Comments on: NOTIONS: Copy Wrongs and Rights

By: Rebecca Grace

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 03:02:24 +0000

Normally I would not comment on a post from over a year ago, but this is an EXCELLENT point. Fabric manufacturers love selling “collections” of fabrics, especially as precuts, and frequently they hire pattern designers to create patterns exclusively using a single collection of prints, which the manufacturer then offers as a free pattern to spur sales of the fabric collection. Beginning quilters and those who enjoy the sewing but don’t feel confident about their design abilities love the convenience of buying within a fabric collection so they know everything will “go together,” but you’re absolutely right about the resulting “collection quilts” often being more of a derivative of the fabric designer’s artwork than an original artwork created by the quiltmaker.

By: Kelley

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:42:31 +0000

This seems like it was a simple misunderstanding that got out of hand and that is a shame. It hopefully isn’t scaring talented people away from enriching our quilty experience. (BTW I love the designers involved.) I have to admit though that I am somewhat irked with Moda – they provided the fabric to the designer and then when a problem arose they get to just decline to be involved? When they gave fabric and told (maybe even encouraged) the designer to use it in their patterns shouldn’t they do what is right and stay at the table to iron things out? I’m not saying they did something wrong to provide the fabric – I totally get that. I just think they should have tried to help work things out instead of turning their back.

By: Kelly

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:53:27 +0000

I guess I would be happy if all I needed to do is credit the fabric designer. I do not want to have to seek out a license to use the fabric. I always the thought the purchase of the fabric, and the exchange of money, was an implied license.
On the other hand, it is not cool for a marketing department to rip off the designs and reprint them without permission.

Either way, it is just sad for 2 nice, talented people to go through this.

By: Cindy

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:48:43 +0000

I have followed this issue since it erupted, and no one seems to be addressing the elephant in the room. The trend has increasingly become to rely on a particular line of fabric from a designer, often exclusively, in a quilt. The fabric manufacturers love this and sell accordingly. It seems inevitable that this is going to lead to just such legal questions as have arisen in this case. The quilting community will have to come to some agreement on “ownership” if this trend continues. Perhaps as quilters we should ask ourselves if we are simply acting as a mirror of a designer rather than using fabric more creatively and originally. This is the issue which manufacturers, designers, and many quilters do not want to address.

By: Kelly

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:45:16 +0000

I have been following this subject with interest and think maybe here is a good place for my comments.
First, I do design woven fabrics for a mill. That means the mill owns all the rights to the weaves I produce. I have been trained to copyright, and in the domestic textile industry as a whole, we have been through the ringer with our products being ripped off overseas, sold back in the USA and had our industry decimated. I understand.
Second, I am a quilt maker. I design my own patterns. I sell my quilts.
Now, I know most print textile designers want to retain the rights to their art work which becomes the surface pattern of the fabric. Fine. What is not fine with me is determining what I can do with my finished quilt. So, my resolution is to make my quilts using solids (perfectly acceptable in the modern world), dying my own fabrics, and creating my own designs and digitally printing them. So, in my eyes, the mill that produces the solids as well as the greige goods still makes their money. The digital printer makes money. I get to make my quilts and sell them. What is sad here, is the artist misses out on the exposure and dollars. And the disclaimer printed on selvedges is not sufficient. When I do see a disclaimer, “for non-commercial use only” I put it back. It will be interesting to see how this issue is worked out.

By: Debbie-Esch House Quilts

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:45:35 +0000

My understanding of this whole thing is that it was the tote bag that caused the problem. Making the quilt and including it in the book was fine (giving credit to the fabric designer of course). I think where we need to be careful is in using images of quilts on other products, especially if the quilt is made from just one line of fabric. I doubt this would have been an issue if the quilt in question had been a scrap quilt.

It seems to me that the lawyers in this case painted with an overly broad brush and caused a lot of unnecessary confusion.

By: Leslie C

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:33:11 +0000

Fascinating! I’m just an ordinary quilt maker – no sales of patterns or quilts – no blogs or books. But information like this is very relevant to how I see my journey through quiltmaking. Thank you for providing such a thought-provoking entry.

By: Jacqui

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:31:16 +0000

Man, what a schmozzle. I guess I don’t have enough to do because I actually read through 90% of all the comments on the various posts and what appalls me more than anything about this (what do people expect once lawyers get involved anyways?) is the way so many commenters seem to be completely and utterly missing the point which is, as interpreted by me, that the publishers used the unattributed fabric line itself, to which they had no rights (NOT the quilt made from the fabric), on a tote bag which they then sold to promote the book. The lawyers were brought in, went overboard, things got very scary and this is when the book came into the scenario. If the tote hadn’t been sold then the book would have been fine. But now we have people rushing to-and-fro saying they’ll never use Designer A’s fabric/never use designer fabric/stop blogging/stop quilting/they hate designer A/hate pattern designer B… I see fault on all sides to be honest and I don’t think anyone comes out looking good; and because there is claim and counter-claim no-one knows what to think. I took the time to read through the comments and there are some very reasonable and informative ones, but right after one of those there will be a Chicken Little one and on it goes. Wouldn’t it be nice if a non-scary lawyer actually wrote an easily understood post dealing with specifically this issue and calmed everyone down?

By: Nurseli

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:58:09 +0000

This whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. I agree with Sonya, I think we are lawsuit happy and where do you draw the line? To be honest, I have some of Kate Spain’s fabric, but now I’m afraid to use it. And I’m not a pattern designer or anything like that. I’m sure that most quilters that do sell thier goods or write patterns are going to steer clear of her fabrics now just out of fear that they will be sued as well. I wonder if it will be worth it in the long run for Kate Spain ? Only time will tell. But I don’t think I’ll be buying any of her fabrics again. Which is a shame because I do think that she is a talented designer.

By: Sara

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:54:29 +0000

Woah, that’s a lot of reading, especially when you go through the comments.

On the one hand, I can understand the designer, upon seeing the tote bag, calling up her lawyers and telling them to hit them with everything they’ve got. The bag itself (http://www.amazon.com/Publishing-Totes-Scrap-Republic-Eco/dp/B005XJU4CC) although it’s a picture of a quilt made by the author, looks more like an assemblage of the prints from the Fandango line, and even though there’s a ripple throughout it caused by the quilting, it’s still just *that* fabric. Had the bag had a picture of the quilt hanging dreamily over a fence, with perhaps a tagline at the bottom saying what book it was featured in, it may have been a different story.

On the other hand, I don’t actually see what the tote bag has to do with the author, or the book, save the fact that she designed the quilt. It appears that the tote was a marketing ploy dreamed up by the publishers, who are perhaps not as well versed in the ways that a desgin used on fabric might be licenced in other ways. Kate Spain recieves royalties from companies who print her work on products, and clearly she didn’t recieve any from these bags. That may not be the only issue – I don’t know the quality of the tote on offer, but it may not be of the standard that an established designer would like her images being used for.

Most of the comments from other designers seem to be that it’s an honour to be used in a quilt pattern for sale or in a book, but that credit is (understandably) expected. I don’t think we’ve yet fallen over the edge of copyright insanity, and I certainly hope that we never do. But it’s stuff like this (and the Pinterest thing) that make you think about how close we’re standing to the precipice.