Originally Posted by
sewbizgirl
It's perfectly fine to 'knock off' a design you see. Otherwise, you wouldn't see it happening in the fashion industry, right and left! Shapes and combinations thereof are, by law, not copyrightable. They are always public domain. What is copyrightable is copy... i.e., words. Your words are automatically copyrighted. You cannot steal another person's words. But shapes and their designs is totally up for grabs.
The fashion industry is another thing, because wearable items are considered utilitarian, and courts have generally decided that they cannot therefore be copyrighted.