I was looking through the massive silver issue of Vogue Knitting the other day (no, I didn't buy it, the patterns were hideous) and I started to read the interview with the "old guard" designers. When they got to the part about patterns today, and how Internet patterns are not the same as the pattern that a yarn company puts out (not proof-read, super cheap, etc) one of the designers mentioned that people who have copied patterns from her book in the library have then mailed her 4 dollars with a note saying, "I copied pattern X and here is payment for it."
I found that somewhat astounding, because I had never thought of doing that, and with a library, there is a certain about of fair use, but I'm throwing out the question, should we be mailing payment like that? I mean, from the designer's point of view, if someone just copied a pattern from a library, and doesn't buy the book itself, then they are losing revenue ... I'm not sure, overall, since I have my old weird internal justification system, where, if I like more than three patterns, I buy the book, and if not, I photocopy them from the library's copy of the book. I also buy patterns books, including the new norah gaughan for berroco (backordered for a month!) and I've bought some of the RYC Rowan books, AND subscribe to Interweave and should probably start subscribing to Knitscene since I buy it so often. So overall, I would say that, not counting yarn, a lot of my dollar does go towards the designers themselves ... but should knitters go that extra effort to send those 4 dollars in the mail ?
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(105)
-
▼
August
(14)
- New Magknits
- Work Wardrobe
- Google Book Search
- Stash Inhancement
- That's right.
- Is there something like this in LA?
- Vogue Knitting Anniversary
- SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
- 100 Tutorial Websites
- Rent game
- The DOBAG project
- Farmer's Market Fun
- and the plastic bag crafting continues
- cool craft challenge
-
▼
August
(14)
2 comments:
There's been a big discussion (still kind of trickling on) about this + related copyright issues that I was following for a while on Ravelry (until I got fed up and moved on).
What follows is my complete biased
opinion (and it's not necessarily a legal or correct perspective):
The library paid for the book. There is already revenue from that. Paying for the pattern again is like double jeopardy. Not only that, but you are likely to be free marking for the design, if you wear it and tell other people. I sleep fine at night knowing that the designer got paid when the book was sold to the library (actually, probably before; they likely got a flat one-time payment no matter what, that's what most craft publishers look to be doing, so they got their $K even if no one ever checks that book out of the library at all).
A designer would have to be pretty oblivious to not know this happens wrt libraries. It's like knowing that you're entering into business with libraries should allow for some of these types of things, akin to some libraries' video public performance rites deals.
So if they were that adamant about getting $4 per pattern, I'd say they could not sell their books to libraries. Which would be silly, becuase libraries are a large market chunk, which means losing a signifacnt source of revenue.
I think the problem with this situation is more with the book as business model. I really think if a designer wants to get compensated for every single individual pattern, then they need to sell them separately to knitters, which is so easy with current technology.
Honestly, I would rather shell out $4-5 for one individual pattern that I really like and will make. I copy patterns from library books becuase there is one pattern I want, but it's not worth the entire price of the book ($20+). If the designer had an option to buy the single pattern, rather than only available in bulk, I would buy that. Heck, I pay *more* for grocery items for a single person as opposed to buying the "bulk buy" becuase I simply don't want that; I would do the same in these situations.
Plus, don't get me started on the whole over-zealous pattern copyright thing that ends up tying into this... grr.
Yeah, I like the democracy of the Internet, where a designer can sell individual patterns for a greater overall profit, and not have to comply with hidebound notions of pattern books (catch the pun?). I like that technology is starting to push the boundries of printing, as in the case of the Expresso Book Machine.
I joined Ravelry awhile ago, but it wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. Mostly, it made me realise that I would rather knit than endlessly talk about knitting.
Post a Comment