From: gallen@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Gwen Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.sewing,rec.crafts.textiles
Subject: Re: Stitchery Legal Question
Date: 20 Nov 92 12:43:08 GMT
Reply-To: gallen@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Gwen Allen)
Followup-To: alt.sewing
Distribution: usa
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In alt.sewing, dmd@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (debra.m.dicke) writes:
>In article <Bxq0to.91x@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> pmmuggli@midway.ecn.uoknor
>.edu  (pauline muggli) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov12.151158.7522@super.org> jill@super.org (Amelia L. Scott)
>writes:
>>
>
>>>want to stitch it and hang it on my wall at home, but will I
>>>have to hide this in the bedroom since it probably has a
>>>copyright on it?  I don't want to sell the design, I only want
>>>to hang it on my wall so that I can see it and enjoy it.  Is
>>>there a problem with this?
>>
>>i don't think there is a problem - but i'm an engineer not a
>>lawyer.  since it is for your own use.  for example, i don't
>>think museusm hold copyrights on paintings.  and you see the
>>mona lisa reproduced everywhere.  you could  possibly run into
>>problems if you tried to sell it, but again i don't know.  since
>>it is for your own place, i don't see the problem.
>>
>
>I was at the art museum yesterday and artists can and do copyright
>their paintings. I was surprised that some of them were
>copyrighted in the 30's and 40's. It would seem that the
>book you used to make the pattern from would state any
>copyright - after all they are copying the work for the
>book.
>
>Debra



According to the Copyright Office material I sent for, copyrights are
effective for the lifetime of the original creator (the holder of copyright)
plus 50 years.  Copyrights can be "handed down" to beneficiaries after
the death of the original creator but are still only effective for that
50-year period after the death of the creator.  Therefore, many of the
old master's paintings are no longer copyrighted.  To copy an old master
for the purpose of selling the copy as an original is forgery but is
not copyright infringement. A book with pictures of the paintings is
a copyrighted book.  It would be infringement on the copyright of the
book if you copied the book.  But as far as making a X-stitch of say,
the Mona Lisa, for your own use, I can't see any copyright infringement.

For example, Judge Learned Hand (this is paraphrased, of course) said
that if it were possible to take a newborn baby and seal it up in a
cave for all of its life, with absolutely no contact with the outside
world..and that baby, as it grew up, wrote a poem and titled it "Ode
to a Grecian Urn", and that poem was identical to the one we all read
in high school...there would be no copyright infringement.  Because
that baby had not seen the original and therefore his poem was not a
copy.  Copyrights protect against copying!

Some things are public domain..like Santa Claus.  Anyone can do a project
including Santa Claus.  As long as it's not a Santa design that someone
else has created...such as the Coca Cola Santa.  Or the Walt Disney
version of Cinderella, etc.

If I sit in my workroom (in Maryland) and create a work of art and another
artist/craftsman sits in his workroom in California and creates the
same or a similar work of art...AND neither one of us is aware of the
work of the other...then BOTH works are considered original..neither
has copied the other...and both works are eligible for copyright protection.

Some years ago, when I owned and worked in a craft shop, I was dismayed
by the number of people who copied others...they even used to brag that
they could copy anything...people used to bring in others work to ask
us advice about copying..what supplies they needed and could we show
them how to paint a face just like that and so on.  Even the local government
was into copying...local Homemakers Clubs used to come in with photocopies
of craft books...they had got the copies from the group teacher.

Enough!  I don't want to run on any more!

Gwen