Is Your Knitting Pattern Illegal?

hello knitters barbara benson here i'm an independent knitwear designer who also likes to make videos here on my youtube channel watch barbara knit make sure to check in the description below the video where you will find links to anything i talk about in the video including how to get my patterns for you to knit up for yourself how to join the watch barber knit facebook group and how to support me on patreon today i'm going to talk about something that might get me in a little bit of hot water or at least rile up some lively discussion and it's something that is frequently discussed in some of the circles i travel in being knitwear design and crafting design and things like that and that is copyright understanding copyright and how it applies to knitting and knitting patterns and design um and the first thing i'm going to say is i'm not a lawyer i'm not a lawyer nothing i should say i'm going to say should be construed as legal advice but that said i have had to spend time doing research and reading about and understanding how it applies to my work and my job and i wanted to share with you all some things because there are a lot of myths about copyright and things like that and how it applies to knitting and i also want to make you aware of some things you might not be aware of that are actually copyright violations and that's where i got the title is your needing pattern illegal because you might be or someone you know might be in violation of those copyright laws uh without even realizing it and and without doing it deliberately so i wanted to share um i actually have some notes here to make sure i hit the things that i want to hit so if you see me looking down at it that is what it is um and the other thing is uh i only know what applies to me in being a us-based designer and copyright laws are all based on the country of origin of the person who created the copyrighted item so what that means is as a us designer the copyright laws that apply to my designs are the us copyright laws doesn't matter if you're in another country and your copyright laws are different the ones that apply to my designs are the us ones if you are an australia-based designer there are different laws and in ways they are more restrictive um and so as a us knitter the laws that govern what you can do with an australian based design are different so it's just it gets very very complicated but i'm going to tell you what i have learned now the first thing i want to talk about is okay what makes something copyrighted and according to u.s copyright law intellectual property is copyrighted when it is created so when you type it out and you publish it it's copyrighted now it is good to put that little copyright symbol with your name on it to the bottom so it's properly attributed but that doesn't have to be there to make it copyrighted so if you write something and you put it on your blog and it is published it is copyrighted to you whether or not you have the word copyright on it when you create it it's copyrighted when you take a photograph it's copyrighted any of those things when you write it down when you create it it is copyrighted as your intellectual property that said most things it's smart to put copyright and the date so that you know when it was copyrighted and then there's things that people put on it like all rights reserved and blah blah blah and that's what we want to talk about so that is when is it copyrighted it's copyrighted when you write it so there you go but what in regards to knitwear designs what is it that is copyrighted and the answer to that is the written instructions and any associated illustrations charts diagrams schematics any of the physical things that are in the pattern that are communicating to the knitter how to create the piece the actual written lines the actual charts those are what are copyrighted okay what is not copyrighted is the design itself in the united states those fall under useful objects i believe is the term and what it is is you can't copyright a stitch pattern and you the visual visual appearance of a stitch pattern you can't copyright a construction um how something is shaped the technique used to do it you can only copyright the written instructions the schematics the charts that you communicate that information with um so what i mean by that is if i were to design something and i write it up and it's published in my book i publish it as a pdf whatever if someone is able to look at my design and figure out how to knit it and reproduce it and then write up the instructions in their own words then there has been no copyright infringement um i'm going to leave it to you how you feel about what taking someone else's like essentially art and you know i'm just saying legally that's not copyright infringement you can't copyright a garter stitch you can't copyright the visual appearance of a garter stitch scarf um and again all we're talking about is copyright violation and legality not any of the ethics or anything behind that um and there have been plenty of instances of and i'm not gonna i'm not gonna point fingers but of larger companies looking at designs popular designs from smaller designers and then rewriting the pattern and it's literally exact same visual appearance but since it's a different set of instructions there's no infringement so there's that but where there's a gray area is when you get into something that's actually so useful objects useful things are non-copyrightable but there are things that are trademarkable