I seem to manage to get myself into trouble on Facebook without even trying!! This past week it was because of copy tatting.
I asked a lady for a link to a pattern of an item she’d made and posted on Facebook. She didn’t know what the link was as she’d copied the stitch count from a picture. Which she was very proud of.
This time it happened to be a piece that she’d seen for sale somewhere but had reproduced it from pictures. Easy enough to do and, in many ways, a good insight into how patterns are made and the process of designing. BUT this has now denied the seller of her income from their hard work. Yes, it is hard work and can be expensive too to make a design when you consider the amount of thread ‘wasted’ and time taken plus the cost of listing and charges for selling too.
It is actually morally wrong to copy tat as it is considered copyright theft by many and also intellectual theft (which it is) - even if you’re NOT claiming it as ‘your’ pattern it is ‘assumed’, when shared or re-posted many times, that the pattern belongs to the copy tatter’s.
If you do copy tat I BEG you NOT to publish it or tell anybody what you’re doing. It is clever but it’s encouraging others to do the same which will eventually lead to fewer and fewer sales for those who sell patterns and they’ll give up eventually.
Now, personally, when the internet was young and I put my first pattern on my site (not the current site but another which ceased to exist) I had to decide whether to link to Paypal or not. I did not have a lot of money coming in and was working three jobs some days. I did, however, decide that it was more important to promote the craft than to make much needed money so have always given my work freely. Thus I rarely get copyright/intellectual property issues. I have had issues with publishers who have blatantly taken my patterns but in the space of 25 years they’ve been very few.
So if you feel the urge to copy tat at anytime in the future - please think of the designer and KEEP QUIET about what you’ve done.
Below is a picture of a motif I showed last week. Here’s the link for more information.
