I’ve been a bit lazy with both knitting (and obviously blog posting) over the past few months. First my laptop started showing its age, emitting this awful sounding “click click click” noise whenever I started it up, and it took me awhile to ascertain that I just needed to buy a $30 fan on the internets, vs. fork over $200 to the local tech shop. (Ahh, local tech shops. I’m a big advocate of shopping local, but tech shops really test this principle of mine). And THEN I picked up a freak case of tendonitis, when in the midst of getting a line of octopuses out to put on my etsy.
Laptop and wrist fully recovered, I decided to search for a new pattern to make a knitted bear for my adorable niece. Signed on to Ravelry and discovered I had a months-old message from a blog reader (people actually read this thing? Not any more, I wager), tipping me off to this fact: someone is selling one of my free patterns on eBay. Using my photos and everything, unless she just happens to have made the exact same cake, down to my mismatched-weight yarns and felt cutouts and everything. Her description reads: “This is printed instuctions of my moms pattern for carrot cake.”
Her mom’s pattern, eh? Turns out I have a long-lost daughter in England, of all places! How about that?
It annoys me greatly that someone is out there, copying my work (rather lazily, I might add) and profiting off it…but the more annoying thing is that poor knitters are actually buying the pattern, paying over two bucks for my MS paint chicken scratch. Yarn is expensive enough, without poor knitters being fleeced by paying for a pattern that is, you know, free. I don’t feel I am skilled enough to develop patterns for sale just yet, because I do expect a degree of professionalism in the pattern (sizing, gauge and, you know, testing it out as opposed to making it up as I go along). Of course, “professionalism” is a word that one would not use to describe my long-lost eBay daughter.
Still more annoying is the effect this is having on me – I will definitely think twice before I post things to share with other crafters, and I feel bad but I’m not sure how else to protect myself from intellectual theft. I love that the online crafting community provides a great wealth of resources for crafters to share knowledge, in good faith! I hate it when leeches try to take advantage of this good will.
My policy on my patterns: personally I don’t care if people knit octopuses or chocolate cakes from my pattern, and sell the objects themselves. You’ve put the work into it, and congratulations, if you could actually figure out how to successfully make a toy from my incoherent notes, good job! I do care if people STEAL MY PATTERN and sell it as their own, or their “moms.”
Hell, this particular thief might not even know how to knit – looping yarn through needles is not a skill-set required for stealing patterns. All one needs is a lack of shame.
2 Comments
I just looked at her feedback and the one negative review she had a while back says, “COPYRIGHT THEFT, COUNTERFEIT, UNAUTHORISED COPYS Clare Scope-Farrell Simply Knit.” She’s done it before. I would contact eBay and get her thieving ass thrown off.
I am with sis on this one, it just isn’t cool to do that and she should be booted from the site.
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