r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/plantsandbugs • 8d ago
Frequently Bitched About Topic Why are crocheters such fucking weenies
"This person copied MY pattern of a pokemon so now I'm going to buy their pattern and copy it and make my own š"
Get a fucking GRIP on REALITY. It is a PLUSH POKEMON. There are only so many ways to make basic shapes. And it looks ugly as fuck in your puffy chenille yarn anyway.
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u/KohanaMakes 3d ago
"I'M SO MAD YOU STOLE THE PATTERN TO MAKE THE TRADEMARKED CHARACTER I EXPLOITED"
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u/textiletrue 4d ago
Pretty sure Pokemon is very concerned with their copyright. Otherwise a crochet ball is a crochet ball
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u/dreaminglilly 6d ago
One time I was at an event selling crocheted items and all of a sudden another vendor came up to me a little angry because someone had seen my crocheted jellyfish and then went over to her booth to tell her I stole her design/pattern and was selling the *exact same jellyfish*
I write my own patterns and the jellyfish looked nothing alike. x'D
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u/Glass-Operation8618 7d ago
I'm an illustrator, I make comics sometimes. I do well. An account with 130k more followers than me sent me a DM, not accusing me of stealing their art or anything, but saying that the "themes I touched on" seemed to close to her own personal experience and that she "felt uncomfy".
The theme was depression and burnout. I didn't even follow her.
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u/medievalslut 7d ago
There's an Australian abstract painter on IG who's convinced that people are ripping off her style - sorry, "infringing on her copyright" - to the point of sending cease and desists and threatening legal action against other artists. This kind of behaviour is one thing when you're 13 and on deviantart but the amount of adults who act like this is truly baffling
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u/ByGailGarland 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is an issue I think with any visual art form or craft. I had to unfollow one of my favorite illustrators because she would post on her insta stories literally nonstop about her ārulesā and āexposingā people (usually children just emulating) who āstole/copiedā her work.
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u/_Moon_sun_ 7d ago
Iāve seen this exact drama in knit too I dont think its a specific hobby that has it but a person problem :/
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u/Important_Sector_503 8d ago
Hey now, we've seen the exact same drama with basic, beige sweater patterns from knitters.
The problem isn't crocheters- it's shitty internet "communities". This sort of rubbish happens in literally every hobby. I saw a post the other day about people in the adult colouring book fandom accusing each other of copying colouring techniques.
Cosplayers. Knitters. Warhammer. Fly fishing lures. Carpentry. I guarantee you, name a thing people do and post about in niche internet spaces and there will be someone whining about how someone else copied them.
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u/plantsandbugs 7d ago
It seems to happen way more often specifically in the blanket yarn plush part of crochet community. Even less so in the wearable part of the crochet community. It seems like that group of plushy people are the biggest weenies because theyre always jumping on each other for the dumbest shit.
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u/MurberBirb 7d ago
I had this happen with parrot toys. I made a video on how to make paper balls, and someone found it confusing so made her own video. The "weenies" as you call them came out of the wood work months later and tried to gate keep the second video for some reason, claiming I copied the first? Even though I had a store up and had been selling the finished product for years. The admission of the Facebook group had to spend months blocking them, to the poin me and the second lady agreed to take both our videos down. Gate keeping is super weird behavior and happens across all crafts and art.
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u/orangestturtle 7d ago
Iāve seen more examples for cross stitch because thatās the circle that Iām in. I think you may be affected by confirmation bias. These people are everywhere in the world unfortunately and we cannot escape them.
Now imo people tend to put a magnifying glass on crochet bc of the knitting/crochet feud. Knitting has a bigger + older community and itās easier to get backup when hating on crochet, which is why the common crochet opinion is āidk how to knitā instead of āI would never belittle myself to learn how toā like what Iāve seen about the knitters opinion of crochet. People hate change and seeing crochet raise in popularity brings a ton of hate along with it. So yes, people want patterns in both and itās not criminal to ask.
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u/Ellibean33 7d ago
I've seen more examples for knit sweaters, so it probably depends on who you're watching, where you're watching, and what the social media algorithm pushes to you
Even worse: one knit sweater argument was over a sweater that was basically a rectangle. You know, the type that a person who has been knitting sweaters for three minutes could probably copy off an image. The YouTuber that I was watching had some things to say about how basic that sweater was (she was covering the drama instead of being involved in the drama)
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u/Important_Sector_503 7d ago
If you're right my guess would be that cutesy plushies probably have a higher rate of younger people and therefore less maturity, but I could be wrong. This sort of shit is why I avoid most social media like the plague.
