I began designing crochet patterns 4 years ago this month (whoa!). Soon after I began selling patterns, I received the question:
Oh, dear. I hadn’t thought about that! So, I looked online to see what other designers did.
The majority of designers did not allow customers to sell the finished items made from their patterns. In fact, the policy seems to spread beyond indie designers: take a peek at the copyright notice in a pattern book or the small print on a McCall’s sewing pattern that you buy from the craft store.
The message is the same:
Surely these experienced companies must know something really important, right?
I, a newbie designer, followed suit. I replied to my customers that my patterns were for personal use, only. (don’t worry… this story has a happy ending, so keep reading!)
The Fear Factor
Why don’t many designers permit customers to sell finished items from their patterns? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons I read:
- Allowing customers to sell finished items allows factories in China to mass-produce your design, making millions of dollars and stealing your potential customers.
- If you allow a customer to sell finished items from your pattern, they could make thousands! And they only gave you $5! That’s not fair!
- What if you allow a customer to sell items made from your pattern, but the crocheter has very poor craftsmanship. Then this will reflect poorly on your design.
- If someone sells items from your pattern, it takes away customers who will buy the finished items you make!
- Allowing people to sell items from your pattern promotes the illegal copying/distribution of your pattern.
Boy… the designing world is suddenly a very scary place, isn’t it?
Everything I read suggested that if you allow customers to sell items made from your pattern, you’re signing the death certificate of your design company. Scary stuff!
But… do any of the items listed above seem a bit extreme? Uh, yeah… they did to me, too.
Having a serious think about the problem
After a while (as I gained confidence as a designer), it became less clear to me that prohibiting the sale of finished items from my patterns was the right thing to do. So, I looked at all of the reasons I read about, and had a really serious think about them.
Below are my thoughts about each of the points mentioned above.
Allowing customers to sell finished items allows factories in China to mass-produce your design, making millions of dollars and stealing your potential customers.
This is a really common fear amongst designers: that a factory in China (or Vietnam or wherever) will snatch up your design and mass-produce it without your permission. We see these knock-offs happening to designers of red-carpet gowns the day after an awards show.
But, here’s the important question for our discussion: is allowing customers to sell items made from your pattern make knock-offs any more likely? My opinion is: no. Firstly, the knock-offs that happen are knock-offs precisely because they are copying your design, meaning they don’t care if they have your permission or not. Put differently, your design can be stolen at any time. Secondly, if you allow customers to sell finished items, you are not also licensing out the mass-production of your design.
Finally, crochet is notoriously difficult to mass-produce. So even if a factory fell in love with my design, it’s unlikely it would be profitable for them to reproduce it. They would turn to a knitted/sewn design, instead.
If you allow a customer to sell finished items from your pattern, they could make thousands! And they only gave you $5! That’s not fair!
Let’s get serious. No one is becoming rich by hand-crocheting items from home. In fact, I frequently talk about how to make a profit at all!The fairness issue is something to mull over. Some designers license their patterns to crafters. For example, if you wanted to sell owls, you might be charged a ‘cottage-industry fee’ (maybe $50) to get permission to sell items made from my owl pattern.
To resolve this issue for myself, I had to think about my customers. I made up a customer, Zoe:
Zoe represents my typical customer. She loves to crochet, and her family and friends have asked her to make some stuffed animals for them. Because she values her time, she wants to charge for making a stuffed animal. Let’s pretend that I charge her a fee. One of three things will happen:
- Zoe will think the fee isn’t worth it, and will use another pattern that permits her to sell the finished items without a fee.
- Zoe will decide that the fee is too expensive, so instead of charging for her hard work, she will give the animals away so that she isn’t ‘selling’ them.
- Zoe will pay the fee, significantly reducing her profit.
You see… most of my customers want to sell just a few finished products. Charging a fee would significantly impact their product.
And realistically, I want them to use my pattern! I love seeing people make items from my patterns. Why drive them away from my patterns by charging?
What if you allow a customer to sell items made from your pattern, but the crocheter has very poor craftsmanship. Then this will reflect poorly on your design.
Hmm… I suppose this is true. But frankly, people will crochet what they crochet and post the photos online regardless of whether or not they are selling them. And they’ll link to your pattern. Not sure what you can do about that.
