One lace fair I went to, a friend was looking at a pattern and I was looking at another and she said we should buy one each and photocopy them. They were only 50p. I bought both.
This has been a problem for many years - likewise with magazines published by the larger guilds and societies, you hear "we don't need to subscribe, our group gets it" without maybe realising (or caring!) that in the UK at least they are breaking the law by copying patterns without permission from the publisher/author. As we have said many times, if everyone did that then membership could be as low as one per group and organisations would not be able to survive. Please do not share Guild/Society magazines in this way.
Whilst I was teaching I designed my own patterns for my lot to use - and discouraged photocopying - if they wanted to use a photocopy of a pattern then they were expected to buy a copy of the book it came from. This was done so that they didn't have to trace, or prick through, the pages of the book (which was our only option in the days before cheap photocopiers).
The dilemma now is what to do with the photocopies after a lacemaker has died and the family have passed on all her lace equipment, books, etc to a group to sell on. Do the group sell the photocopies along with the rest of the things, or do they destroy them? Theoretically they should be destroyed, but in practice? - this is possibly what happened where the copy of Lynn's pattern was concerned?
For those who took a (free) copy of the Stocking Pattern from The Lace Guild's stand at Cranmore on Saturday it IS OK to photocopy and pass this pattern on - I designed and printed these patterns of a tape stocking outline (at no cost to the Guild) with the aim that it may generate some patterns for our Young Lacemaker "magazine", and as long as any patterns resulting from its use are sent in, please do copy and pass it on! Therefore in this case you have the designer's permission to copy - which is necessary even though the pattern was given, not sold! All other patterns, magazines and publications from The Lace Guild are subject to copyright law.
-- Jane Partridge To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