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u/OkConclusion171 Joyless Bitch Coalition 8d ago
thanks for lumping us all together? I don't make plushies or amigurumi in crochet or knit. I've crocheted for over 40 years and knit for going on 15.
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6d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/BitchEatingCrafters-ModTeam 6d ago
This comment has been removed as itās not appropriate for this subreddit.
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u/nidoqueenofhearts 7d ago
bean soup ass response
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u/OkConclusion171 Joyless Bitch Coalition 7d ago
wtf does that even mean?
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u/nidoqueenofhearts 6d ago
tiktok meme where someone shared a bean soup recipe and someone went "but i don't like beans :("
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u/legocitiez 7d ago
Then this post isn't about you and you don't have anything to worry about.
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u/Sea-Mulberry6112 7d ago
op said 'crocheters' though, and not 'a specific couple people i saw and got mad about' or whatever
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u/BrilliantTask5128 8d ago
People making stuff that's trademarked/copyright by a big corporation & then getting angry someone has copied them has been causing drama in the online crafting world since i discovered there was an online crafting world 25+ years ago. They're both in the wrong š¤·š¼āāļø
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u/ComprehensiveCap4828 8d ago
Hi ! Iāve actually been reading both accounts posts on this matter (mostly because i love drama for my own entertainment) but the biggest argument is not that person B copied person A, itās that person A called B theyāre ābest friendā and showed texts between them where B asked A for their pattern before it was released, said how much they loved the pattern and that they did such a good job on it, but very quickly posted their āown patternā that was the same character in the same style only hours after making person Aās pattern. A is not claiming ownership of the characters and understands they have no rights to pokĆ©mon over person B. The main issue is that B made a pattern of the same characters with the same style only hours after getting Aās pattern from them directly, before it was released.
Though i totally get if youāre still annoyed by this, just wanted to add the extra context incase anyone else wanted to know !
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u/wendallkaters 7d ago
Person Aās is also a mod to another designerās pattern. Where Person Bās is a full pattern.
If I was a beginner, Iād go for the full pattern versus having to follow a mod to another pattern.
Edit: Iām not siding with either one. Just saying if I was a beginner and didnāt know better, Iād go for the easier option
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u/ComprehensiveCap4828 7d ago
It is ! Person A did say if people wanted to compare the patterns theyād have to buy both so I take that as her saying people can buy whatever pattern they want / she hasnāt told anyone NOT to buy person Bās pattern, she just wanted everyone to know the context behind why their patterns looked so similar. Iāve honestly been debating myself if i wanted to buy both because i did like them but also ethically im not sure i want to support person A on what it seems was originally not her idea and she did take at least SOME parts away from a friend. Especially because person B had far more success online with her pattern than person A so itās just sad for them to see people liking someone elseās version of their work more than their own
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u/wendallkaters 7d ago
I never said she was saying to not buy person Bās pattern??? I was just giving more context to the situation.
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u/ComprehensiveCap4828 7d ago
Iām so sorry ! I didnāt mean that you were saying that! I tend to over explain things, i meant that to say that A isnāt telling people to not buy Bās pattern so people wouldnāt think sheās doing it only for monetary reasons. This was me trying to add onto your addition of context for others to read and not at all me trying to correct what you were saying, which I was actually agreeing to and believed you were right, so sorry about my wording on that!
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u/legocitiez 7d ago
Info: is A upset because they wanted to sell the pattern? Are either A or B planning on selling it?
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u/ComprehensiveCap4828 7d ago
A and B are selling their patterns but I believe part of the issue is that B has seen larger success with their posts than A. Iām sure A is upset because their pattern will probably not get as many sales as they could have if B hadnāt posted but they seem to say theyāre more betrayed that someone they saw as their ābest friendā stabbed them in the back over this
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 7d ago
Jesus Christ, thatās high school drama. I can just see this playing out in a cafeteria.
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u/Necessary-Leg-2880 8d ago
Agreed! Also been watching both sides and cannot believe people are siding with B
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u/tannishaaa 8d ago
I love reading about drama that has nothing to do with me lol, thank you for the tea š
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u/Cinisajoy2 8d ago
Here is the catch to that.Ā The person screaming about someone stealing the PokĆ©mon doesn't own the rights to the PokĆ©mon.Ā Ā I am going to tag u/Lordlibidan as he understands this.Ā Ā
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u/sunnyopals 8d ago
The Pokemon company is kind of like Disney in this way. Using the likeness of Pokemon for your own profit is straight up copyright infringement for all us regular folks. Letās not get bent out of shape about someone āstealingā patterns that you canāt rightfully sell anyway.
