Today i shared some lovely mice on my Facebook page from British Crafters / Witt’y Dawn
But then someone, person xxx, made a comment saying how nice they were and then her friend, yyy, suggested she could make them too.
I commented maybe that would not be very fair and person yyy got a bit aggravated - so I’ve had to delete the lovely mice share as I’m not having arguments going on on my facebook page but… w
was I right :
This was the conversation ::
xxx Awww they are lovely xx
Yyy xxx bet you could do these too
JOYSOFGLASS Think Witt’y Dawn might not be too pleased as they are her design
yyy Everyone is entitled to take ideas from things that they see in books or on the internet.
JOYSOFGLASS yyy, sorry ideas yes but there are some intellectual copyright laws which protect artists But I’m going to delete this share as i don’t want any contention.
person xxx managed to get a comment in before I deleted the share :
she wrote: “I never use other peoples designs i create my own but everyone has to find some inspiration from somewhere dont they ? And when the patyerns are available to purchase on etsy for animals etc then they can be made … not exactly the same of course … i tend to use funky friends factory patterns as they are amazing and she allows the use of them”
I mean that’s fine but it’s just not too polite to suggest against someone’s photo that you might be going to copy it !
I think you were right to say something, I know we all get inspiration from things around us but to blatantly tag someone and say ‘I bet you could do these’ is a bit much. I agree that it was best to delete the share, I would of done the same.
This is why I put watermarks on my cards, bookmarks and prints.
Doesn’t stop people buying a card and copying the image but discourages them, I hope.
If the mice on Facebook were an original design and a particular style, then copying that design is a breach of copyright, and the designer is protected in law.
But yes, many people are inspired by looking at items and make their own version.
All depends how close the other design is to yours or the designers.
There are so many different designs of things like mice,and animals, you can’t stop people making their own interpretation, but a copy, which is obvious is really not on, so well done for highlighting this to the person.
Apparently, you can even be had for making a ‘derivative’ design which clearly is very close to the original design and obviously came from someone else’s design but a bit different, - all set out clearly in copyright law.
I can see what they are saying in that people get inspired by lots of different things, I personally don’t believe that creativity can exist in a vacuum, I think it requires the input and inspiration of others. There is nothing truly original in the world. I have looked at stuff on the internet and copied it, just to see if I could, but I would never sell that, or try make a profit off of someone else’s hard work. I see it as a compliment to the original piece and a challenge as a crafter for myself, to work out how it was done. It’s helped my craft progress.
But it is a bit tacky to actually say on the photo itself that your friend could do these!! I think you were right to delete it, you don’t want to have tension on your facebook page.
I think you were right to delete it. Most of us will know how soul destroying it is to have someone pick something up from your stall at a selling event and turn to friend/mum and say ‘you could do this’ or ‘will you make me one of these’ - it’s just the same only more permanent, being on the internet. Thank goodness for the delete button!
Hi all! just popping in to say thanks Joy and you absolutely did the right thing to take the share off and thankyou so much for contacting me I would have done exactly the same myself. Have a super day everyone and thanks for your comments.
(BTW They are a unique design that I created way back in 2011 and I’ve sold a couple of hundred I would say and have shipped them worldwide, I sold them under my initial name of AudreysCat so some of you might recall seeing them under that name too ).
Hi all - I’ve been a bit absent on the forums due to a bit if a sad summer on my OH’s side of the family. However my mission once I’ve got tomorrow’'s Macmillan Coffee morning out of the way is to get going on here again. I kept AudreysCat going alongside my WittyDawn shop for a few months during the Spring/summer but recently decided to switch over to just WittyDawn. I got a bit fed up with explaining ‘AudreysCat’ to everyone so WittyDawn ( I am Dawn Witt in ‘real life’ ) seemed a bit more obvious ! and people who know me say my logo is pretty ME. Nice to be back on track (ish ) again
You absolutely did the right thing!!! …I had someone contacting me saying how nice a kit was and ‘bytheway, what was that stitch on XXX?’…I didn’t reply!. I am always very aware of people pinching things and am always quite careful to photograph my things on an angel or in such a way that they would be fairly ambiguous to the copier.
