Today's blog is short but not sweet. Copying patterns is not flattery it's battery!
PATCHES (Hooked for me by Susan Leslie) Well, I guess it’s time for another copyright chat. I started the work day by seeing one of my patterns, Patches, copied. A customer brought it in to find a brown herringbone for some of the flower centers. It’s a large pattern with a scarecrow, pumpkins and sunflowers. It was very poorly copied, with layers of marker lines as the person tried to get the perspective straight. It was on a dark linen that I don’t sell. It looked as if it was drawn from the website because a red dot transfer would have been cleaner.
I don’t hide behind the door when I see an injustice, either one perpetrated on me or any designer that I am familiar with. I can spot a copy from fifty paces. I told the customer that the pattern was my design and clearly copied. A ball began to grow in the pit of my stomach and I felt sick. The money we could have made selling that pattern would have covered the labour of one of my hired girls for a day. Stealing a pattern that way hurts a small business heavily. It’s one of the reasons a lot of rug shops don’t make it. Consider that when you copy a pattern from a shop, it’s stealing as if you walked in the door and put the pattern in your purse. In this day and age, and with all the talk about copyright, one would think it’s a rare occurrence, but I hear and see things all the time. It’s very sad.
The woman said she bought it in a yard sale somewhere but didn't remember where. I tried to take a picture of the pattern for this blog but the customer got upset and said she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble and started folding the pattern. She said, "I can't let you do that". I told her spreading awareness is key to educating people to stop doing it. She said no again. I have to admit I was a bit put out, protecting someone she didn’t even know or remember shouldn’t have taken precedent over the respect for my feelings; she knew that I was upset, I was the one wronged here.
Anyway, sorry for all you honest gals out there, having to bore you with the same old rant. I'm trying not to let it ruin this fabulous, sunny day but my back teeth are grinding. One by one we need to cut down on this thievery so shops can support themselves so we continue to be available for your rug hooking needs.
I don’t hide behind the door when I see an injustice, either one perpetrated on me or any designer that I am familiar with. I can spot a copy from fifty paces. I told the customer that the pattern was my design and clearly copied. A ball began to grow in the pit of my stomach and I felt sick. The money we could have made selling that pattern would have covered the labour of one of my hired girls for a day. Stealing a pattern that way hurts a small business heavily. It’s one of the reasons a lot of rug shops don’t make it. Consider that when you copy a pattern from a shop, it’s stealing as if you walked in the door and put the pattern in your purse. In this day and age, and with all the talk about copyright, one would think it’s a rare occurrence, but I hear and see things all the time. It’s very sad.
The woman said she bought it in a yard sale somewhere but didn't remember where. I tried to take a picture of the pattern for this blog but the customer got upset and said she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble and started folding the pattern. She said, "I can't let you do that". I told her spreading awareness is key to educating people to stop doing it. She said no again. I have to admit I was a bit put out, protecting someone she didn’t even know or remember shouldn’t have taken precedent over the respect for my feelings; she knew that I was upset, I was the one wronged here.
Anyway, sorry for all you honest gals out there, having to bore you with the same old rant. I'm trying not to let it ruin this fabulous, sunny day but my back teeth are grinding. One by one we need to cut down on this thievery so shops can support themselves so we continue to be available for your rug hooking needs.
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