Reader beware: this is a long post, with multiple links to further reading. It is also likely to bring down the fury of pattern creators all around the web, if they ever happen to find my humble online abode (which isn’t likely, but could happen) and probably make me persona non-grata in many online crafting circles. Read at your own peril, and feel free to have at me in the comments.
Further disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I don’t play a lawyer on television or online. I am not offering legal advice. I am sharing what I have learned by doing a bit of research.
Long, long before SOPA or other variants were even thought off, I had declared my hatred of all things piracy, most particularly when the pirated items are books, but also in general. (You are welcome to do a Google search for my comments at the time of the Cassie Edwards plagiarism scandal–handle azteclady–and later on, here and here)
The reason for copyright, if I understand it correctly, is to provide incentive to the artist. If a person can’t profit from her creativity, then other things—like, say, making ends actually meet—will take precedence. When creativity is stifled, innovation tends to slow down. To a crawl not dissimilar to that of frozen molasses.
However, taking copyright to the extreme also stifles creativity because, in most cases, new stuff starts as old stuff that someone looks at in a different way. All those “what if I did this first instead of that?” or “wouldn’t it look better if I didn’t put that there?” lead to entirely different things and ways of doing things.
So there must be a balance, right? Continue reading
Her Hands, My Hands 