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9.7.2004
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With a new baby in the Singleton household it's only natural that there's been talk of knitting booties and such. Which brings us to the all-important topic of needle arts copyrights. A few years ago CNN, ABCNews, Forbes, and the Los Angles Times ran stories about the impact of the Net on needle arts-- knitting, quilting, cross-stitch and such. Copyrighted patterns "shared" on needle arts discussion groups over the Internet were hitting professional designers hard. Some companies were threatening to initiate lawsuits, and designers in some arts were reportedly holding designs off the market. Over the next few weeks I'll be bringing you an update on those stories.
Why? Isn't this niche too trivial to study? Au contraire. Needle arts copyright issues are interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, while needle arts fans are a younger crowd than one might imagine, they by and large constitute a more pro-copyright and voluntarily law-abiding culture than say, P2P-using music-downloading tweens and twenty and thirty-somethings. Many of the posts on needle-arts boards are pro-copyright. Second, most of the needle arts discussion groups involve tech no more complicated than e-mail. None-the-less, professional designers seem to have a serious problem on their hands. Are the beginnings of a solution in sight? That's what I'll try to find out.
In the meantime, consider this quote from a handy web site for knitting copyrights:
"If you're thinking, "But one copy won't make a difference, will it?" Consider this: When you see a pattern selling for $5 for only one design, you may think the price is outrageous. However, that $5 doesn't go very far.
First, the yarn store owner takes half--and uses it to pay rent, heat, electricity, phone, advertising, credit card surcharges, employees and maybe the owner. Now the designer might get $2.50, which he or she uses to pay for getting the pattern out to the shop in the first place. If the designer goes through an agent or a distribution company, that middleman takes a cut. On top of that, there are the actual production costs of publishing a pattern. Many people are unaware of the costs of putting a pattern out into the world; they include the costs of the yarn used to make the models and swatches, the paper for the umpteen printouts until the pattern was right, any test knitters, the electricity for the computer on which was typed the pattern, film and developing of the picture to go on the front of the pattern, copying, and those page protectors that the pattern goes in or the equally expensive heavy high gloss paper. (Until you make thousands of them, one page of color copying generally costs over $1.00 U.S.) If there's anything left, the designer gets paid so he or she can pay rent, heat, light, etc."
That's all for now.
posted by Solveig Singleton : 9/7/2004 10:00:36 AM
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