First Time Fat
For the first time in a long time, something is changing. Normally the top search words that lead many people here are related to Pearl Harbor. I don’t know why, but it is true. Now, for the first time in a long time, a bit of fat is changing this. Adipose now has more than twice the hits as pearl harbor.
For those that don’t know, MazzMatazz created knitting patterns based on characters from the new Doctor Who, including the pattern for knit Adipose (aliens made of human fat). She released them under Creative Commons license as free for personal use. Well, someone started selling the end product and Mazz reported them. This action then turned on Mazz. The beeb contacted her and asked her to remove the patterns. I don’t know the exact terms in the first email but with the Beeb’s response, Mazz did not feel comfortable in reposting her patterns.
Next the $hit hit the fan for the BBC and word reached the Open Rights Group and the EFF . Eventually even Neil Gaiman chimed in. The Doctor Who fandom gets involved and news spreads people. So, the clean up has begun.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. There are a lot of interesting questions that this situation brings up. Where does copyright infringement begin in the craft world. Who do you go after? How do you prosecute it?
I do have three words of advice to crafters out there… Save Page As! This is your best friend. I have over a gig of saved patterns for times such as this. The pages don’t take up much space. Create a directory on your drive and save them there. If you organize them by craft, it will make things even easier. I have a hard copy and a local copy of Mazz’s patterns. Unfortunately, I can’t get to the local copies right now.
Now that things seem to be settling down and who knows, maybe the pattern will be back soon.
** Cross Posted from miftik.com **