Originally Posted by
Onebyone
The designer I talked to said it didn't matter if one person or twenty wanted to make and sell twenty quilts of one pattern. Twenty patterns should be bought. One for each quilt made. This gives the designer her due from each quilt sold but not mass produced. That would require a different contract. I could make and give away as many as I wanted from one pattern but not sell them. If in doubt contact the designer if it is a published pattern.
i can see her point if each person working on the one quilt needs their own copy of the pattern in order to do their part of the top. a copy for each would certainly be more convenient than everybody gathering around the single copy every time they needed to look at it. and it would be wrong to make copies to pass out.
if twenty different people are each making one or more quilts from that pattern she would, again, have a right to expect each person to buy their own pattern.
however, if one person buys the pattern and then refers to it to make twenty quilts, i am not convinced that person has broken the law. (of course, i don't have a clue to where the line is between making multiple quilts and mass production of that quilt using one copy of the pattern.)
pattern makers and fabric designers count on our lack of knowledge and fear of lawsuits to demand all sorts of crazy things to which they are not entitled.