You know, that wasn't the thing that struck me with the article. There was a
> quote that one woman who takes clippings from the Nordstrom catalog and
> copies them for her own use. That bothered me.
>
> Kathy N-V
>
I've been giving this whole subject a lot of thought recently.
This last issue of Beadwork had an Ethics quiz in it. One of the questions was, and I paraphrase here since I don't have the magazine at hand, "If you make detailed notes of something you see and then copy it, is that ethical?" Answer was no, which I agree with. Copy, not ethical. Be inspired by, in my opinion, ethical.
More questions: "If you buy a bracelet kit and then use the kit's instructions to make several bracelets to sell, is that ethical?" Answer was no. "If you use the instructions in a magazine to make several bracelets to sell, is that ethical?" Answer was no.
This gets a bit fuzzier to me. If I'm using skills and techniques I learned from published instructions, where is the line? I have assumed that once I bought a kit I was free to use the instructions as often as I liked. And I assumed the instructions in magazines carried implicit permission to use and reuse if desired.
What are you guidelines?
-- This is a post-only address. Send replies to e_lewis AT bellsouth DOT net (with the obvious corrections)
Most patterns are licensed for personal use only. When you sell a sewing pattern design, the people who buy the pattern are getting the physical pattern and cover art and instructions, plus the right to use it to make the clothing article (or whatever) FOR PERSONAL USE. Meaning, make yourself a dress, or forty, make some for gifting to your sister, your neighbor...but NOT for sale. You can hire a seamstress to sew it for *you*--but NOT to make them for resale. Some patterns for craft items also give you the rights to make them in limited quantities, like "Angel" policy rubber stamps do--this means you can make a limited number of BY HAND created items and sell them at your bazaar or gift show---but NOT mechanically reproduce thousands, or set up shop with workers to do them in bulk. Sarajane
Skills and techniques are not the same thing as an entire design. If, for example, you learn peyote stitch from instructions in a kit, there's nothing stopping you from using peyote stitch on any number of other projects. What
*is* unethical is for you to remake that precise design again for resale.
There was a project in Bead & Button a few years ago about making a 2-strand bracelet with a beaded toggle. My opinion is that it's unethical for me to make
*that exact bracelet* for resale -- but not for me to make bracelets *in that style* for resale. The technique is separate from the design.
To me, the operative phrase here is "to sell". If you're copying exactly what you see in a magazine or anywhere else, it should not be for sale - especially on a large scale, like at a show or on the internet. If you're incorporating a design element into something that's your own to sell, that's ethical, to me - because that's what books are for. Take Corina's book for instance. It's there to help with design elements and techniques. But to copy the beads exactly, using the same colors and designs, and then sell them online......that would be crossing the line in my view. It's a matter of degree. I wouldn't sell a product made from a kit - I would rather make up my own design - but I am not sure of the legality of it. I am fuzzy on the ethics of that, too. It depends really. Are people taking kit designs, mass producing them and then selling them in a venue like a craft show, without mentioning that they are from a kit? Or are they making two or three things from a kit and selling them to friends as a way to make money to buy more kits? What's ethical? I don't know. It's hard to say. So I just stay away from kits altogether unless it's a cross stitch kit I am making to put up in my own house. Can't sell those - no way! :)
I saw a necklace in Bead and Button. It was strung beads and pearls, meeting at and spilling through a Monty Fonda windswept freeform. I don't use pearls, and don't have a "windswept" bead. But I will make something similar with a Ginger Sanders free-form and other beads in that style. And I do not consider it copying.
There was also the question of whether it was ethical to copy a photo to your hard drive. I know I was supposed to answer "No", because I am an ethical person. However, copying published information into a personal scrapbook is something I consider to be an OK thing to do.
But back to the copying. What is copying? In most cases, making an exact copy isn't even possible, because those exact beads aren't available, or the colors aren't available or aren't in my palette.
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :
]But back to the copying. What is copying? In most cases, making an exact ]copy isn't even possible, because those exact beads aren't available, or the ]colors aren't available or aren't in my palette.
exactly. i've started an "idea" scrapbook. full of pictures. from all OVER the place. not instructions, just pictures. because they "rang bells" or "set off ideas".
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
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Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.
I do not copy anyone's work, I consider it completely unethical, so I have a lot of problems with other jewelry designers who come over to my booth and practically make notes. A few years ago, these people who were selling jewelry opposite me, came over to my booth 3 times, pointed out different things to each other, etc. The third time they came back, I gave them an evil look and said, "why don't you do your own work?" They didn't come back. Patti
I agree w/you on this (for the most part). The thing about that article is that it is entitled "Ethics" when most of the questions actually have to do with "copyright law." The questions that do have to do with ethics -- well, it's the author's opinion (who I know and like and admire, btw).
The thing about ethics is, they're situational, not universal. If I take a class in my town, there is no way I'm going to start selling or teaching that item here in this town. Halfway across the country where they think beadwork is a magical gift from the goddess, perhaps. Preferably with the knowledge and permission of the original designer. See? Situational.
Ethics are moral guidelines, and people make their own choices about what their own moral guidelines are. (Outside of the obvious copyright coverage, of course). Groups, such as "the beading community" or the "rubber stamping community" or the "polymer clay community" may formally or informally evolve a set of group ethics, but eventually they may cross the line into "group think" which is not necessarily right (or wrong). For instance, why do beaders feel comfortable saying "If someone doesn't want their work reproduced, they shouldn't publish an article..." when the rubber stamping community routinely admonishes people who don't acknowledge who made their stamp (which I really don't get, esp. if/when the stamps come from public domain sources in the first place... but ANYWAY...).
The main problem I had with the article, this time and the first time it came out, is that it never addresses the main number one easiest and best solution to an ethical situation -- which is simply to *ask the designer*. The answer would not be no if the designer said yes. A lot of times these discussions focus on the negative instead of the positive.
Is it ethical to make a kit to sell that is based upon someone's published article, esp. if/when the author sells kits too? For me, no, IMO. But for a bead store owner who is swamped with requests for those exact materials the day after the article hits the stands, maybe the best thing for them is to just make up the kits (what are they going to do, pay retail for the author's kit? spend oodles of time helping each customer pick out the materials one by one? Why not just put some together and let the customer get out the door already, lol?)
So yeah, I wouldn't say it's *always* appropriate to sell something I learned from a book or tutorial, but I wouldn't say it never is.
About the using other people's designs for inspiration in another post
-- personally I think it's wrong to stand in a gallery window or department store or art show and take notes or make sketches. I think it's tacky and I know for a fact it can dramatically undermine somebody else's business. I have also seen where that kind of thing has led to people's original designs being published in books and magazines without credit and without their knowledge. But in case you think I'm preaching, well, reformed sketchers are the worst aren't they? I used to do that, much to the horror of the poor girl who paid for her booth at the craft show, LOL. But this was when I was just learning and not selling. It took me a long time to accept that if I'm selling I'm responsible for my own original work, or I need to ask permission to market a design based on somebody else's creative success. Influenced by, sure, we couldn't help that if we tried, but copying is copying and if we would prefer that people not do that to us, we shouldn't do that to them.
Because I write and get published and have freebies on my website, I know that the author's byline and even the editor's name are not "symbols" of impersonal, faraway corporate constructs or gurus in lofty towers. Everyone whose name you see is pretty much a regular jo(sephine), and they accessible, way more so these days then ever before. So to me, they are people with kids and feelings and slim profits behind every venture ;-) particularly in the beadwork world. It's just good to ask -- it solves every ethical dilemma that I can think of...
Did you hear that??? It's my knees creaking, this soapbox is getting wobbly!
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