selling quilts based on someone else's copyrighted design is like the Napster music sharing cases back in the late 90's.
I think there is some confusing of issues here, when equating copyright/patent, and pattern/design. In the many discussions we've had on copyright, I seem to recall someone pointing out that it isn't the design that is copyrighted, it's the pattern -- the printed instructions on how to make the quilt. If I recall correctly, they said it is much harder to get a copyright on a design, and that's a different proposition altogether.
Personally, I think it would be a great loss for the arts & quilting communities if designs cannot be protected. Who would bother to spend 3 months of their life coming up with a beautiful new quilt design for $2,000 if they could use that same amount of time to replicate others' work and make $12,000?
I can suggest a first step in protecting designs -- don't write up how-to instructions and sell them to thousands of other people.