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levis_mama
Chatty Knitter
USA
188 Posts |
 Posted - 02/17/2005 : 4:09:40 PM
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DH is an intellectual property attorney (all he does is patents, trademarks and copyrights) and I've worked in the same field as a secretary. The U.S. Copyright has themost complete info on copyright law, though not necessarily the most easily understood. www.copyright.gov
When it comes to library books, you can make a copy of a couple of patterns for your own personal use. There is a specific subsection in the law for library and educational use.
When it comes to patterns you have purchased, you may make a copy for your personal use. You may make multiple copies for your personal use. As long as you do not distribute any copies, or distribute the original and retain any copies. Lending the original is no different from lending a book; it is allowed provided the lender doesn't retain a copy and the lendee doesn't make a copy beyond one to mark up and doesn't retain any copies when the original is returned.
Re: selling your designs to publishers: It all depends on the publisher's polices and what you negotiate. Some pay a flat fee, some pay royalties. Some allow the designer to retain the copyright, others require the rights to be assigned to them. Book authors may receive a fee and when the sales of the book exceed a negotiated amount, then they start receiving royalties. I know of a LYSO that sold her pattern to three different companies. If a designer retains the rights, the designer may sell to as many companies as he/she wishes depending on whether or not the publisher has been granted an exclusive license.
Regarding selling items made from copyrighted materials: DH and I are in complete disagreement as to whether or not you may sell items made from copyrighted materials, so more on that point later.
I'll check on and post about copyright for OOP books later; kids need their supper.
BTW: copy clerks at places like Kinkos will not make copies of copyrighted items. They got hit pretty hard with some lawsuits a few years ago and even if you show them the page in the book or show them the section of the law, they will not make the copy for you. However, you can make a copy yourself using their machines. I've had several run-ins with Kinkos employees over this and have been told rather bluntly that they don't care what the law allows, they will not make the copy for me but that I can make my copy myself.
StephanieR
A priest, a rabbi, and a minister all walk into a stich-n-beach... |
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RachelKnitter
Permanent Resident
USA
2995 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 4:24:55 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by levis_mama
BTW: copy clerks at places like Kinkos will not make copies of copyrighted items. They got hit pretty hard with some lawsuits a few years ago and even if you show them the page in the book or show them the section of the law, they will not make the copy for you.
Yes, it wasn't until very recently that they started making coursebooks for university professors again, which used to be a big business for them. I believe now they'll do it, but only if you can document permission for each and every article you wish to include.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep; his cupidity may at some point be satiated: but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S. Lewis |
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caerlynn
New Pal
2 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 5:09:16 PM
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| So here's a tricky question. One of my friends paid me to knit a couple of baby blankets for her for a baby shower of a friend of hers. She picked out the pattern, bought the yarn, and basically paid me for labor. Is that breaking the rules of using someone else's pattern for profit? Because since then, I've had others asking if I'd do the same for them. |
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stherio
New Pal
USA
38 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 6:00:39 PM
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Well, I never really thought about this before. But after some consideration, isn't a library really taking away profit from all the authors and publishers??? I mean, here we have an entity that is encouraging "borrowing" books rather than buying them. I know myself, when I get a flyer from my favorite bookstore, I immediately go to the online search at my library to see what I can get without buying. To take it one step further, are we stealing when we bake a recipe from a cookbook from the library and sell at our school fundraiser? Then a mom asks you for the recipe which you copied to an index card and put in your recipe box??? What is the point of taking out books like cookbooks and knitting books if you don't "use" them. I like the idea about the shredder.........
Suzy |
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mokey
Permanent Resident
15375 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 7:03:59 PM
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Libraries have to pya a lot more for each book for that exact reason. Also many a book borrowed from the library ends up being purchased, so it's a type of loss leader.
"I firmly believe the Bible is the misinterpreted word of God." Mokey
www.femiknits.blog-city.com |
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hotmamagrace
Warming Up
USA
72 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2005 : 10:23:22 PM
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hmmm...wow, i've never even thought twice about it. i've copied all sorts of stuff: kntting patterns, recipes from cookbooks, textbooks...hmmm...noone thought to stop me and my mom is a librarian...granted, she is a theology reference librarian at a seminary, but still she is familiar with all that sort of thing. she's seen me do it. it's fine for perconal use, i'm sure. it gets iffy when someone tries to sell or duplicate for purposes other than personal use, i'm sure. i'm the type who likes to try before she buys, so if the book is worthwhile, i will buy it.
just my thoughts.
grace |
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Ann Arbor
New Pal
25 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 03:49:22 AM
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| I would photocopy, I have photocopied, I will continue to photocopy FOR MY OWN USE! I don't plan to distribute the pattern, or make money from it, or claim it is a pattern I designed. What is the differnce between using/copying a pattern you find in a book to knit a sweater and using/copying a recipe you find in a cook book to bake a cake? |
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luv2knit944
Permanent Resident
USA
1789 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 03:57:02 AM
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It's not an isuue to copy copywrited material.I think you're all spitting hairs over this.No one is going to take you to court.you're not impacting their product.
