GRRR My Star Wars craft page is down

I'm angry and disappointed, and my Star Wars knit and crochet chart
page is down for the time being.

Why? Someone didn't honor the injunction that they were for personal
use only and not to be used to make items for sale and have used not
1, but 2 of my charts to make a scarf they are now trying to sell on
Ebay.

A friend reported them, since I don't have an Ebay account, but for
now, my page is down until this is taken care of.

Sheesh, you try and do something nice, and some dweeb is always going
to try and make money off your work, aren't they? I wanted to keep
these free, but maybe, since this is the second time in a few months
someone has wanted to try and sell them (the first being a publisher
who wanted me to enter a contest in which the "winners" would give up
their copyright so these people could put their charts in a book and
SELL them to make money for themselves), just maybe I should jump on
the greed train and charge for them. SIGH.

Leah

Oh I'm so sorry that has happened! I mean, it's one thing to use the
pattern to make personal gifts but quite another to sell them for
profit when that has been explicitly prohibited by the author. What a
shame! and shame on them for doing such a thing. Are you getting in
touch with the seller about this? I honestly don't know how I myself
would handle it. On the one hand, righteous anger can feel
heartwarming. On the other hand, life is too short to get involved
with fools and legal issues. Let us know what you do. I'm sure others
here could find themselves in the same position.

I dunno....I guess for me? if I were to post a pattern, I would do as
I've seen others do--ask for a simple byline of recognition when using
the piece. It's almost impossible to legislate what the public will
do, so we can only put out there what we expect to be used in any way
anyone wants to use it (I'm a very pragmatic soul), simply for the joy
of sharing. It's a very personal decision whether to share for profit
or share for free.

On a similar note---I'm one of those souls who will gladly share a
recipe with anyone who wants it. I am an avid cook and love tinkering
in the kitchen. For me, the fact that they are enjoying the recipe in
any way they choose does not diminish MY joy when I cook it at home
for myself. But that may not apply here, who knows.

Wendy
A KFIC

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:06:04 -0800 (PST), myswendy
wrote:

Oh I'm so sorry that has happened! I mean, it's one thing to use the
pattern to make personal gifts but quite another to sell them for
profit when that has been explicitly prohibited by the author. What a
shame! and shame on them for doing such a thing. Are you getting in
touch with the seller about this? I honestly don't know how I myself
would handle it. On the one hand, righteous anger can feel
heartwarming. On the other hand, life is too short to get involved
with fools and legal issues. Let us know what you do. I'm sure others
here could find themselves in the same position.

Wendy

I don't have an account on Ebay, but a friend does and reported the
page. We'll see if the item is pulled. If they say they aren't going
to pull it, my friend is going to post a question for everyone to see
about copyright/use violation using the ask the seller a question form
which will be publicly posted on the item's page. A few people have
looked at it, but no one has bid.

So far, everyone else has been great. I search for my work on the net
every so often to make sure no one is trying to sell my work as their
own, and I've found where people have made things using the patterns.
I've heard of people using them to knit, crochet, and do cross stitch
using the crochet charts since they are designed on a square grid.

Leah

I had exactly this with my westie coat patterns Leah, I reported the sale
of my patterns which included photo's of the coats with my dogs in my home
modelling them, and the sellers pages were removed immediately. Hope this
is resolved for you soon
higz Cher


"Leah" wrote in message
...
I'm angry and disappointed, and my Star Wars knit and crochet chart
page is down for the time being.

Why? Someone didn't honor the injunction that they were for personal
use only and not to be used to make items for sale and have used not
1, but 2 of my charts to make a scarf they are now trying to sell on
Ebay.

A friend reported them, since I don't have an Ebay account, but for
now, my page is down until this is taken care of.

Sheesh, you try and do something nice, and some dweeb is always going
to try and make money off your work, aren't they? I wanted to keep
these free, but maybe, since this is the second time in a few months
someone has wanted to try and sell them (the first being a publisher
who wanted me to enter a contest in which the "winners" would give up
their copyright so these people could put their charts in a book and
SELL them to make money for themselves), just maybe I should jump on
the greed train and charge for them. SIGH.

Leah

On Feb 21, 2:30*pm, Leah wrote:
I'm angry and disappointed, and my Star Wars knit and crochet chart
page is down for the time being. *

Why? *Someone didn't honor the injunction that they were for personal
use only and not to be used to make items for sale and have used not
1, but 2 of my charts to make a scarf they are now trying to sell on
Ebay. *

A friend reported them, since I don't have an Ebay account, but for
now, my page is down until this is taken care of. *

Sheesh, you try and do something nice, and some dweeb is always going
to try and make money off your work, aren't they? *I wanted to keep
these free, but maybe, since this is the second time in a few months
someone has wanted to try and sell them (the first being a publisher
who wanted me to enter a contest in which the "winners" would give up
their copyright so these people could put their charts in a book and
SELL them to make money for themselves), just maybe I should jump on
the greed train and charge for them. *SIGH. *

Leah *

I am sorry somebody ABUSED your pattern ,
mirjam

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:30:49 -0700, Leah wrote:

I'm angry and disappointed, and my Star Wars knit and crochet chart page
is down for the time being.