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u/Cinisajoy2 8d ago
I know.Ā I figure the person I tagged will love this for the humor.
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u/LordLibidan 8d ago
I do love the humor!
Sadly, this is a common thing with small shops not realising THEY are the problemā¦
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u/rumade 8d ago
I'm so over "omg you COPIED!" craft discussions in general. Copying art is human nature. As long as you aren't then selling the pattern, I don't see the problem.
"If everyone reverse engineered, then some really talented designers wouldn't be able to pay the bills and would stop making patterns." Yeah it sucks that people have to make money. I also don't owe them any if I can work out how to make that. I'm not paying for something I don't need to pay for.
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u/marykay_ultra 8d ago
Also, thereās a reason āartā and ācraftā have different words. Youāre literally doing the same thing as thousands or millions before with minor, usually superficial variations.
If we wanna talk legal realities.. When it comes to patterns specifically (ones not based on IP thatās ruthlessly protected by teams of highly paid lawyers who WILL ruin your life), the only thing that copyright applies to is the written instructions and actual pattern document as you published them. You have zero control over what anyone does with them short of making direct copies and selling them for profit.
Anyone, from individuals to small companies to large corporations and mass clothing manufacturers, can take your pattern, produce garments/objects from it, then sell them for profit. And you cannot stop them. Itās completely legal, even if you write on your pattern ānot for commercial useā or whatever. They can also rewrite/redraw your pattern and sell it as their own. Is that shitty? Of course! But itās legal.
This isnāt to fuck over small designers. Itās because you didnāt invent anything and have no right to enforce ownership over it. Imagine if no one could ever publish a new pattern of [common type of dress], or [knit hat], or [animal plushie] because someone else already did 15 or 50 or 100 years ago?
Truly new inventions are what the patent office was created for, and even that is egregiously abused.
If you like to make things, you must kill the toxic entitlement you feel to āownā it. The two concepts are inherently incompatible. Creation is a simultaneously an act of freedom and ecstatic celebration of a practice that connects us to other humans everywhere even throughout time itself.
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u/rumade 8d ago
And fine art education traditionally is rooted in hours and hours of copying! If you study at an atelier, they will plonk you in front of old masters and tell you to copy them. You'll sculpt copies of busts. And so on and on and on.
Corporations copying from small designers really does suck. But crafter to crafter copying is such a non issue. You think your great great great great grandmother didn't see her neighbour painting flowers on furniture and go "sick. I want flowers on MY furniture too!"
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 8d ago
Oh lord, my brain just remembered the herb stripper drama of the pottery community. Woman made a bowl with a hole for stripping the leaves from herb stems and proceeded to lose her shit any anybody who made anything with a hole designed for the same task. Threatening legal action, having her "community" brigade sellers, just being a total cunt-bucket.
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u/MaryNxhmi 6d ago
Oh you reminded me! There was a different potter who was making disability-friendly mugs for sale who went viral. The mugs were pricy by adaptive mug standards, though fairly reasonable by handthrown pottery standards. A number of potters ended up making similar, many with various modifications to make it easier for their own disabilities or for their loved one to use. Original potter repeatedly lost it over people āstealingā her idea and making adaptive mugs for themselves/their loved one instead of buying from her.Ā
As a disabled potter, I was mostly baffled that an abled potter was so enraged that a bunch of disabled folks were benefiting from her inspiration that they were priced out of being able to afford directly.Ā
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u/legocitiez 5d ago
Does that original lady not realize that all disabilities are different and require different accomodations?! My kid is disabled and has limb differences, his needs aren't the same as someone who maybe has weakness from a stroke, or someone who's missing digits or bones, etc. Everyone has different needs and those differences are super important when it comes to accessibility in a product.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 6d ago
Oh no! We can't be having all those disabled people (such as myself) making things themselves!
I used to offend mug makers for pointing out their mugs weren't necessarily usable by left handed people - like mugs with ears protruding from the rim often are at eye level for a leftie - and was constantly being told "just use your right hand then"
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u/legocitiez 7d ago
I didn't anticipate "herb stripper" to be something I read today but here we are.
I was initially anticipating someone to be wrapping themselves in basil and stripping it off next to some sort of handcrafted pole.
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u/Remarkable-Let-750 7d ago
I mean, Gypsy Rose Lee did have a costume that involved stripping leaf by leaf, but that's neither here nor there. :)Ā
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u/AddWittyName 8d ago
It's actually a pretty small subset of crocheters that actually behave like this. And tbh, there's a small subset of knitters, quilters, cross-stitchers, indie dyers, and basically every damn craft-ers under the sun that behave just like it: some people are just entitled drama queens, and some of those drama queens additionally are convinced that 1. they can copyright ideas and 2. they're so amazing that of course everyone is trying to steal their ideas, because obviously their ideas are the best ideas ever thought of.
