Removed thread about Copyright protection

[Marcel in Longueuil]

Mr Hillberry,

I, for one, am glad you chose our forum to air your grievance: It tells me that we are taken seriously as a community.

I'd rather have the facts from someone that is involved in the dispute, rather than hearing "hear-say" from other parties.

I am just hoping that the members of this forum will keep their comments to themselves in regards to the pertinence of the thread, or to the guilt or lack thereof from Mr Zanfinno.

This is not a court, and we are not judges. It is not for us to publicly air our opinions on the right/wrong of the actions untill guilt has been proven in a court of law. No matter how damaging the presented arguments may be.

I am in no way trying to excuse Mr. Zanfinno. I just believe that he shouldn't be condemned in a public court without due legal process.

I am sure the thruth will come out in the end.

In the meantime people have the right to know that there COULD BE legal problems related to Jeff Zanfinno's patterns and should act accordingly with the proper care UNTIL a legal court renders judgement. I take it Mr Hillberry that you are taking appropriate legal action and not just bringing it up in the public forums?

I also hope that any other artists that have a grievance in this matter will come and expose that grievance so that the public is aware of it, but I hope it is done in dignity and not in slandering.

I have faith in the intelligence of my fellow scrollers to make their own opinions on the subject in view of the artist's testimonials that have and will appear in here, as I hope that they will keep those opinions private untill a legal judgement is made, at which time we can comment on said judgement, or not.

Just my opinion on a fair treatment that should be given to each and everyone in this great scrolling community.

Regards,
Marcel

[Rivari]

Marcel you hit it right on the head, excellent post!

[CharlieDearing]

This can definitely be touchy. Through the past I have put my patterns up and taken them down for various reasons. I will ALWAYS contribute to SWWC as long as they will have me, but, the time, attention and care needed to just sell patterns on the side is where I am lacking.
Don't get me wrong, I love what I do and I like being able to provide them, but I am always second guessing myself and extremely forgetful. I HAVE gotten permission from some artists.
In the past I only made patterns for myself so I didn't keep track of where I got the originals. I didn't try to cut any of them for profit either.
I am in talks now with some trying to broaden my avenues as well as giving them a new medium to show THEIR art. I fully intend to give credit, royalty, etc to those involved.
I can never say enough how much I appreciate this magazine and will never stop being involved. I have, however, decided not to sell patterns on my own anymore. This is unfortunate in many ways, but, I want to focus more on cutting and contributing to this magazine. My apologies to anyone this upsets. In time (after I go through over 500 patterns and find the original pics I did them from for verification) they may return. Thank you so much for having me SWWC..... it's beyond words!

[J D Hillberry]

There is a reason for making this public.
The first step in the proper legal course is to send a cease and desist letter demanding that the infringing work is removed from web sites, retail outlets etc. In this step one can also demand that the infringer pay you for your lost profits. If the infringer is guilty (there is an admission of a "mistake made" in all the cases I alluded to here) they will usually comply and remove product. If the infringer does not comply and decides to go to court, the potential damages are much more severe. The court has the discretion to award statutory damages to the infringer of up to $30,000 for each copyrighted work infringed. If the infringement was willful and for profit, the court can award statutory damages up to $150,000.

Unless the law suit gets enormous publicity, no one ever knows about it. Even less people know about it if the demands of the cease and desist letter are met. The only thing the public sees, is different products coming and going. It is business as usual. However, I want to make it clear that just because you may see patterns being offered one day and not the next, is not a good reason to suspect image theft.

My images have already been removed from the offending sites. If it weren't for this thread, your scroll saw community would have no idea that there was ever a problem.

Many patterns of these stolen images have been purchased with the resulting product sold at craft fairs etc. As hard as it is to hear, I would think an honest scroll community would want to know about this.

J. D. Hillberry

[CharlieDearing]

I'll be the first to say that I only have two brain cells and so much of the specifics confuse the heck out of me! I've had my computer crash so many times that I don't know what is what or what is where! I'm paranoid about most anything hahaha.
Aside from all of these events, I'd like to highly compliment you on your ability to draw with such detail! I LOVE your work J.D.

[Mike_Sibley]

Originally Posted by Sue Chrestensen

This issue effects us all..it will do no good to stick our heads in a pile of sawdust and pretend that none of it happened. The artists who have been ripped off have the right to say that they drew a particular piece... they need our respect..in this forum..not hidden or ignored

Thank you, Sue. I'm sure I can speak for Mr Hillberry as well as myself when I say that we are busy men and don't spend our time here lightly. This is as important to us as it is to you.