I've gotten this information from a reliable source.which wants to remain anonymous.
Pauline |
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Sabrina Fair
Seriously Hooked
United Kingdom
639 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 04:18:54 AM
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My suggestion of an informal pattern loan service was not so much directed at taking profit from a designer as making patterns legally available.
Take the situation of out of print patterns; I have seen many people here bemoan trying to get hold of them. Also if you buy a kit with a pattern you have to use their yarn and colour scheme which takes away the 'create' process for yourself. Also where the kit is concerned the designer is making a lot more money on the yarn than the pattern and will have already sold the yarn and pattern once. Also think of situations where you are prepared to buy the yarn and want to make one item but are forced to buy the book also. This gets very expensive
Sabrina
Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
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RachelKnitter
Permanent Resident
USA
2995 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 08:50:21 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by stherio
Well, I never really thought about this before. But after some consideration, isn't a library really taking away profit from all the authors and publishers???
Libraries do a great service by providing people with access to books and educational materials to people who cannot otherwise afford them, and I don't imagine anyone ever seriously entertaining the idea of doing away with them because they could hurt a publisher's profit margin. Especially in a day and age in which publishers have lost all sense of nobility in their profession and are becoming less and less interesting and diverse because all they do is look at their bottom line. Libraries serve a critical purpose. As a bookstore owner, I can't tell you how much it makes me cringe when I have customers coming in, looking to see what books we have on X subject because they need to write a paper on it. Especially parents bringing their kids in because of an assignment the child needs to do. The fact that they're not teaching the child how to use a library, or as an adult they never properly learned to use a library. (We're located two blocks from a pretty decent public library). It really, really saddens me.
Also, as a bookseller, I can tell you that I have at least one customer a day who is looking to buy a book because they checked it out of the library and loved it. It's a simple equation: the more people that read a book, the more people are talking about that book, the more people are buying that book. The mileage of that one library book does more for book sales than any single ad a publisher could place in a newspaper or any book signing a publicist can schedule. I have been working in the book biz for a decade and I firmly believe this. It is shortsighted to think that the circulation of a book in a library, or the re-sale of a book in a second hand store, or the lending of a copy to a friend is hurting sales. More likely than not, it is getting the word out and will boost sales in the long term.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep; his cupidity may at some point be satiated: but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S. Lewis |
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amaknda
Chatty Knitter
159 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 3:53:17 PM
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| I had a run in with a major copy store chain that refused to copy a single page of a novel written by the lovely gentleman who had come into the store with me. His photo was on the dust jacket (he was a well known personality even without his picture on the book) and he was willing to be ID'ed. Sure the book was copyrighted but the page in question was a handwritten dedication on an otherwise blank page. Gah. |
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cdenehy
New Pal
Australia
13 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 4:37:14 PM
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I agree with everything posted (I'm a librarian too) but sometimes there's an interesting wrinkle. Australia is trying to rework its copyright laws to include electronis media (which nobody has mentioned so far). Current laws allow you to copy 10% of a work for personal use. But the definition of "work" can mean a single poem. So you have an anthology or other collection of poems. Each poem is a single work. Nobody has asked the question about collections of knitting patterns by different authors. Or about things posted on the net. The big no-no is copying a pattern and then selling it. This has been known to happen with patterns published on the net being copied and sold with yarn as a packaged kit without even noting the original designer much less paying for the right to sell it.
Carol in Canberra
Fibre keeps me sane and happy when everything else falls apart. |
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Renee77
Chatty Knitter
261 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 8:54:08 PM
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I'm glad to see levi's mom post the following from above:
"When it comes to library books, you can make a copy of a couple of patterns for your own personal use. There is a specific subsection in the law for library and educational use. "
Over on KBTH (knitting beyond the Hebrides), which I subscribe to, there are occasional tiffs about what a knitter can and can't do in regards to out-of-print Alice Starmore books that a person can, however, get on loan from a library. There is a person on that knitlist, who has said she's an expert on intellectual property issues, who is adament that a knitter cannot even copy one pattern, not even for personal use, from a library book.
In this case, the only other option would be to buy Starmore books on Ebay, but they can go from $100-200 dollars (sometimes more). Way beyond the budget of most people.
At my own public library, there is a copy of Starmore's OOP 'Aran Knitting', just sitting there week after week. No one in the township has any interest in it, so I'm glad to know that knitters can get it through interlibrary loan, and make a copy of a few patterns that they like, without breaking the law.