and then there's also things that are considered works of visual arts so something like a crochet amigurumi where it's a specific shape for a specific like stuffed animal or a bear or that it's distinct and an artistic thing those are actually considered soft sculptures and they are covered by the copyright intellectual property laws that cover sculpture and art and that's a different thing because it's not a useful object it's art and trademark is where you get into you if you have a knitting pattern that has an actual depiction of say a a popular cartoon character that cartoon character as art is trademarked and so if you use that cartoon character then you can get into trademark and violations of that sort so things like intarsia or very specific types of color work designs that fall into the art category more than they do the useful object category there's a gray area there but just don't knit anything that isn't like official like i was in the official star wars book right and we were able to use the logos that are actually registered trademarks of lucasfilm um you can get into trouble if they decide to pursue you if you use something that they have a trademark on like you can't like put i mean you can write the word star wars but like their logo itself you might get into fuzzy area so trademarks are different than copyright is the story there and art is different than useful objects clothing all that kind of stuff quilts um all those kinds of things they are useful objects and how you construct them cannot be copyrighted but your instructions on how to do it are copyrighted and there is where there is some some situations that occur in the knitting community at large um so you purchase a pattern a hard copy pattern can you make a copy of that pattern and give it to your friend no you cannot because copyright covers the distribution of the copyrighted material the only person who has the right to distribute the copyrighted material is the person who holds the copyright now that person can give permission for other people to distribute and then it's just fine but if you have not received express permission to distribute then you cannot distribute in any fashion um and when it comes like you can't take a book like it used to be and sometimes this would happen in a local yarn store somebody's like i don't want to buy that whole book i just want that pattern can you copy it for me no that is illegal distribution of a copyrighted material you can't do that and this is where i really want to make it clear this also applies to free patterns just because the person who has the copyright has chosen to distribute it for free does not give anyone else the right to distribute that for free unless they've received express permission to do so and this includes free internet patterns okay if you go to an internet site and you find a free pattern and you download it for yourself can you then print out 16 copies and give one to each of your friends no you can't that is illegal distribution of copyrighted material um one thing that i have seen that i that that kind of you know it makes me twitch is i think it's awesome when local yarn stores and dyers make up kits that work with specific patterns that is absolutely fantastic and a lot of times a yarn stores in places and and smaller dyers will knit up samples in free patterns because that patterns are easily accessible to everyone and that is fantastic and packaging up that kit and saying this yarn works in x pattern that is just fine and providing information on where that person can go and get that pattern themselves is just fine but if you then print out that pattern and stick it in the bag with the yarn and you're selling it as a kit no you are now distributing it and you are making money off of someone else's work and they're not getting anything out of it um and you just don't have permission to do it unless there are ones where it's like free and it says under the copyright information you feel free to distribute that and then that is fine or if you really want to do that contact the designer and the designer might give you permission i know that i have worked with local yarn stores with free patterns where they have contacted me and i've actually taken my original file and modified the copyright saying and put on it distributed with permission you know distributed by x yarn store with permission from the author and that is fine because hey it's kind of like promotion but you need to get that permission and i think that that is really one of the reasons i wanted to make this video is just because it's free to you doesn't mean well free to someone i'm not i'm not pointing fingers at you but just because it's free on the internet doesn't mean that anyone else can take it and then distribute it to wherever they want because because you can't i mean you shouldn't it is in violation of copyright um and then okay distribution um okay i think i got mo oh public domain what if the thing that you desperately want to knit is out of print i know it's frustrating and everything and just because it's out of print i mean you're like i'd be perfectly happy to buy it but i can't find it to buy well if it's gone into public domain then yes you can copy it till your your head explodes but keep in mind that public domain is the life of the author of the originator plus 75 years so what it is is somebody writes something creates something after they die in 75 years after that is when it goes into public domain so you're going to have to be looking at