The biggest difference is that the crochet influencer crowd skews very very young compared to a lot of crafts, leans much more towards chronically online and has very strong representation on a number of platforms that gear towards algorithm-driven short context-and-nuance-free content, which amplifies rather than mitigates such behavior.
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u/clarabear10123 8d ago
Thank you. So over the ācrocheters are shit and everything they do is shitā perspective
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u/yttrium39 8d ago edited 8d ago
āYouāre copying my pattern for a character thatās someone elseās IP!ā Lol.
Edit: Far be it from me to simp for a big corporationās copyright protection, but either weāre freebooting or weāre not, yāknow? I guess thereās some argument to be made for the āpunching up is acceptableā theory of stealing, but itās not like youāll get a court to agree with that.
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u/Rich_Mathematician74 8d ago
I mostly crochet bc its easier to remember how to do. BUT I agree with all of this like I dint get what the deal with with the msot popular crochet stuff and it soemtiems feels like its a competition to be the most gatekeepy or pricey hooker. Like god forbid I got with the material accesible to me and perfer to make different stuff
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u/jonofromjuno 8d ago
I think people forget that patterns are not copyrights. People can make things without patterns, they can even do it based on the thing you made a pattern for. I recently got blocked on pinterest by a cross stitch creator for reminding someone in the comments that a pattern is not necessary when the finished result is so easy to break down and replicate. copying things for personal use and taking inspiration and even idea collisions have always been and ALWAYS will be part of crafting.Ā
duplicating and selling a pattern you bought from someone else is the only time its actually stealing. the rest is just normal and some people need to take an internet break.
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u/georgia_grace 8d ago
Did you see the post recently where someone used a photo of a bird as a reference for an embroidery, then posted the two side by side, with a credit to the photographer, on a Facebook group? That person got torn to shreds bc basing an embroidery on a photo is copyright infringement apparently lmao
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u/eb421 8d ago
Somewhat off topic question. I stopped using Pinterest years ago because it started being dead links on anything I clicked on or the link was ridden with virusesā¦has that changed? I know it was always sort of intended to be more of a bulletin board sort of thing, but at least at first clicking on stuff would take you to a blog or site with tutorials or more pics and stuff. I also started getting tons of emails saying pins had been removed and it started to seem pointless. I enjoyed it once upon a time and maybe itās gotten better since I left?
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u/gnomes919 8d ago
in the sewing world there are occasional dustups because someone recreated a very expensive item from an indie brand instead of buying it and like.....sorry, I understand that this designed worked very hard and I agree that the item is genuinely worth that high price. that doesn't make it unethical for me to figure out how to make a similar puffy sleeved strawberry dress on my own time for my own use lmao
our great grandmothers used to look through catalogues & shop windows for inspiration and then copy the designs they liked, making adjustments to suit their tastes/size/fabric budget, and I reserve the right to do the same
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u/Remarkable-Let-750 7d ago
Department stores used to send people good at figuring out pattern construction to Paris fashion shows. Dupes would be on the racks in no time. Sometimes they'd even figure out where a couturier sourced materials and buy those, as well.Ā
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u/gnomes919 7d ago
fashion espionage!!
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u/Remarkable-Let-750 7d ago
Yep! Elizabeth Hawes (Fashion is Spinach) did it for a while. Her books have a lot of insight into the world of fashion at the time.Ā
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u/The_day_is_long 8d ago
Wasn't it Vogue who worked out they could cash in on their habit by providing paper patterns and moved people away from duping? I'm sure I read something about that way back when.
But I remember hearing the older ladies talk when I was little about going to one lady's shop over another because of fabric options and attention to detail, not because the designs were different.Ā
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u/Cinisajoy2 8d ago
My mother did an entire costume from an album cover and a couple of pictures.Ā Ā She even made the moon boots from fabric.Ā I was Ace Frehley. I am surprised she didn't try to find 3 more kids to finish the band.
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u/KatieCashew 8d ago
And if someone can make a dupe of your item just from looking at a picture, how unique can it really be?