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diana.enky
Permanent Resident
Australia
1092 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 10:00:00 PM
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quote:
Libraries have to pya a lot more for each book for that exact reason
Mokey - why do your libraries have to pay a lot more and how much more ??
I used to work in local govt (in Aus) and saw the invoices for the library books for our local libraries and they were billed at retail less about 15% - perhaps Carol in Canberra can confirm this
Diana
2005 stats: 2 WIP, 3 FO, 2 Frog
Purchases: 9 books, 11 yarn |
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mokey
Permanent Resident
15375 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2005 : 12:29:24 AM
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My understanding is that libraries have to pay extra since it is not a single use sale. I hope one of our librarians can clarify.
amaknda, I don't blame the store for refusing to copy it. We have gone into Kinko's and other copy shops to have pages from our software manual copied, and they won't do it. You have to do it yourself. Please remember hat the staff there are not ID checkers.
"I firmly believe the Bible is the misinterpreted word of God." Mokey
www.femiknits.blog-city.com |
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Stopmeifyouveheardthisone
New Pal
8 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2005 : 02:38:47 AM
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Lots of librarians on this site. Another one here.
To my knowledge, libraries do not pay more for books and often get discounted rates. It's magazine/journal subscriptions that cost significantly more for the institutional subscription.
Ellen |
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Sabrina Fair
Seriously Hooked
United Kingdom
639 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2005 : 07:40:52 AM
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Re Alice Starmore. We should club together buy some of the books off e-bay and circulate them amongst ourselves
Sabrina
Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
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tobyjavin
New Pal
48 Posts |
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Renee77
Chatty Knitter
261 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2005 : 2:55:36 PM
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From that Vogue KNitting page:
"When the source is old or out of print. Most magazines make back issues available for sale, and books are easy to locate on the Internet. Publishers will often make copies of a single pattern available, usually for a small fee (to cover postage). Failing that, in the U.S. alone thousands of new patterns are published each year. Try looking for something new!"
I'm not familiar with what happens when back issues of magazines are sold out, so I won't comment on that. But their phrase that "books are easy to locate on the Internet" is just plain wrong. Like I said above, Alice Starmore's books are out-of-print, she doesn't appear willing to put them into print again, and the prices on Ebay or other Internet used-book retailers are insane.
I'm wondering, the statements that Vogue KNitting is making - did they have them reviewed by a lawyer familiar with copyright laws? Or is this just what they believe to be the case.
Their comment about just go out and find a new pattern to knit an item simply because they are widely available, is condescending. That's like saying no one should ever bother reading an older book, because look how many new books are published every year!
On the other hand, in Vogue Knitting's defense, they do at least publish books of collections of their older patterns. I think they have a book with vintage patterns, and another one dedicated to American designers
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PatriciaS
Gabber Extraordinaire
USA
537 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2005 : 8:12:03 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by levis_mama
DH is an intellectual property attorney (all he does is patents, trademarks and copyrights) and I've worked in the same field as a secretary.
snip
Regarding selling items made from copyrighted materials: DH and I are in complete disagreement as to whether or not you may sell items made from copyrighted materials, so more on that point later.
Yes, I hope you'll come back and address that, Stephanie, because this is one of the "provisions" I see discussed that boggles my mind, frankly.
I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about copyright issues for a lay person because I researched the subject on my own some years ago relative to writing and publishing.
Fortunately, I can't imagine myself in a position to knit ANYthing for profit for ANYone, so this isn't a practical issue for me at all, but I'm certainly interested in it philosophically.
If I were to buy a book on making bird houses and other yard stuff out of wood, etc., I can't imagine the author would try to limit my ability to sell items I made from the book. if I'm a dressmaker, Vogue or Butterick or McCalls isn't going to ask me to pay additional money for the patterns I use in my dressmaking, or even if I use accessories patterns for hats and bags, pillows and such to sell at a craft fair.
In short, I just don't get the RATIONALE for trying to limit how someone who purchases a pattern uses it. And IMO, if a designer doesn't think they're charging enough if the buyer should use the pattern to make things for sale, then s/he should charge more for the pattern to start with.
Now this, from the Vogue link, begins to make sense:
And while we're on the subject, you cannot sell items knit from a published pattern; knits sold must be your own design if they are to have your name on them.
That frmes it in terms of who the designer is and proper credit for it, and much less so merely that the pattern is being used to produce profit or not. And that makes more sense to me.
Now, there are things which are protected by copyright law which DO, in my mind, require additional payments (royalties) when used for profit-producing activities. But those fall into the artwork (painting, photography) and performance art (music, plays, movies, etc.). I don't know, tho (someone could inform me, perhaps) if school choirs/bands and other musical organizations must pay for each performance -- I think once they're purchased the written music (the "pattern"), they are free to perform it as many times as they want to. I was in the school band many years ago and certainly never remember anything about royalties or similar.
It doesn't make sense to me. |
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