Copyright

There is a lot of talk lately about copyright issues on many of the craft blogs.  With good reason.  People have taken pictures or crafts and duplicated them so they get the credit and or can sell them.  I think the first post I read where someone had made patterns to sell and the pattern had been made and the finished product sold was right on.  The other ones I have read about have also been very clearly an infringement.  But, honestly, I think it is getting me down about the blogging community.  It is causing me to ask myself why I post what I post and why I blog in general.  Lately with each post too I am brought back to preschool/ elementary school where we tell our kids to get over it because it is a form of flattery.  I am beginning to feel like we are either lying to our kids or we need to realize that our culture creates this problem.  I must admit too that one post about copyright very clearly to me did not look at all like the same product.  It makes me think about my own motivations in writing this blog.  And where the lines actually are.  Because honestly, I write this blog because at some point in my life I would like to actually be a writer.  I have a lot to learn before that point, but that circles in the back of my mind.  As I learn about writing it is mostly through what I read, styles I would liek to imitate and such.  And I could see those people all of a sudden saying they write in that specific voice and so no one can even write close to it. 

I think the other effect all this talk has on me is that I feel like the blog community is not such a safe place.  I feel very uncomfortable even looking at other blogs lately because I feel like if I get any inspiration and post it on my blog then I may be accused.  I feel this way because while I can see the clear cut cases very easily, there are some very gray areas that are causing accusations to be made that I would never want directed at me.  I wonder about the reason why these gray areas, or places where there does not seem to actually be infringement at all, are such a big deal (I feel like I just said something very taboo.)  Because I guess my purpose in creating is for my immediate recipients joy.  So if someone post a quilt they make for their child and it inspires me as a building block for something I make I feel like that should be OK.  But, I would be mortified to be villianized on the web, so I am reading fewer and fewer craft blogs, and feeling like maybe I should keep to myself.  Not out of fear of being copied.  But out of a realization that I am sensitive to images I see and things I read and sometimes ideas come to me that I may not remember that they had inspiration somewhere else.  And with some of the angry things I have read I really don't want any of that pointed at me.  You know? 

Maybe we should start copyrighting campaign promises so that they can't be repeated, or politics so that each politician is required to be innovative! 

Comments

[Melissa]

Hey,I don't read many craft blogs, but I do know what you're talking about as far as motivation for blogging. There have been times when for some randon reason, I have gotten tons of hits to my blog and it is such an ego boost and then other times (mostly) when there are very few hits and I feel like I have the blog that died. I do really enjoy doing the blog because it gives me a chance to write that I would not otherwise have in my everyday life, but I do have this desire to have what I write read. I don't know if desiring acknowledgement is unique to our culture or if it is just a very human trait. I would guess it is more pronounced in our culture. Anyway, good post and good luck tomorrow!