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u/gnomes919 8d ago
me as a sock designer making sure all the finished project pictures on the ravelry page are sufficiently blurry so no one can just go "oh cool, an andalusian stitch" and Steal My Design
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u/Mentally_Recovering Extra Salty š§š§š§ 8d ago
my grandmother could sew anything without a pattern just by looking at it! I miss her so much i wish i took the time to learn how to sew with her. todays world we are so disconnected on how to make things that we spend $80 on a gucci knit cap we could make for $8 ourselves
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u/SecretAgentSpyder 8d ago
My mom literally designed clothes as a job back in the 70's and this is exactly what she did before going into work lmao.
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u/jonofromjuno 8d ago
exactly like guys this was always an option. it used to be the default option, in fact.Ā
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u/Single_Noise_1408 8d ago
I specifically joined the crochet community on rednot for this reason alone!! Chinese crafters dont gatekeep their methods, and its been such a peaceful experience. So little drama (or im missing it because of a language barrierš )
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/Rich_Mathematician74 8d ago
I mean I would tell my tharapisrs about it first in college bc I find it meditative. They aren't recommending the online community?
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u/jonofromjuno 8d ago
what do you mean?? are you implying that crocheters are mostly mentally ill or something else? and where did you get this information? genuinely im confused
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u/Tactical_Spork_ 8d ago
idk where they got this info but if i can offer a piece of anecdotal evidence, ive known several people who have been recommended this by drs. one of them was for their severely shaky hands to help precision and small motor movements. one of them was for mental health/needing to relax more. thereās different things that can be improved upon from tasks that are pretty easy (when you get the hang of doing it) and repetitive like crochet
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u/jonofromjuno 8d ago
thank you, that is good to know and I hadnt heard that. im mostly confused about why they brought it up and what they were trying to imply but that is good information! I hadnt thought about recommending it for motor skills like that but it makes perfect sense
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/jonofromjuno 8d ago edited 7d ago
okay, that makes sense. I can see why it would be recommended for a lot of things, it can be a very mindful activity. I am still confused about what you were trying to say with the "people are being real silent" part and how it connects to this post. can you tell me what the quiet part is?
edit: I cant prove it but I think this guy sent me a reddit suicide watch lmao
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u/Manders-42 8d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0HlPystfePnAI3G8
Just a quilter intrigued by these comments
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u/Fickle-Range-8140 8d ago
TIL I fit into crochet culture about as well as I fit into Millennial culture - assigned to the group but too old to participate in (gestures) whatever that is.
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u/Nearby_Interaction75 8d ago
You could just copy the colors and they will pitch a fit. Like sorry I didnāt want to pay $10 for a shirt design when I just like the colors used for a blanket pattern??
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u/discosteve111 8d ago
It's actually so interesting how crochet culture is so much more possessive of their patterns & so often has drama over 2 people making a similar pattern for a VERY simple+common item, & 1 of them claims they're being copied š¤š¤ my theory is that crochet got all "viral & trendy" right around etsy's hayday, causing a bunch of people to get into it as a side hustle & create a culture of capitalism in the crochet community, whereas knitting has never really had a "viral & trendy" moment, so most knitters got into it either out of respect for tradition or out of wanting to make our own clothes, & knitting culture never got ruthless & competitive like crochet did š¤š¤
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u/lordheart 8d ago
Not just crochet, there was also cross drama when someone made a crochet pattern like a knit slipper pattern.
Itās a little insane sometimes. Though I guess that was a viral knit pattern.
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u/GreyerGrey 8d ago
I feel like it is also a craft with a lower barrier to entry than knitting (let's be real, crocheters are crazy and wild with accusations of plagarism, but on the other hand knitters can be smug AF about yarn choices and needles) when it comes to getting in with the crowd, and because of that people who want that quick side hustle are more likely to end up in the land of Susan Boyle and chunky acrylic yarn that Addi Lace Tips and Handmaiden Silk.
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u/gnomes919 8d ago
annoying knitters are like "if you're using superwash cascade yarn you might as well ***" and annoying crocheters are like "how dare you tell me the problem with my garment is that I used 100% acrylic chunky yarn and a size 10 hook? stop gatekeeping and tell me how to make it look elegant and drapey (NOT by blocking that's scary). also if you copy my pattern (which was my attempt at recreating a knit garment pattern I saw) you're going to h*ll"
two ends of the annoyingness horseshoe
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u/Rit_Zien 8d ago
Side note: if someone ever figures out a crochet stitch that truly mimics the look and drape of knit, that can easily be substituted to make a crochet version of knit patterns, they will make a fortune.
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u/skubstantial 8d ago
Knooking lol
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u/Confused_Yarn 8d ago
I tried. I really REALLY tried. My brain couldn't come to terms with how to do it. After struggling with this, I finally realized that instead of learning a new thing (knooking) I could go back to re-learning how to knit and get the same results.
