Interesting. I wasn't immediately suspicious of the pattern being a photocopy because that's what I've received for BOMs at my local quilt shop, a place where I know the owner honors copyrights and follows the rules. I am completely willing to follow up on this with Sue or the distributor named on the front page of the pattern. Could you give me a little direction on how to go about that? I would not like to falsely accuse the shop of infringement. Thanks for your help.

Wow, that shop sounds pretty shakey to me. I have done BOM at my fav lqs, and never had a problem. But a friend who did one at another shop in town had to nag the owner for fabric that was missing, pattern pages missing, etc. I think it sounds like your lqs is making their own copies and just being sloppy about the fabric. So sorry for this bad expericence, a BOM can be a great way to learn and finish a big quilt, don't let this turn you off.

I did get some photocopied instructions for one of my BOM, but I think that was the plan for the distributor because it was only a buck a block so I would think costs would be kept to a minimum.

I want to be clear. This BOM is NOT from my lqs. This is something I saw online and that has been coming to me in the mail. My local store closed last December so I've been doing more shopping online. I saw this quilt, thought it was beautiful, signed up, and the experience has been downhill from there.

As for the BOMs that I did at my local store, by photocopy, I mean a couple of letter-sized sheets with the instructions, not that someone took a regular pattern and made some lame copy of it. The number of times I heard the owner explain copyright to people and why they couldn't share patterns make me certain she had permission to provide copies to everyone doing the BOMs at her store. I've done some other projects through the mail, like the Patchwork Party events that use Marti Michell templates and patterns, and those have been the same - a couple letter-sized pages of instructions.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the shop doing this BOM is offering it online. Would anyone really be so foolish to violate copyright when it would be so easy for the pattern designer or the distributor to find out?

Yes, because some people simply don't see a problem with it. They think once they buy one copy, they own it and can do whatever they wish with it. I have heard more than one horror story from a designer who could not get copyright infringement through a thick head....

Wow, just wow. I've seen that attitude / ignorance in individual customers, but a shop not understanding the importance of protecting intellectual property??? Again, wow.

And things are great over here in Naive-ville. Thanks for asking. ;)

I wouldn't call you naive, I'd call you a decent human bean who is so honest it doesn't even occur to you that people could do such things. :thumbup:

I recently received an email from the designer of a BOM I did at my lqs who was asking for help with a similar issue. The quilt from that BOM was featured in the ad campaign for a longarm manufacturer - it was the quilt on the frame in the pictures showing their product. Fons & Porter were in the picture, and identified, too, getting ready to quilt it, but no mention of the designer or the pattern name. The designer also said that neither the long arm manufacturer nor the ad agency asked permission to use her design in the photo and her efforts to get some acknowledgement have resulted in bupkus. I was amazed at that, too.

But there are decent people out there, too. I took a class at my lqs using a pattern from a book that was out of print. The teacher contacted the author and received permission to copy the pattern for the students in the class. We paid some nominal amount for it, probably $5, to cover the royalty to the author and the cost of the color copies. Sure, there was some effort involved, but it only made me respect the shop and the teacher that much more.

That's very sweet of you to say. There are a LOT of things that don't occur to me, but you know what, life is just easier that way. I don't have to waste time covering my tracks.

Have you spoken with the shop owner/manager? I have had great luck with BOMs online and at my lqs. This lastest BOM I am doing is from a new online shop I just found and the first three months have had cutting errors and the last one was missing the instructions. I finally, after several calls, spoke with the owner who was quite disappointed to hear about the mistakes as well as how her staff were handling those mistakes. I am now very happy with the shipment for the fourth month and hope to not have future errors. I would suggest insisting on speaking with the owner/manager, if you haven't already.