Creative Commons

If you look at the top of my sidebar, you will see I now have a Creative Commons License. I had an unfortunate incident recently where I found an almost exact duplicate of one of my original designs being sold for profit. When I confronted the person responsible I was told, "All of this is a complicated issue and the internet has really confused things for crafters." So, I wanted to make it a little less confusing by providing some copyright.

I thought that not copying someone's work for profit was common sense and that the internet crafting community was generally one of support and understanding, and I am still convinced that it is. However, there will always be confusion as to what exactly is inspiration and what exactly is copying. Hopefully, the creative commons makes it a little clearer.

Basically, all text, photographs and original designs on this site are copyrighted by me. You are free to copy them, provided that you give me credit and that you do not make any money from it. I, in turn, will do my best to credit anyone else's work I display on this blog (for example, the pattern for this duck came from a library book that I referenced in the original post and this oven mitt was inspired by Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio) and only sell my original work.

Of course, we can get into debates over what exactly is original. For example, there are many quilt blocks that are traditional and no one can really claim it as their own design. Does that mean that I can't make a log cabin quilt and sell it since I wasn't the original person to create it? Of course not. And that is where the confusion comes in. I'm not an expert. I suppose the only thing I can do is to follow my own head and my own heart and hope that others will do the same.

Here is a blog post from Whip Up about copyright and crafting from back in March, if you would like to read more about it.