People wouldnt care if it wasnt about money. The only reason 'creators' get mad is because someone else is doing a better marketing gig and stealing their bag. The ego in the crochet community is horrible. Theres only so many ways you can crochet a certain pattern and its getting ridiculous watching everyone fight over who did it first. It ruins the creativity for everyone and destroys opportunity for anyone who also wants to create. Creativity is stifled when only certain people are allowed to create because they came to the market with it first. The needlework community needs to let go of the ego already.
This was an amazing discussion. Thank you so much. On the question of how much of a pattern needs to be changed to say you designed it, glad you discussed legally versus ethically. Legally you can get away with any pattern that is different at face value…. until a good lawyer proves that you knew about the original pattern first and edited it. For me, ethically you have to change 100% of the pattern to market it as your own. You have to do so much work from the ground up so that the original pattern is nothing more than an inspiration. Otherwise JUST COLLAB WITH THE DESIGNER. If they say yes… what an amazIng business opportunity for both of you.
and suddenly loads and loads of Ai fake books on amazon...often with knitting images on the cover of a 'crochet ' book and most aimed at beginners who might not realise the pics are ai generated ...i am sure there must be a lot in other genres too, just noticed because i did one of my periodical searches of 'crochet books' in amazon to see what's new...really really upsetting both from point of view as a designer and a customer... hate the thought of people buying these books and either receiving nothing or receiving a load of unusable rubbish . Amazon needs to intervene or have a system to weed out Ai fake books because they're done via the amazon publishing system from what I can see.
You can prove the dates for copyright purposes yourself. Print the file, put it in an envelope and post it to yourself. The post office date stamps the envelope so if you don’t break the seal you can prove when you designed the pattern.
I believe this practice, "poor man's copyright," is no longer valid in court, I may be wrong, but you would want to do some research before relying on it
The situation reminds me of Mimi G. She's a sewing creator. Some of her patterns have been stolen. It's frustrating to create a design that other people can steal. This situation is SO OLD!!!! Many designers and creators all go through the same thing. I rather not cry over this situation but just keep on creating more beautiful things.
My theory about why people "trust" those nameless, faceless accounts is because they assume the account is run by a team of people/a company that's reputable and law-abiding. And those companies could be in hot water if they stole other people's work. That's my theory.
I definitely think it is a naivete that causes people to trust those businesses. It's so harmful to the industry and, since those businesses are housed overseas, there is little to nothing we can do to stop it. So sad.
Thank you very much for sharing this information, Pam. It's so sad that some people steal other designers work.
People wouldnt care if it wasnt about money. The only reason 'creators' get mad is because someone else is doing a better marketing gig and stealing their bag. The ego in the crochet community is horrible. Theres only so many ways you can crochet a certain pattern and its getting ridiculous watching everyone fight over who did it first. It ruins the creativity for everyone and destroys opportunity for anyone who also wants to create.
Creativity is stifled when only certain people are allowed to create because they came to the market with it first.
The needlework community needs to let go of the ego already.
I am catching the replay and I love the information you're sharing!
This was an amazing discussion. Thank you so much.
On the question of how much of a pattern needs to be changed to say you designed it, glad you discussed legally versus ethically. Legally you can get away with any pattern that is different at face value…. until a good lawyer proves that you knew about the original pattern first and edited it.
For me, ethically you have to change 100% of the pattern to market it as your own. You have to do so much work from the ground up so that the original pattern is nothing more than an inspiration. Otherwise JUST COLLAB WITH THE DESIGNER. If they say yes… what an amazIng business opportunity for both of you.
I love your perspective and I'm so happy to have you here in the community. We need more confident voices like yours.
Great information! Thanks Pam :)
and suddenly loads and loads of Ai fake books on amazon...often with knitting images on the cover of a 'crochet ' book and most aimed at beginners who might not realise the pics are ai generated ...i am sure there must be a lot in other genres too, just noticed because i did one of my periodical searches of 'crochet books' in amazon to see what's new...really really upsetting both from point of view as a designer and a customer... hate the thought of people buying these books and either receiving nothing or receiving a load of unusable rubbish . Amazon needs to intervene or have a system to weed out Ai fake books because they're done via the amazon publishing system from what I can see.
As a vendor there are so many popping up as vendor organizers as well. 😢
You can prove the dates for copyright purposes yourself. Print the file, put it in an envelope and post it to yourself. The post office date stamps the envelope so if you don’t break the seal you can prove when you designed the pattern.
I believe this practice, "poor man's copyright," is no longer valid in court, I may be wrong, but you would want to do some research before relying on it
It’s not valid in court. I just researched it two days ago. There’s a business I wanted to start that way.
The situation reminds me of Mimi G. She's a sewing creator. Some of her patterns have been stolen. It's frustrating to create a design that other people can steal. This situation is SO OLD!!!! Many designers and creators all go through the same thing. I rather not cry over this situation but just keep on creating more beautiful things.
My theory about why people "trust" those nameless, faceless accounts is because they assume the account is run by a team of people/a company that's reputable and law-abiding. And those companies could be in hot water if they stole other people's work. That's my theory.
I definitely think it is a naivete that causes people to trust those businesses. It's so harmful to the industry and, since those businesses are housed overseas, there is little to nothing we can do to stop it. So sad.
God will judge the wicked.