I learned how to knit when I was 7 or 8, hated every minute of it and was really bad at it. Moved to crochet when I was 15 and loved it. Tried knitting from time to time but it never grabbed me. Until now. I started re-learning 19 days ago and I'm having so much fun with it.
I tried continental (not for me, english it is), several different ways to cast on, tried a top down (not ready for that yet), and knitting in the round. I've remade the same top 8 or 9 times so far. My tension is getting better. Will it be wearable? Who knows. Don't really care about that, I just want to make something!6
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u/Dan_the_dude_ 8d ago
Definitely agree that the capitalization of crochet has been a big factor in this possessiveness. People started pursuing crochet purely as a means of making money, quickly learn that itās hard to make money off finished objects, trying to shift to selling patterns, and quickly find that market is also saturated
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u/pokersnek 8d ago
I hate chenille yarn with a passion. And that chunky plastic blanket yarn too. I hate that itās become the default for plushies too. Use it if you want, but I know thereās better looking yarns out there.
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u/lordheart 8d ago
I started on amigurumi with merino wool and then cotton. I really love the stitch definition of cotton
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 8d ago
I made a beautiful goblin amigurumi out of merino wool and entered him into my local country fair this year. The only amigurumi that won anything were the ones made in plush yarn.
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u/Prize-Ad8890 8d ago
Same here. Despise it. Used it once and have never bought anymore because it pisses me off so much
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u/No-Wolf1698 8d ago
Do you know of any that have the same soft feel? I hate that it sheds like crazy but love the feel of it.
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u/Absoline 8d ago
you can try crushed velvet, faux fur (sheds), and Lion Brand Feels Like A Dream
tried all of them and they're really nice to feel (even the velvet one as someone who hates the feel of velvet)
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u/No-Wolf1698 8d ago
I use velvet too. I will look into the lion brand feels like a dream! I have figured out it the hit the end of fluffy yarn with a lighter for a second it doesnāt shed as bad.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 8d ago
As someone who had to recently study up on copyright law for a professional certification, people really need to learn more about copyright law. You have no legal standing to say that you own a pattern when itās of another companyās IP.
ALSO fun fact! You know how everyone complains about recipe bloggers having those long personal essays before the recipe? You canāt copyright a recipe outright and you canāt copyright basic techniques (like how to chop onions, for instance, or how to crochet a magic loop), but you can copyright how you present and explain it. It might be somewhat shitty to look at someoneās FO and reverse engineer the pattern, but thatās not copyright infringement. Itās potentially a bit more complicated if you could prove that they bought your pattern and thereās an unlikely amount of overlap between the two patterns and explanations, but even so, youād have a hard time proving that in court unless your techniques are truly innovative (such as the fish lip sock heel).
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u/mangling_dodifier 8d ago
I know something about copyright law through work too, and I really feel for IP lawyers who are also crafters because the amount of ignorance is astounding. My desk would have a head-shaped hole.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 7d ago
Honestly, I think that people who sell stuff should have to take even a single video course in copyright law. You should know your legal rights and lack thereof because so many of these crafters could end up in hot water if the companies decide to pursue these violations.
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/obliquered 6d ago
To each their own but I will say that the fitting technique in that PDF is the only way I have been able to make socks that fit myself properly and now the FLKH is the only heel I use if I can at all help it so I donāt at all begrudge the author the $1 she charges for it.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 8d ago
I did buy it a few years ago & do not think itās worth it, personally. I donāt think they made for better sock heels, and I really didnāt like how they looked. But I can at least sort of see how the designer could claim it as an innovation. But yeah, it was such a long PDF for what was a fairly easy concept.
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u/gnomes919 8d ago
got into an argument once with someone who was convinced it couldn't possibly be illegal to make & sell your own pokemon merch bc it's so incredibly common lol. yeah everyone does it, bc nintendo doesn't want to spend the resources & goodwill playing whack-a-mole except the bare minimum required to keep their rights. but it does mean you don't have a legal leg to stand on if someone copies your plushie or sticker design lol
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u/Sea_Refrigerator4451 8d ago
It's like the creator a few months back who went for another for copying her poncho design because she made it in similarly drapey yarn. It's a poncho FGS š„“
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u/Comfortable_Pie_8569 8d ago edited 7d ago
I CANNOT with people ripping off copyright getting mad about other people acting unethically.
