If you make something out of a magazine like bead and button you cant sell it even though i used different colors? Please help me understand this. Thanks.

lalaa:

 If you make something out of a magazine like bead and button you cant sell it even though i used different colors? Please help me understand this. Thanks.

Hello lalaa,

I'll try to help you to understand. The fact that you change the colors of a design does not make it any different - it remains a design developed by another artist, just in different colors. The issue is the design in itself, not the colors. The design is the property, both ethical and legal, of the person who comes up with it. If you make something from someone else's pattern, change the colors, and sell it, you'll be violating copyright laws and every artist ethic out there at least 95% of the time, unless you have written permission from the artist to do so.

If you were to take a B&B project and drastically change the design so that it no longer looked at all like the original, then it would be ethical to sell it...but then again if you have that kind of ability, you'll be designing your own, not selling stuff from other people's patterns.

I hope that makes things a bit clearer. There are a number of threads in the Forum Archives section regarding copyright issues. You might want to do an advanced search for the word "copyright" in the Archives, setting the timeline back 3 or 4 years.

 Thank You for clearing that up for me. One more thing. I cant sell a simple peyote stitch or one with stripes? Or how about a spiral stitch or any other famous stitch that is used by everyone? Can you check out my etsy page and tell me what im not suppose to be selling. Thanks

www.lalaa718.etsy.com  

I took a look at your Etsy shop and it looks absolutely fine to me. Strung jewelry can be made just so many ways, and there's usually a more ample margin between what can be considered a casually repeated pattern and one that has been out and out copied.Seed bead jewelry is definitely different, but even so, nobody can claim designer rights on a simple peyote bracelet without a pattern or a striped bracelet, unless a pattern was followed.

The general golden rule is that if you follow a pattern and post the finished piece anywhere, you must credit the designer. If you want to sell it, you must ask permission. Many artists have their personal policies in regards to use of their patterns on their websites. If they don't, you can always write and ask.

Lastly, you have to distinguish between  design and  technique/stitch. Spirals and their variations, tubular variatons of all of the stitches and the stitches themselves are all techniques, developed and passed on as knowledge and tradition. You can make and sell any of them because they belong to everybody.

 A design happens when you  take one or any number of the techniques and elaborate on them somehow, transforming them into a piece of jewelry and using just your own imagination. The design is the "property" of the artist who created it, even if the pattern is published and always unless otherwise specified.

 Thank You for helping.

You're most welcome Lalaa. Good on you for asking when you had a doubt - copyright issues and ethics among artists are very important and every beader should understand the basics of these.