The flip side is true, too! Customers will post beautiful photos as well! And oftentimes, the crocheter is happy to let you post the photo on your company’s Facebook page.
In my opinion, the solution is to promote the lovely photos instead of attempting to disconnect yourself from your patterns.
If someone sells items from your pattern, it takes away customers who will buy the finished items you make!
How severely this ‘scare’ affects you depends on your business model. My business is to sell patterns. I actually don’t have time to make many finished items for sale. So, if others sell finished items, it doesn’t take business away from me!
In fact, others selling finished items actually increases my business, because more crocheters are buying my patterns!
I sell custom stuffed animals. These customers come to me to buy a stuffed animal crocheted by me, according to my own style. Other crocheters making animals from my patterns are unlikely to siphon off these customers.
Allowing people to sell items from your pattern promotes the illegal copying/distribution of your pattern.
Uhh… I’ve read this a lot, but I just don’t understand how it could be true. People make illegal pdfs. But this is totally unrelated to whether or not you allow crocheters to sell finished items.
My policy
Have I busted all of those scary scenarios? I hope so!
I decided that, for my business, it was actually beneficial to allow customers to sell finished items from my patterns. Why?
- It results in increased pattern sales: from customers who choose my patterns over others because I permit the sale of items.
- I benefit from the increased number of projects connected to my patterns. If a crocheter makes 20 owl for sale, those 20 owls are listed on Ravelry, making my pattern more popular.
- Customers are often keen to share their photos with me, and posting these additional photos on my Facebook page shows the variety of colors that look great in my pattern!
- I am personally passionate about helping crocheters make a fair wage from their handiwork. By not charging a licensing fee, I am contributing to making stitching a viable wage-earning job.
- I couldn’t find any reason not to allow folks to sell the items!
So here’s my policy: You are welcome to sell items from my pdf patterns. I ask that you include a note about the item being a ‘FreshStitches Design’ on the tag (at a craft fair) or a link to my shop (in an online store like Etsy).
It makes me happy. It makes my customers happy. What could be better?
Chime in!
Are you a designer? What’s your policy and why?
Are you a crocheter? How does the ability to sell finished items affect your pattern purchases?
I want to hear!
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I’m a designer and I’m happy to have people sell work made from my patterns. My policy is that if they’re making the items themselves, they’re welcome to sell them. If they are hiring other people to make them, let’s have a firendly chat about scale and work out a reasonable licensing fee. If they’re hiring other moms to make them on a small scale that fee will be very, very low. If they’re having them manufactured at a factory in China it will be more. :-)
Lets be realistic here. None of us have time to handmake a large quantity of items. Sometimes we want to knit something or crochet something from a pattern that 1. We don’t need for ourselves 2. Don’t have anyone to give it to or 3. Yarn costs money! I like to knit things in different colors and I have left over stash yarn that I need to do something with. The best way for me to not go broke and support my knitting hobby is to sell what I make. This was I can offset the price of what it cost me to make it. And I’ll buy more yarn. And more patterns. And knit more! I agree with your view and thank you for taking the time to lay this all out. I hope designers rethink their Stance on this topic and allow sales. You’re helping us and making everyone happy. I mean honestly. Do u know a rich knitter lol
Thank you for this thoughtful post! After my research and discussing the subject with other people in the industry (including Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching, who has had her designs blatantly ripped off – she addressed ‘angel policies’ and licensing in a column – will link to it if I can find it easily), I decided to do a very basic license included in the price of a pattern, permitting the user to sell up to 12 items per pattern purchase. This seems to be generally acceptable; it doesn’t please everyone, but hey, I don’t expect to be able to.
There is one point in your post that I disagree with: crochet is actually horrifyingly easy to mass-produce. I make a point of taking a good look at crocheted pieces offered for sale in stores; they are generally very well made with good finishing, done in materials that I know can be very hard on the hands (e.g. plant fibers, thread). The tags often indicate that the pieces were made in China, Mexico, or another country where wages are relatively low and labor laws are not ideal. The worst part is seeing the price tags, because those are proof that the handcrafters were paid a very low wage. A cardigan made of cotton thread motifs selling for $30 retail is depressingly easy to find in the US. Can I prevent this from happening with one of my designs? Also depressingly, realistically I would have to say no. I don’t have the money or the resources to go up against a large company. My pattern licenses are mostly symbolic in that sense, and so I find myself considering the issue on a regular basis. For now, I’m continuing to do the license-included-with-pattern-purchase.