Frankly someone who just comes out with ‘Hey! X You can do that!’ right under your nose is both rood and stupid and I would have wasted no time in reminding them that it is not theirs to copy! Lol! Mx
I know what you mean Maggie. I’m a member of a knitting forum that has a lot of American on. When I post work on there every time it’s the American’s who demand to have a copy of the pattern. Some have been very rude sending me private messages demanding I share and implying I’m rude not to share. One even said I know you sell your work but I don’t want to pay when I can make it myself from your pattern
I also agree you’ve done the right thing for sticking up for another crafter. Witty Dawn’s mice are quite particular. I have seen them online and the minute I read the original post, I knew exactly what product Joy was refering to as they are unique. So, copying that is just pure copyright infringement. Making mice in general in different shapes etc isn’t.
Because something is on the internet doesn’t mean everyone can have a piece of it. There is an identity and a real person behind a shop, a photo, a page, a blog and designs. They don’t just appear on their own - someone has put in time and effort and money to make them. We don’t do this work to help others do their own work. We do it for ourselves and our customers and to make a living. Those who are looking for inspiration can find in other places like books in the library, books they buy, experimenting on their own (now that’s an idea!), free tutorials online etc. They are lots of resources if one cares to look and spend the time to find them.
I wonder…those who try to base their work on our time and effort, are they willing to help us with our business expenses in return??
Also on an associated topic what about people trying to get you to work out what they should price up a job at by pretending to be a customer ??
I had one very nice fellow crafter ask me politely, honestly and privately how to go about pricing up something and what criteria I used - absolutely no problem advising her at all
BUT every spring I get people - on etsy in particular - asking ‘can you give me a quote/breakdown on bunting for my wedding?", this year I was sent a photo asking how much it would cost to do bunting ’ like this’ showing a fully decked out hall … seemed fish’y … no mention of anything specific to me/my shop and I suspected it was someone sending out a mail to a whole load of bunting makers so that she could produce a quote . I said 'sorry can’t calculate without dimentions, but if you measure it up my bunting is £15/3m if that helps Never heard from her again …
Do you get the ones that ask ‘if I buy, how will this be packaged?’. I can’t see an ‘ordinary’ customer wanting to know the exact packaging I use. I also get ‘what type of grout are you using?’, and ‘what sort of tiles?’, even though I give all the details a customer could want to know in my descriptions. Any info over and above that has to be fishing.
On the original topic, doesn’t anyone else have an issue with Pinterest for this very reason? I don’t pin my own items there now, because I was so sick of seeing them on ‘Must Try This’, ‘Things to Make’ boards. I can see how Pinterest is great for big business so show off their wares because there’s no way most of us could recreate them. But for small craft businesses I find Pinterest on a par with the lady Joy was talking about, and as blatant.
I have had the same on Facebook too. My hedgehog water dishes have been shared quite a lot and on one page I found a lady tagging her friend in Australia and saying she could make the dishes as an Achidna (no Hedgehogs in Australia I found out from a lovely lady down under who collects hedgehog items, but if you look at an Achidna it’s near as damn it the same). What could I say though? It’s on another page that someone else has shared to and the lady is suggesting a design tweak (which would probably be a name change at most).
These sharing sites are useful and a pest at the same time.
Hi all! People can be really thoughtless by saying things like that and react incredibly strongly/badly to people who say it’s not right even if you say it in the nicest way. I had someone say on my Facebook page recently that they were going to copy my work and I politely asked that they didn’t and I got a huge amount of abuse for it, in I think 5 posts in about 10 minutes they called me greedy, selfish, a disgusting human creature, stupid and a few other unmentionables and they also said they were going to destroy my business by having better pieces and cheaper prices when all I was asking was that they didn’t copy my designs not the act of papercutting. Needless to say the comments were screenshotted, hidden, reported to Facebook and the person was banned from my page. I don’t blame you for deleting the post as it can get incredibly ugly so easily when people start going at it and it’s not fun at all!
I get that with patterns too Eileen people have been incredibly funny with me because I don’t sell templates to do themselves.
Like you have all said just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it a free for all and we all sell our work so people can own it and not need to copy it. It is catch 22 as if you don’t put it out there it won’t sell but if you do we run into those people who forget we are simply trying to make a living out of doing what we love.
I often find that those that say Oh I could make that often never do or if the try they find it too hard and give up.
I bet half those that pin things onto pinboards with the great things to make never make any thing.
I heard about someone saying at a craft fair, “oh I could knit that.” and the lady next to me smiled sweetly and answered her with, “I’m sure you could knit something similar but you’d have to source the yarn and find the time to make it, but here it is already designed, yarn sourced and knitted up, what a great time saver” The woman thought about it for a moment and bought the item.
I think you were right to delete it, you don’t want to have tension on your facebook page.
I would have done exactly the same myself. Have a super day everyone and thanks for your comments.
