I have joined several Facebook embroidery in the last several months and have learned new techniques and designs and sales going on, so overall the experience has been good. However, I saw a post today that a digitizer and vendor wrote to address the fact that one person had abused her trust and tried to sell one of her designs as their own. I understand that it is wrong, and I would be angry too. However, she was basically fussing at the whole group and I got the impression that the underlying attitude was "you ungrateful members"! This is a digitizer that has violated copyright over and over and now gets around it by retiring and then reviving those designs for a period of 24-48 hours. Seems to me that both the person selling a design that originally came from her, and her selling copyrighted designs are both wrongs. What do you think?

Copyright is a beast that few actually fully understand--and even fewer care to follow because of difficulty with enforcement. The best we can do is educate ourselves to follow the rules and report abuse when possible.

1 comment

by parkermom 07 Nov 2019

Seems like if there's a question whether a design might be copyrighted, then it's best to stay away. I won't buy from this person again, for sure! I'm also leaving her Facebook group. There are so many people that post thank-you's on it for bringing those "retired" (blatant copyrighted) designs back for a limited time and these people have bought them. They know it's wrong. Makes me crazy!

It is sad that people think that they don't have to abide by copyright laws or are trying to work around it. Wrong is wrong.

It is interesting to see quite a number have given you a flower but not commented. I am not on Facebook but this is the reason that we do not allow postings here as unfortunately many do not adhere to Copyright. I am sure at some point that they will be caught up with for their infringements. I think if the postings are 'full of grammatical errors' it is possible that English isn't their first language. Keep enjoying getting aggravated. Theft, stealing, selling stolen goods etc is wrong everywhere.

Copyright infringement can not be bypassed by retiring and reviving a stolen design. It is stolen and will remain stolen. There is always a bad apple in the bunch that ruins it for everyone else.

2 comments

by parkermom 06 Nov 2019

She has done Jiminy Cricket, Chick-Fil-A, Target, and lots of others, and her posts are full of grammatical errors. I think I keep looking at her Facebook page just to get aggravated!

by vickiannette 06 Nov 2019

sounds like you may need to 'retire' this person, so annoying.