Originally Posted by
Buckeye Rose
When you purchase a pattern, you are purchasing just the written instructions to make a quilt. The person who wrote the pattern and copyrighted same pattern CANNOT dictate what you do with that pattern. All he/she can do is lawfully expect that you make no copies of same pattern to sell or give away. You can sell that pattern. You can make as many copies as needed for your own use. You can use that pattern to make as many quilts as desired. You can sell those quilts. If you have ever made your own clothes, you most likely purchased a pattern such as Simplicity or McCalls. Those patterns are the same thing. You don't have to call and get permission if you make a pair of pants for someone else using the pattern you purchased. You don't have to label those pants with the pattern makers name. You don't have to ask permission if you want to use that pattern to make three more pair because they fit nicely. That pattern maker can print whatever they want on the pattern, but that doesn't make it true.
Exactly. There is a big long post somewhere on the first or second page that describes the copyright law very well and talks about the false claims that pattern companies make. It's simple. You cannot make copies of a pattern and give them away or sell them. You can give away or sell an
ORIGINAL pattern. Only the original once you pay for it. It is OK to sell your original patterns at garage sales.
You can sell what you make from it. Pattern companies sometimes want you to think you can't, but if you buy a copyrighted product the only thing you cannot do is make copies of it. Copyright means literally the right to
COPY and that is owned by someone else.
You can take that pattern and make as many of those items as you want from one pattern and sell them, give them away, burn them, whatever. Even if the pattern company says you can't, the law says you can. they do not have control over what you make with it and what you do with what you make. Those are false claims.
Another example, books are copyrighted. You can lend sell or give a book away that you buy. You cannot go to your printer and copy all six hundred pages and sell or give that away. You can also buy several hundred books and make some weird modern art sculpture with them even if the author of the book has printed on the inside of the book jacket that you cannot do so. You can as long as you buy all 100 copies and don't print them off yourself.
Does that help?