some very very old knitting patterns for that we're looking at victorian area era knitting patterns and that's fine and they're really cool ones but if it's something that was published in the 70s it's not in public domain yet so no it's not okay for you to find old magazines um scan them turn them into pdfs and then sell them on etsy and i say that because there are people who do that where what they've done is they have done exactly what i just said they have gone and found old things created their own pdfs and then are selling them because they're out of print and that again is violation of copyright um and so you got to watch out just because it's old doesn't mean it's in public domain now if you have your own book if you own the book and you don't want to carry the book around can you make a copy of it for your personal use yes you own the book you make a copy you're using it can you make a copy of it and give it to a friend no that's distribution that is violation of copyright law um one uh loophole there is libraries if you can find a copy of the out of print thing in a local library it'd be in a magazine or a book you are allowed to make copies of pages in the library book for your own personal use so you don't own it but you sort of rented it because you do sort of own it because libraries are public facilities and your tax dollars at work it's fantastic so you can if you go to a library check the knitting book out a library you can make copies of certain pages you can't reproduce the whole thing but you can make copies and save them for your own personal use again you can't give them to your friends they're for you and for you only and that is what is at the base of it all it is about distribution personal use you purchased it it's yours it's yours to use uh as soon as you start giving it to someone else then you're becoming a distributor and that is something that is covered by copyright going back again though if you can look at something and reproduce it and then write out the instructions for someone else those are your instructions um it is it is doable so those are just oh one more thing and i wanted to dispel a certain myth on copyright this idea that if you take something and that there's some magic number that you can change x number percentage of it and it makes it yours and then it's okay that doesn't exist there is no magic number there is no if i change 10 then it's new and it's original and i i it's no big deal and i'm not going to get into that's not true so that is just a tiny tiny brief little bit on copyright there's so much more that can be discussed and i have uh linked i have like five six seven links that i'm going to include in the description in the show notes if you want to read further on this because there is a lot more to this uh specifically and i know that someone is going to be like what about making something from a pattern and selling it that gets into very very gray areas okay and i encourage you if that is a question you have to read some of the links that i've linked below because what that comes down to is there really is no precedence like there are interpretations of the laws but it's not something that really there's been a lot of lawsuits on there's not a lot of established judging by this is what's going to happen because honestly the stakes are so low most people can't afford to engage in litigation over these sorts of things so if that's a curiosity yes i acknowledge i did not address that at all but you might want to read some of the links that i have included so you can get information for yourself so this is my little foray my tiny little baby steps into a slightly controversial topic um if you've been watching my videos for any length of time you know i'm not trying to rile things up i'm not trying to i like to keep things positive but also um it is frustrating as a knitwear designer to see your hardware work um quite literally stolen okay because that really is what it is when you say well it doesn't hurt anybody but but it does it hurts the designer um me just giving it to my friend isn't gonna hurt anybody yeah yeah it does because that's somebody else's okay and it it does and when things are provided for free and and that is really the big sticking point um there's reasons for it being free a lot of times it's going to be on a website and when people go to those websites those patterns are provided for free because those websites have advertising on it and they get clicks and they get eyeballs and things like that and the person is being compensated in that way and taking that going and looking and downloading yourself out of the picture can you know put a hitch in that particular gideon so okay um i hope i haven't upset anyone really and truly but i did think this was an important thing to talk about so if you like this video give it the thumbs up um i think this one might actually have some thumbs down that i'm not used to getting but i'm ready for that and if you like these videos please click the subscribe channel and get notifications uh for when i upload new videos thank you very much

Channel: WatchBarbaraKnit

Views: 52,805

Rating: 4.9211392 out of 5

Keywords: knitting, watch barbara knit, vlog, copyright and knitting patterns, can I copy a knitting pattern, can I share a knitting pattern, sharing knitting patterns, can I sell things I knit, writing knitting patterns, knitwear design, how to design knitwear, how to write a knitting pattern

Id: rxbR48aHe7w

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021