I know that this has been covered before in blogland. Extensively I would imagine. Let’s call it laziness but I’m going to ask the questions anyway.
What difference, if any, is there between buying a pattern, making the garment and then selling the finished product on and having someone else buy the pattern and materials, making the garment and then charging them for your dressmaking labour and is either of these ok?
I have a feeling that the first option would be a no-no. I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you do buy a dress pattern that the copyright is that you need to buy one pattern per dress you plan to make. So if you were to onsell the completed product, I can’t see that working really.
One more question. If either of the above two scenarios are ok, what implications are there when I want to use a vintage pattern that I paid 50c for?
I’m sure your advice is going to be great!
-Jemma
5 comments:
You're right, of course one can't legally use a copyrighted commercial pattern to make goods to sell. Illegal!
As a dressmaker (when I was one) the scenario is usually that the customer buys a pattern and materials and takes them to the dressmaker who charges for their time only. The dressmaker is not financially profitting from the use of the commercial pattern, only for their skills.
If you buy a vintage pattern the copyright may have expired. If you look up Australian copyright law on Wikipedia you'll see that the copyright on most printed materials, let's assume patterns are included, is seventy years from the end of the year of publication. So if you had a pattern printed in 1939 you could now use it to make garments to sell, but if it was printed in 1940 you'd have to wait until 2010 was over to use it in this way.
It's all so confusing! I think it's probably easier to just make your own pattern so that you don't have to worry about it.
No idea, whatsoever. Soz!
I knew I'd seen a big post about this somewhere, and I found it just now: http://badskirt.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-copyright-list.html
One of the comments puts the legal status of this issue very simply:
"For me to simply purchase a pattern and then photocopy a bunch of them to sell again would be unlawful under copyright law. However, it does not appear to be unlawful (maybe not nice or right, but not unlawful) for me to purchase a pattern, then make the item and then sell the item."
It's not as clear-cut an issue as I had always believed.
No idea either, seems a big headache. I think badskirts list is the one I have seen before.
for independent patterns, there is a thread over at the forum at http://www.craftymamas.net/forum called Ultimate 'whose patterns can you make and sell' list, lots of info there, might be helpful??
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