There has been excellent advice and comment in this thread and, as two of my works are concerned, I would like to explain the situation when viewed from my side of the problem.

I received an email telling me that an assistant had failed in his/her duty to obtain approval for images used for Scroll Saw work, that this was regretted, and an amicable solution was sought. I too hope this will be the outcome, but that is not my decision to make.

The Scroll Saw community produces some excellent work and I can appreciate that a major and recurring problem may be the availability of suitable images. The same applies to the PSP Signature Tags community. I and other artists who work with a mix of imagination and source photographs also share the same problem - in our case it's finding and seeking approval for the use of the work of photographers, so we do understand the situation you may find yourselves in.

I assist when I can (for strictly personal use) but it has to be understood that my images constitute my living. In the case of Limited Edition images (which I self-publish) those images are LIMITED - their very scarcity is what makes them attractive to collectors, who are understandably upset if that image appears in other formats.

The copyrights of the open edition head-study prints in question belong to my Publisher and the images are openly available under commercial licence. Each instance of those images on my website carries a tag line stating that to be the case. Furthermore the images are protected with a watermark, and are silently right-click protected - so the taking of those images has to be a deliberate act of retrieval which, without permission in writing or a valid license and for commercial gain, is fraud. See http://www.SibleyFineArt.com/index.h...y_frame_oe.htm then scroll down to "Springer Spaniel", which you can compare to the Scroll Saw version: http://www.cart.advancedscrollsawpat...iel-p-162.html. The licences both generate income to recompense me for the 70 to 250 hours of drawing time, and afford me a measure of control over the use of the images to protect my reputation, which I have built up over the past 26 years of being a professional artist.

MIKE
www.SibleyFineArt.com

[Rolf]

Well now I now have a better understanding of why SSW is such a great magazine. Besides a great editorial staff there is leadership at the top with common sense. How refreshing.
I also have to agree with Marcel well said.

[PuzzledMoose]

Mike_Sibley - I PMed you ...

[WyvernWench]

[quote= This issue effects us all..[/QUOTE]

Again, I will not address the current situation but am instead making a general comment.

This does effect everyone, not just the pattern designers, artists and/or magazines. It directly effects the hobby scroll sawer.

Hypothetically! If an artist does take a pattern pirate to court and win judgment against them that artist wins more than just a court order against the pirate. They also win the right to pursue any and all copies of the infringed design and the holders of those infringed designs as copyright thieves ...

Meaning that when the music industry took Napster to court and won they obtained Napster's records. The music industry then began filing suit against "regular people" who had used Napster's services and downloaded the files. The music industry had the legal right to seize computers, attach heavy financial fines and to publicly publish the names of those that were being suited.

As an example in the hobby industry Action Tapes, Inc., one of the largest machine embroidery pattern companies, several years ago brought suit against four home machine embroidery designers and won. Action Tapes then seized all records from those designers and began pursuing each and every customer of their listing. Those customers received not only Cease and Desist order but very large fines and threats of law suits. Action Tapes sent these letters out by the thousands and they are still actively going after home users/hobby users.

Both Napster and Action Tapes, Inc. follow up on protecting their copyright by watching Yahoo Groups, Ebay AND forums, just like this one for any postings concerning their designs. So were this the Action Tapes situation and you posted a finished piece to this forum that used one of Action Tapes designs that had been pirated you would be receiving 'one of those letters'.

If you don't think that a situation as has been discussed here can effect you as a home hobbyist/general craftsman, well, that's not true at all.

If you are interested in reading how this could directly effect each and everyone on this forum you might want to visit ESPC (Embroidery Software Protection Coalition). There are several excellent articles not only on general copyright information but also on the direct effects of pirating for the average home craftsman.

L. S. Irish

[PuzzledMoose]

Originally Posted by WyvernWench

Hypothetically! If an artist does take a pattern pirate to court and win judgment against them that artist wins more than just a court order against the pirate. They also win the right to pursue any and all copies of the infringed design and the holders of those infringed designs as copyright thieves ...

Thankyou for that Susan - you answered the question that I asked on a previous thread.

Perhaps I can ask another hypothetical question - if a pattern designer sells a pattern to a scroller, knowing that they have no right to the copyright on the item they are selling, does the person buying the pattern have any comeback against the pattern vendor?