Pattern Copyright Question

Any stitch that is concidered as a "public domain", let's say chainstitch, you can use. All the stitch library books etc. if you can find the same stitch in several books from different authors, you can use. No one can copyright basics. If you don't show the actual book, nor the instructions from the book, it's ok. You make your own piece and you have a copyright to those works.

Johanna

You make your own piece and you

In order to own a copyright, you must mark it as copyrighted! Instructions are provided by the Library of Congress. Failure to follow the copyright laws concerning securing copyright can result in no ownership at all, and no right to prosecute others for using the material. This is not the proper forum to provide details, but this one is so basic and important it needs to be said -- distribution or showing a work to anybody without having the proper copyright marking on the item means you lose the right to copyright it! Generally, there are two steps to securing copyright protection -- mark the item in accordance with the copyright law, and then secure formal copyright by filing the item with the copyright office in the Library of Congress. The first costs nothing, and the second costs a bit. I suggest you contact the Library of Congress for information, and if you intend to publish, sell, or distribute your item (even at no charge), that you contact an attorney versed in "intellectual property". If you have a commercial publisher handle your item, the publisher will normally do all the necessary follow-through on your behalf.

I think in Finland you don't have to report the copyrighted items to anywhere. When you have created it and it's individual enough to be "stand alone" product, it has a copyright. If you want to protect it, then it's trademark.

Johanna