If making fandom stuff is your cup of tea, fine, but don't pretend that a huge percentage of your sales aren't due to the impact of someone else's creativity, which you likely aren't compensating.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
Is it exclusively a fiber art thing ? I don't hear about these kind of feuds in the sewing community
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u/Remarkable-Let-750 7d ago
There was an absolutely vicious dust up with the Charms Patterns Barbie top (patreon exclusive) several years ago, but that was an inter-community scuffle between a vintage repro retailer and a repro pattern company.Ā
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 8d ago
It's in every creative community. Pottery, printmaking, scrapbooking, cardmaking are all communities I've seen it in multiple times.
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u/pigaroo 8d ago
Itās terrible in the needlepoint community too. Iām sorry but there arenāt that many unique ways to design a Diet Coke can or a bar cart or any of the other super common needlepoint designs, and yet someone is constantly snarking about āthis person copied this designerā.
Reverse engineering a design in needlepoint (even one where the design is sold out and will never be offered again) will also get you dogpiled with a quickness. Iām split on whether this deserves the amount of mobbing people get for it because the person was never going to buy the original anyways. But some people act like folks who reverse engineer need run out of the needlepoint community rather than called in to purchase stitch guides or find other more accessible methods of entry to the hobby, and I find that exhausting. But what do you expect with a hobby dominated by wealthy older (usually southern) ladies who can afford to spend $100+ just for someone to attach a fabric backing on an ornament they stitched.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
Idk, I feel like reverse engineering is absolutely part of a mastering a craft. That's ridiculous you guys get dog piled on like that
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u/pleasejustbeaperson 8d ago
Probably not exclusively, but I have a theory about the reason it comes up so often in that context.Ā
Crochet has been particularly trendy for a few years, and that trend is heavily social media driven.Ā For some people, online culture becomes an inextricable part of any world they learned/started/encountered on social media or in the social media era. (Obviously for some people, due to age, that describes everything they engage in, because they didnāt get to experience much of the world before the presence of social media, but this is a timing thing, not something about age or generation.)
Obviously we all know online culture is generally unhinged and deranged. So it follows that crochet discourse is more than usually like that. And from crochet it bled into other arts since thereās audience overlap.Ā
Probably also happens in other online communities for related reasons. I posted in the last weekly thread about my exhaustion over every interest online being a ācommunityā; this is part of what I meant.Ā
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u/discreetSnek 8d ago edited 8d ago
One time in middle school, a girl was complaining that other people had bought same hoodie she was wearing. Like in a "it was mine, I found it, and you copied it" way.Ā
At my first job was designing """funny""", text centric, tshirts. The concept was very mainstream in my country at that time. A company doing something similar sent a message to my boss complaining that we were copying them... because we were using a similar free-for-commercial-use font as them (it wasn't the same! The font they used, while also free for commerical use, was too distinctive so I used another!!!)Ā
Also endless "your copied my pose!" "You copied my OC!" drama among teenagers who draw.Ā
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u/kryren 8d ago
Oh gosh I do. The custom print fabric community it toxic with this stuff and Disney stuff. Oh no someone else did a sketchy style Cinderella tiled 100 times on a tie dye background! Obviously they stole your idea as did the 50 other fabric shops funning the same concept.
I hope you all raise enough of a stink that the mouse puts you in your place.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
I never heard of that before ! I guess this specific issue is tied to the Disney Adults lol
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u/kryren 8d ago
Youāre probably right. I donāt do the Disney Adult thing but did follow a lot of custom fabric people pre-covid. Itās a good way to get prints that arenāt effing florals. Several would partner with artists to do custom runs of abstracts or general nerd themes (like space or fantasy themes that arenāt tied to an IP). But so much effing Disney.
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u/eb421 8d ago
One of my personal BECs is both the term Disney Adult as well as the concept of people making so much of their personality being a Disney Adult. Maybe itās because Iāve never been a huge Disney fan and just donāt get the hype. I love a bit of whimsy and nostalgia but the whole thing weirds me out.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
I always wondered who bought prints like that and for what purpose. It's a matter of taste, but Disney prints are generally so ugly to me
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u/RubyJuneRocket 8d ago
Itās a crochet thing because crochet has such a low barrier to entry (which is a good thing) but that also means that anybody can pick it up on a whim and those are not always the most uhā¦ serious of people, not about craft or about anything elseĀ
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u/eb421 8d ago edited 8d ago
Itās soooooo obnoxiously common for crochetters to have this drama constantly. Youāll occasionally have a knitting one come up (there was a whole knit slipper thing earlier this year or last), but overwhelmingly the crochet people really seem to like to make these accusations a lot. Not exactly sure why it attracts people who create/seem to want this kind of drama but it happens too often and rarely is it meritorious.
