Well, I for one am taking all my pics off this board and will no longer be a part of this forum if so many people think it's ok to steal!!

Good by

Well, Id love to hear Moonpi weigh in on this too.

The patterns are owned by the magazine. Most of the time, what is published in a magazine as a pattern is assumed for you personal use. If you want to make it for sale, they are protected by copyright law. Mostly this is to protect someone from taking the design and mass producing it for sale.

If you make one for your sister, and charge her for your time, you probably arent going to get in trouble, but if you are making a dozen to sell in a craft sale, it begins to cross the line. If I want to make one to sell, or to make for an opportunity quilt, Ill ask permission. It is the right thing to do.


However, many times a magazine will publish a picture of an inovative work and no pattern.. That is not OK to reproduce. As a matter of fact, many times you will find a comment in the magazine to that effect if you read the fine print.

As in music,,,a traditional tune, in the public domain is free for you to use and create your own composition of the tune.. that composition is yours and subject to copyright law.. someone else cant record your version or composition of the tune without your permission.. Would you give it,, probably..maybe even get some commission for it...

My opinion only

I would hate to see you do that.. I made the comment about pictures on this board as an example of what could happen.

And I think that the truth is, most of the people who have that opinion really couldnt reproduce your work anyway..

I, for one, enjoy your posts and dont want to see you leave over a few mis spoken comments

Most of the time, on this board, when I read people wanting to make a quilt they have seen, they are asking where they can buy the pattern..

And this thread has served as an educational tool for those that really never thought about it in these terms before

If you want to display it or sell it, get permission. Most "serious" quilt shows will actually ask if you have used a commercial pattern and require you to obtain written permission to display a quilt made from that pattern. I have had letters from people to that effect when they made a quilt from a pattern on my website.

Copyright law is a very interesting and complicated issue. Ebay has a HUGE problem with it! If you look up "custom boutique" little girls clothing, you will see literally HUNDREDS of Disney, Dora the Explorer, Hello Kitty, and other "character" outfits. And, unfortunately for the honest designers, those are the ones that sell for hundreds of dollars. I would never make one to sell. If I want to make my granddaughter a Minnie Mouse costume, however, I am not going to feel that I need to write Disney to get permission.

OK, one last comment from me then its back to work...

If you are borrowing something, it indicates that you are going to give it back..

So is it borrowing?

I think babeegirl explained what I was thinking better than I did. Thanks babee! The quilts I was thinking about are just pieced blocks. Many times I only know the finished size. No directions. So I take pencil to paper and graph it out. I'll even change the size to what I want too.
GK's quilt is WAY, WAY beyond my skill level. But I get your point.
Thanks everyone.
I just don't want to steal something, even inadvertantly.

The copyright issue is one reason I stopped teaching classes from commercial books or patterns. I had to make samples for all those classes, and I wanted to sell the samples afterward. (we're talking about at least 50 samples a year!) Now I just design and draft all the patterns for the classes I teach, and I don't have to worry about it.

It's also hard to decide what is a copyrighted image/design. A flag bargello quilt? I've seen hundreds of them, all different. I could do one without a pattern if I wanted to make one. A colorwash quilt? A French Braid? I borrowed that book from the library and realized that it was just an identical pattern to one I've seen around for years. A baby quilt made in that "Mock Cathedral Windows" style? Fons and Porter have a copyright on it in their magazine. There is at least one website with a copyright on it (older than the F&P magazine). And I learned that pattern 18 years ago at a quilt guild meeting. It's not exactly a new technique, but people can publish patterns for it and claim they hold a copyright, even if it's identical to an older idea.

It's all very complicated... I don't think anyone here plans to steal an idea and profit from it. If you have a quilt that you don't want anyone to copy, however, don't post pictures of it! That's not a legal issue... it's just common sense.

I too am a new quilter and now I am confused. Are you all saying that I can not look at a picture, make a quilt like it with my own fabric and colors and use it or sell it? That does not make sense because most of the ones i like are free so I am sooooo confused? Please help!!!!!! :?

Miss Tami, there are tons of free blocks without copyright issues at all. The problems begin when people take credit for designs that are not theirs. Early on, when I first joined the board, there were some very heated threads on the subject.

I expect it to be a problem as long as their are designers, designs, and people who think just because they CAN do something, that they are entitled to. It is the same argument as movie performers have with bootleg Chinese DVDs, and musicians run into with downloads from certain websites. I have actually had a couple of people get snippy with me when they requested I send them a link to a pattern I used, when it was drawn out on a paper bag while watching my cat sit in a window. If I had the means to get it into a file for the person who requested it, how do I know that it will not be "unattributed" and become public property, or claimed as someone else's work?

I think it will be even more of a problem going forward, as longarmers are producing some kick*ss designs on tops made by others, and sometimes designed by another party entirely. It is possible that a single quilt could have 2 designers and 2 people executing the designs. If another person custom dyed the fabric, or an artist embellished the final work, it could end up with a list of credits like a movie!!! I think that is one reason why -for good or bad - I do mine every step of the way. I have bought patterns and books over the years,, but use them more as technique tutorials and eye candy.