Knitting and Doctor Who: The BBC Speaks!
The news has finally made the BBC.
So far, it's the article that has had the most statements from the BBC that I've seen, but there are a number of things that bug me about what they've written.
"BBC Worldwide said it acted because finished figures were being sold by others on auction website eBay." (Emphasis mine.) They also repeat this later in the article "This lady, with the best will in the world, wanted to share with friends, family and fans. But there were some unscrupulous people taking these patterns and using them on eBay to make profit for themselves. Unfortunately, we had to get to the source of the patterns - and that was her website." That's something that I don't understand. Why penalize the person who is distributing the pattern (and by extension the rest of the knitting community) and not just the people who were selling the pattern or finished knitted objects? And why just HER and not other people who have distributed other patterns and have sold finished knitted objects?
When Mazz informed the BBC that she took down the patterns, she wrote a really great email that attempted to inform and appeal to their sense of fairness, and hoped that she wasn't being singled out. Their response implied that she was the one that was preventing profit from genuine merchandise and read like a canned response: it was two sentences long.
Also from the article: "It [BBC Worldwide] also denied threatening legal action and said it had offered to consider marketing the designs itself." I am working to confirm this, but reading all correspondence that Mazz has shared so far, BBC Worldwide has NOT indicated to Mazz that they considered marketing the design.
The BBC spokesman has said, "It's not that we don't admire creativity from fans - most of the time,we take the view that if it's small-scale and not for profit, then weturn a blind eye." I wish they made that policy all of the time, because Mazz was small-scale and not for profit. She was even working hard to STOP the ebayers by reporting them! (And enlisted a whole bunch of us to report them as well. I know that I have reported three listings by the same ebay seller who still has an active ebay account last I checked.) When he said "Mazzmatazz was still welcome to get in touch with BBC Worldwide to discuss the issue.", she HAS. She has sent them two additional letters, the first arguing the case that she is small-scale and not-for-profit and the second with a number of different ideas on how to resolve this issue. Like I said, I'm working to confirm if they have continued correspondence with her... and I'll keep folks updated on what I know.
Thanks to everyone out there who has taken some form of action, by either writing to the BBC or spreading the word. Here's hoping that in the semi-near future, there will be knitted adipose (and others) for all!
So far, it's the article that has had the most statements from the BBC that I've seen, but there are a number of things that bug me about what they've written.
"BBC Worldwide said it acted because finished figures were being sold by others on auction website eBay." (Emphasis mine.) They also repeat this later in the article "This lady, with the best will in the world, wanted to share with friends, family and fans. But there were some unscrupulous people taking these patterns and using them on eBay to make profit for themselves. Unfortunately, we had to get to the source of the patterns - and that was her website." That's something that I don't understand. Why penalize the person who is distributing the pattern (and by extension the rest of the knitting community) and not just the people who were selling the pattern or finished knitted objects? And why just HER and not other people who have distributed other patterns and have sold finished knitted objects?
When Mazz informed the BBC that she took down the patterns, she wrote a really great email that attempted to inform and appeal to their sense of fairness, and hoped that she wasn't being singled out. Their response implied that she was the one that was preventing profit from genuine merchandise and read like a canned response: it was two sentences long.
Also from the article: "It [BBC Worldwide] also denied threatening legal action and said it had offered to consider marketing the designs itself." I am working to confirm this, but reading all correspondence that Mazz has shared so far, BBC Worldwide has NOT indicated to Mazz that they considered marketing the design.
The BBC spokesman has said, "It's not that we don't admire creativity from fans - most of the time,we take the view that if it's small-scale and not for profit, then weturn a blind eye." I wish they made that policy all of the time, because Mazz was small-scale and not for profit. She was even working hard to STOP the ebayers by reporting them! (And enlisted a whole bunch of us to report them as well. I know that I have reported three listings by the same ebay seller who still has an active ebay account last I checked.) When he said "Mazzmatazz was still welcome to get in touch with BBC Worldwide to discuss the issue.", she HAS. She has sent them two additional letters, the first arguing the case that she is small-scale and not-for-profit and the second with a number of different ideas on how to resolve this issue. Like I said, I'm working to confirm if they have continued correspondence with her... and I'll keep folks updated on what I know.
Thanks to everyone out there who has taken some form of action, by either writing to the BBC or spreading the word. Here's hoping that in the semi-near future, there will be knitted adipose (and others) for all!