Why? Someone didn't honor the injunction that they were for personal use
only and not to be used to make items for sale and have used not 1, but 2
of my charts to make a scarf they are now trying to sell on Ebay.

A friend reported them, since I don't have an Ebay account, but for now,
my page is down until this is taken care of.

Sheesh, you try and do something nice, and some dweeb is always going to
try and make money off your work, aren't they? I wanted to keep these
free, but maybe, since this is the second time in a few months someone has
wanted to try and sell them (the first being a publisher who wanted me to
enter a contest in which the "winners" would give up their copyright so
these people could put their charts in a book and SELL them to make money
for themselves), just maybe I should jump on the greed train and charge
for them. SIGH.

Leah

That is a cheek Leah but it is a compliment in another way as someone
thinks your design is worth stealing! I'm sorry it has happened though.

--
Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light

I am sorry that you are upset. However, it doesn't really matter if
they were only for personal use. Infringement of copyright law has
nothing to do with whether one is profiting from the illegal use of a
copyrighted item or not, only whether the owner of the intellectual
property has not been reimbursed for the use of their intellectual property.

Leah wrote:
I'm angry and disappointed, and my Star Wars knit and crochet chart
page is down for the time being.

Why? Someone didn't honor the injunction that they were for personal
use only and not to be used to make items for sale and have used not
1, but 2 of my charts to make a scarf they are now trying to sell on
Ebay.

myswendy wrote:
Oh I'm so sorry that has happened! I mean, it's one thing to use the
pattern to make personal gifts but quite another to sell them for
profit when that has been explicitly prohibited by the author.

Not really, unless the copyright statement specifically allows this, and
I can't imagine that the Star Wars people have included "okay for
personal use only" statements in their copyrights.

Leah wrote:
I don't have an account on Ebay, but a friend does and reported the
page. We'll see if the item is pulled. If they say they aren't going
to pull it, my friend is going to post a question for everyone to see
about copyright/use violation using the ask the seller a question form
which will be publicly posted on the item's page. A few people have
looked at it, but no one has bid.

The questions asked of sellers are not REQUIRED to be posted publically.
They only are ABLE to be posted publically.

So far, everyone else has been great. I search for my work on the net
every so often to make sure no one is trying to sell my work as their
own, and I've found where people have made things using the patterns.
I've heard of people using them to knit, crochet, and do cross stitch
using the crochet charts since they are designed on a square grid.

I hope this comes across kindly -- with how incensed you are about
someone using something you created, don't you feel that the person who
created Star Wars in the first place should also be angry that his/her
intellectual property is being used without permission?

The reason I ask is because I spent four years fighting someone who was
copying what I wrote in public and placing it on her web site in a
manner that made it appear that I supported her philosophy of my
profession, which I totally opposed, and regardless of whether she was
making money on her web site or not, I still held the rights according
to copyright to insist that she remove every word or mine that she
manually spliced into her web page. I didn't have to put up with it
just because she wasn't a business.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:26:06 -0800, Samantha Hill - take out TRASH to
reply wrote:

I hope this comes across kindly -- with how incensed you are about
someone using something you created, don't you feel that the person who
created Star Wars in the first place should also be angry that his/her
intellectual property is being used without permission?

I did some reading about copyright. The characters belong to
Lucasarts, having been created by that company/entity. However, the
way I understand it, the work I did in creating something tangible,
knit and crochet items with a color images on them, belongs to me.

I have never tried to sell these to make a profit. However, I was
recently approached by a book publisher wanting me to enter their
intarsia design contest, and if deemed a "winner", the fine print said
that I'd lose the copyright to my work, and they would then own it for
the length of copyright, meaning they could sell and resell my work
for profit as often as they wanted. I doubt they'd be able to legally
do that if my work was considered the property of Lucasarts.

Plus, the only image on my page that I did not copyright was a
derivative work, based on someone else's work. She did a square
crochet chart of the Rebel insignia that I based my knit chart on. I
didn't think her Rebel insignia was accurate, but since my work was
heavily based on hers, I understood from what I read that my
derivative work could not receive a copyright. Therefore, I
attributed my derivative knit chart to the original creator, notified
everyone on the page that the image does not qualify for a copyright,
and I also placed a link to her page on my site.

So what this long-winded post is saying is that I understand if it's
your original work, you can copyright it. If it's a derivative, you
can't. Some may argue that since my images are based on characters
created by Lucasarts they are derivative works, but my interpretation
of the law, which I hope is correct, is that since those knit and
crochet charts I did copyright weren't based on someone else's knit or
crochet charts, they are unique, and they did qualify for copyright
protection.

I have to do more research, but I've heard it said if you state
someone can't use your work for profit, whether they pay you for it or
not, they are not to try and do so.

Leah