Intellectual Copyright?

Good for you, Eileen ! You have to think fast sometimes.

Eileen that is DREADFUL!!! …I confess I find the Etsy Forums a bit ‘abrupt’ at times and I find myself much to sensitive to go on them very much now. (if you know what I’m driving at!) xx

Yes - the difference between good manners and bad! xx

Oh Jo! You’ve taken the words out of my mouth! I was about to pin a similar thing. I have had many ideas from old patterns on Pinterest, but I do often wonder how many are like me ; I make sure they are vintage or antique and out of copyright and go to great pains to make sure they are not individual designs before I use them. Pinterest is a huge help to designers and crafters (the colour schemes are a great help to me) but you have to be incredibly careful…Mx

Maggie@maggegeeneedleworkstudio

I know what you mean about the Etsy Forum I’ve looked at it a few times and thought the very same thing. It was one of the things that helped me decide not to go with them as a selling plate form along with a lot of ‘other’ factors.

I’m very impressed with the lady at the craft fair Eileen. We all know that knitting is not a unique skill to any one of us, but “I could make that” in front of the designer/maker is still pretty rude. Having such a polite and convincing reply is brilliant.

A few weeks ago I was stunned to see one of my tea cosies apparently for sale on ebay - not only had the person copied my design (which, to be fair is a simple one) but had the outright nerve to then use my own photo in their advert. When challenged they removed it, but it could have been nasty.

I’m just glad I don’t sell photos online - that must be almost impossible to police.

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This link below may be useful in respect to very recent changes to copyright law and “exceptions”.

All crafters need to be aware, and there are several guidance pdf files, even one for designers and one for consumers, and another one for teachers, etc.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-copyright-law

Someone else on Folksy has also blogged the fact that there has been changes to the law making it a criminal offence to copy designs and similar where the person or organisation does not have the copyright, but there are “Exceptions”, -see the guidance in the link.

Joy, have seen guidance from Intellectual Property Office and they have confirmed in their guidance that if someone copies images of a design / or photos and puts them on their private ‘cloud’, say via an internet service provider , it becomes illegal and an offence for them to share that ‘cloud’ ie the cloud images, where others can see those designs / images, without the consent of the copyright-holder.

The exceptions might be your own family or possibly very close friends, that you give access to, but not if you sent a picture to one person and they then put it on their "Cloud’ and copied it, or invited their mates or others to look. ie share it.

I have never believed Data ‘Clouds’ as marketed by Apple, and others were really secure anyway, so I don’t use them, but this guidance makes it clear it is an offence to share images without the copyright-holders consent in the situation above…

Not sure how exactly this applies to sharing sites, eg Pinterest, Facebook and others, but awaiting the court cases that might arise.

If someone wanted to put my work on a sharing site, really they need my consent to do so, if that image is my copyright. On the other hand if it results in sales of copies of the image back to me, I might be happy to have it ‘shared’, but one needs to be careful.

I think Folksy, and some others, put a condition in to allow them to “share” or publish images that go on their website.

It’s OK for marketing that website, but no designer would be happy about others exploiting the images/designs, and there is now a “Fair Use” part of the law which can probably override earlier conditions, I believe.

I don’t have a problem with Folksy, because they seem transparent, but others out there may not be so transparent.

Of course, if you were the copyright-holder of some item and allowed me or others to be sent a copy of the image, that is fine.

Ronald, that’s pretty well what I thought. It wasn’t of course my image in question here but my valid share of someone else’s and then someone else’s cheeky use of it.

I don’t have an Ipod or use Apple (apart from my music only Ipod) and was a little concerned when I looked at one a friend had bought and discovered that everything was stored on the Cloud. I prefer my stuff safe and sound on my own computer / external hard drives, where I can keep track of it - even if some of it wanders through the sky to get from one place to another at times.

:slight_smile: :smile:

I really think online marketplace sites should do two things a) provide social media buttons but leave it to the seller to choose which ones to activate. And b) disallow right clicking and saving photos.

I know, people will still find a way…but let them find the way to work around that instead of us just handing them what they need. Then the law can take over. I mean, burglars will find a way to break into your house too, but you are still closing the windows and locking your doors, aren’t you??

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Firstly I think it’s rude to hijack a thread to have a conversation with someone else and secondly it’s just not on to copy anything. I love pinterest and do use it to share stuff and get inspiration, particularly for colour schemes but I would never just copy what someone has made. I was looking for ideas for crocheted motifs and ended up purchasing a pattern on which the designer specifically states you can sell items - not that I necessarily will. I do think some people are completely clueless and there are some things that it’s very hard to be original with as well. I have steered clear of making clay birds for example because there are so many out there and I fear I would be accused of copying.