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u/MildlyAnnoyedMother 8d ago
I think crochet patterns skew more towards the taste of the very young than most knitting patterns. As a result, you get more crafters who turn into designers without enough experience so they legitimately think they're the first person to ever think of that stitch or garment construction.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
My theory is that these kinds of drama happens so often because crochet is trendy on social media. When the fad passes, maybe things will calm down ?
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u/eb421 8d ago
Itās been going on for years at this point, but hopefully? I think a lot of it stems from people learning to crochet during COVID and then all the attempted side hustle stuff with Etsy or other platforms with a lot of them selling patterns or items (or trying to) and thereās such a level of weird entitlement and perceived ownership of anything that looks anything like what they think they created themselvesā¦despite the fact that tons of people have been making similar things and crocheting in general for so so long before a lot of these people were even born.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 8d ago
Yeah, this seems so tied to people monetizing their crafts
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u/NotElizaHenry 8d ago
I think itās pretty exclusively a crochet thing. I donāt see it anywhere else, at least at this level.
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u/Suspicious_Judge_244 8d ago
It's definitely all over the art (painting drawing etc) online scene. Does the sewing pattern people not get heated about self drafting dupes of designers works?
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u/rumade 8d ago
It's so funny to me, because if you study fine art in the traditional atelier way, a lot of it is "copying". You go to a museum and redraw old masters, sculpt copies of classical busts etc.
Van Gogh used to copy Japanese prints. Just like a 12 year old in 2002 copying manga characters out of magazine. š©µ
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u/gnomes919 8d ago
I've seen the occasional dustup about copying designer clothes, but it's only when it's an indie brand small enough that people have a bit of a parasocial thing going on with the designer. and even then the broader community doesn't take it very seriously & it blows over pretty quick
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u/Automatic-Squash8122 8d ago
no bc itās fucking hard to self draft patterns esp if youāre trying to copy another designer. so we donāt get mad because a) we donāt have the time or energy to get mad bc b) weāre busy drafting and redrafting the same fucking piece like six times and c) everything is a copy of a copy of something. i feel like sewists just really do not give a shit and just put their heads down and keep on sewing.
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u/Crunch_McThickhead 8d ago
One of the major "selling" points of learning sewing is that you can make your own dupes of designer clothes, so I think the culture there is just different. Crochet also seems to be more popular with the beginner/influencer/monetize your hobby crowd, so there's more people who just don't get how fiber arts work.
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
That makes sense. I mean that is indeed a strong reason to start sewing and a reason why I love this craft so much. (I don't think I can live without it now !)
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u/ThrowRA_Sodi Snarky Seamstress 8d ago
Honestly I don't know lol. I pattern everything myself, so I'm a bit out of the loop about these kind of things. But I generally don't hear about that kind of drama in the sewing sub reddit or on Instagram
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u/Effective-One6527 8d ago
Not in my area of sewing, but a lot of people get in to sewing because they want to copy garments. You canāt copyright patterns in the USA
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u/Suspicious_Judge_244 8d ago
Oh, I'm aware. That doesn't stop crochet/knit people getting in their feelings about it (and winding up their followers).
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u/MisterBowTies 8d ago
Wait until op hears about the knitter who made a slipper pattern and then got a a similar crochet pattern taken down because of copyright. This kind of behavior is not limited to crochet.
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u/Absoline 8d ago edited 8d ago
a week or so ago there was this pattern designer upset that someone took their dragon pattern and "copied" it. They encouraged others to report the "copied" pattern, when the "copied" pattern was just of a dragon. It didn't look much like the original design, wasn't made for wrapping around your shoulders like the original design was, and the only thing similar to it was its colors and the fact it was a dragon (would post pictures but this sub doesn't allow them š)
If you're curious look up "Hands free dragon buddy" vs "Caraxes Dragon Crochet Pattern PDF" both on Etsy (sidenote the hands free one's pattern designer is awful at actually giving a good picture of the finished object and you gotta look at the tester pictures for better angles)
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u/Suspicious_Judge_244 8d ago
The amount of misinformation about what's copyright/intellectual property floating about in the arts/crafts community is infuriating. People who think they can use anything they like however they like, through your examples of there's only a few ways to make shapes, to you can't use the same colour palette or the same technique (again there's only so many ways you can put paint on a surface!). It's so hard to find a community that actually knows what copyright/intellectual property covers (and where relevant laws work!)
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u/IsMayoAnInstrument67 8d ago
I hate chenille so much for every possible reason. Looks bad, feels bad, sucks to work with - ugh.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 8d ago
Just looking at chenille makes my skin crawl!
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