Pattern Copyright Info

Hello Quilters. I wanted to bring up something that I feel is important and that is concerning pattern copyright laws. When I say pattern, I am talking about pdf patterns, paper patterns, patterns from books or magazines and online tutorials as well as these are all considered patterns.

When someone teaches a class at Thimbleweeds or elsewhere, the teacher cannot copy the pattern and hand it out to the students as this is illegal and breaking the copyright law. The students are either required to purchase the pattern that is being taught (whether the teacher is the pattern designer or not), or the teacher can teach the class and have the students take notes without buying a pattern. The teacher can also get permission from the designer to copy parts of the pattern, but if that permission is not obtained then you cannot copy even a part of the pattern.

I have written a few patterns myself and I cannot stress to you how much time it involves to create the item and write and take photos and edit and have the pattern tested and edit some more. It can take months to finally have a pattern ready to sell. And then when sales are so few that it hardly makes it worthwhile to have written the pattern and you find out that one person who did buy your pattern has copied it to teach and you don't make a penny off your hard work, that is not fair or right!

I test bag patterns and quilted items for a few online designers too and I know the amount of work they put into their patterns. They are designing for a living and so have to pay for more professional programs in order to make their patterns look top notch. As a tester, I see all the things we testers question the designer about to make sure it is clear and not confusing or there are no typos, etc. After months of their hard work, they deserve to be paid and not have people copy their patterns to give out to their friends or quilt group to teach. Contact the designer and tell her you want to teach their quilt or bag, or whatever and I am sure she will offer a volume discount of some kind to your students. PLEASE DO NOT COPY PATTERNS to hand out to others!

There is a law from the late 1800's that says that it is the images (sketches, photos) and the text is copyrighted on all patterns, but not the idea of the pattern itself. So as long as you rewrite in your own words and use your own pictures and to be ethical, change at least something in the pattern, then you can call it yours. In other words you can get inspiration from something you saw and create a pattern of your own to sell or give for free. You just cannot copy verbatim an existing pattern, even if you are giving it away and not charging for it. In fact if you write a pattern, copyright is implied automatically.

Also once you purchase a pattern, you can make an item from the pattern and sell the finished item, or give the item away, as the pattern designer cannot tell you what you can do with the pattern once it is purchased. You can even give away a paper pattern or sell it at a yard sale, since you did not copy the pattern, but are selling the original pattern itself. However, when it comes to pdf patterns you cannot email them to give away, since that is essentially copying the pdf.

I get concerned when I see members teaching and then copying patterns and charging for the printing costs, especially if they are copying a designer's pattern without their permission then this is a violation of copyright law. So a heads up for those teaching classes here or anywhere, have your students purchase the pattern or do a story board showing the steps with your own examples and have students take notes or photograph your story board. While it would be a costly endeavor to be sued over copyright violation for both parties concerned, it could happen if one day someone just wanted to prove a point, even if they didn't win much money after paying for attorney and court fees.

One more point is that if you copy patterns that you could have purchased from a local quilt shop, then you are not helping to support that shop. They would lose potential business because you copy a pattern instead of having students purchase the pattern from a local shop. We have several members who do work for the local stores too and what if they told their bosses what Thimbleweed teachers are doing. Those shop owners might not be too happy about that.

I do not know for a fact that anyone at Thimbleweeds has violated the copyright law, but before it happens and a possible lawsuit results from it, I wanted to just give everyone a heads up about what is legal and ethical about teaching from a designer's pattern.