Lonestar, it sounds like the designer of the product you purchased was burned at some point! I know of one quilt designer who was burned; she designed a quilt, wrote a pattern, and released it for sale. A couple of years later, she discovered a quilt shop was photocoping her written pattern and teaching a class using this pattern. The pattern was a required purchase to take the class, but the pattern was out of print. Did the shop owner contact the designer for permission to photocopy it, or to ask if the designer could reprint it (which the designer would have been more than happy to do)? No. The shop owner photocopied the pattern, sold it, and even claimed it was HER design. I think we can all agree that this was wrong.

It seems to me one of the biggest problems with copyright and quilting is that the legal language the designers have to use to prevent such situations scares the crap out of the rest of us!

This is false. You CAN make a copy of your pattern or book and use it, for example, as a template. You CAN make a copy for your own personal use.

This is also mumbo jumbo. You don't need permission to use the pattern for commercial use. And you can sell your finished product without any say so from the designer. A quilt made from a pattern is NOT protected by the designers copyright and the idea is laughable.

This is the only sentence that is true!

This is harassment of the consumer by a few copyright holders and I wish someone would simply file a lawsuit against 1 or 2 pattern designers to get them to stop the harassment. It's illegal, and it hurts the industry. Most pattern designers are sane people who understand it's harassment to include silly restrictions and rules.

I'm glad I learned not to believe everything I read. About half of what's written on that pattern is right. A good part of it is total garbage. Just because a designer has something printed on a pattern does not make it law. Copyright law does not extend beyond the pattern. Copyright law does not extend to any item made from the pattern. Copyright law is violated when shop owners or teachers make copies of somebody else's patterns and give them away or sell them.

The chances an actual quilt is copyrighted aren't very high. Any arrangement of simple geometric shapes isn't very likely to be copyright able. It's the pictures and instructions that are copyrighted.

Modred, thanks for sharing that with us.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I abide by these rules (cough, cough). I make a quilt. On down the road, I die and my family has an auction. AND THEY SELL THE QUILT! Is this writer/designer going to track them down and send the family and the auctioneer to jail? Does this sound stupid? My point--------it's stupid.

Who in the federal government handles copyright issues? Don't laugh. Would it be possible to take this to the Supreme Court and get a written in stone ruling?

The courts already did this for us. Isn't that wonderful? I copied the following from Tabberone's post in another thread about copyright...

Tabberone said: "The US Supreme Court stated in 1879 that copyright protection in a pattern does not extend to a dress made from that copyrighted pattern. Then, in 1908, the US Supreme Court stated that a copyright owner cannot invoke restrictions on use of a copyrighted article by printing those restrictions on the article, it required a contract between the parties. A contract requires agreement between the parties before the transaction. And the federal courts have long maintained that the owner of a copyrighted article loses control over that particular copy once it has been sold or given away.

"No permission is needed to make and sell articles. Only ONE copy of a pattern is needed to make more than one article. And the copyright protection that is automatic under the law is the protection of ownership, not enforcement of the copyright. A copyright MUST be registered with the copyright office before any civil action can be initiated. The exclusive rights provided under copyright law do not become effective until after it is registered because if it cannot be enforced in court then there are no rights simply upon fixation.

"We have researched thousands of federal court cases. There are no federal court cases that have gone to trial over the use of a pattern to make and sell articles. The closest one was from the 1930s where a designer had copyrighted a drawing of a dress. The designer then tried to sue someone who making copies of the dress to sell. The federal court in New York rejected the claims saying that it was the drawing of the dress that was copyrighted, not the dress itself. And that is consistent with federal decisions on other copyright matters.
[end of quote]

Thank you Tabberone!

The important thing to remember in all this silliness is to show kindness (speaking mostly to myself here, it's so easy to get fed up after repeating myself a gazillion times and blast away, LOL) It's only a few pattern designers that need to be informed. The majority of pattern designers understand the truth. I've been harping on this for 15 years now... oh my gosh, has it been that long???

I think that you will be fine. These copyright laws are somewhat unclear for all of us but, if you found this design on the net or bought it then you have a right to do with it as you please. I know others disagree but once something is published then it can be used.
As for asking us instead of lawyers. we probably know more about quilt copyrights than they do.