MK, you make a great point… and I was very sloppy in what I said. I meant to say that I did not know of a factory that machine-crocheted the same way that knitting is machine made. There are many cheaply-produced crocheted pieces, but to the best of my understanding, these pieces are cheap due to low labor prices… and they are still mostly hand done.
I could be completely wrong… but that’s the word I’ve heard, at least :)
I crochet, knit, cross stitch, plus a lot of other crafts. I have the nasty habit of once I make a design, I normally don’t want to make it again. No challenge is required for the re-make. So I do have lots of crochet items & knit items sitting around waiting for homes. Now, yes I do sell them. The cost is simply the cost of the yarn. *I am going to knit or crochet no matter what, so don’t really see he point of charging a lot for labor.* When it comes to patterns that I make from charged patterns. I do my best to contact the designer to see if it is ok. When the pattern is sold, then I make sure that the customer knows that the pattern is not my own creation & whose it is. I never sell more then three of a pattern without purchasing another pattern or sending money to the designer. If the designer has said no selling of the products made from the pattern, then I gift them to the person. Usually the person then gifts me yarn or something. Technically, I haven’t sold the item to the person, but those are usually commissioned items & they are the ones that bought the pattern not me. I know I am splitting hairs with this, but sometimes the designers are simply rude & won’t listen to anything or reach a compromise with anyone.
Thanks so much for your comments, Hev!
Thank you for this wonderful post, that completely clears up what your policy is! I LOVE that you allow items from your patterns to be sold, as that actually does influence my purchases in some of the patterns I buy. I don’t actively try to sell… yet, but I still get asked based off of friends seeing what I’ve made. I know that if I’ve bought a pattern that doesn’t allow me to sell items made from it that I can never sell anything if I’m asked, so I’m much less likely to buy the pattern-even if I really, really like it! Knowing that I’m allowed to sell items if I decide to definitely makes me feel better about spending the money on a pattern! Thank you!
Stacey, Kathryn Vercillo posted about machine-made/handmade crochet a while back (http://www.crochetconcupiscence.com/2011/06/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-crochet-machine/). Short version: the crochet produced by the machine is not the same as crochet done by hand. The cheap mass-produced pieces in stores are indeed being made by hand. It may not be mass-production on the scale of machine knitting, but it’s still mass-production in my book. I’m not the only Etsy seller who has been contacted by a factory in China offering to mass-produce my designs with cheap labor. That’s a very different situation than a crafter who just wants to sell a few pieces to help pay for their hobby, but the legal system doesn’t really see much difference as I understand it.
I can’t seem to find a cached copy of the Venus Zine article Jenny Hart wrote about angel policies.
Thanks for the link, MK!
Like I said, I didn’t mean to imply that there wasn’t cheap crochet happening in the world. I suppose I meant that from a pure profit perspective, factory-sewing a stuffed animal is faster (and therefore cheaper) than a producing a crocheted one. However, your point is correct that any item (with the combo of cheap labor) can be made in massive quantities.
This is an excellent post! The free flow of information and inspiration is vital to the evolution of creativity. Artists have always sold their own reproductions of existing art in order to eat while they developed their own art, and it’s great to see more and more artists supporting communal creativity rather than proprietary fear :)
Thanks for clarifying your policy. You make some interesting points. I agree with Vanessa’s comments and while before I turned down some requests to sell animals made with your patterns, now I may reconsider.
Stacey what a wonderful explanation regarding copyright and selling items from your patterns. And I love the conclusion you have come to.
As one who buys other people’s patterns to make an item from their designs and occasionally wants to sell that item, I so appreciate your decision.
I have often thought along the lines that you have discussed. If I offer an item for sale and another crafty person sees it and thinks they could make that themselves rather than pay the price I am asking then that person will buy their own pattern, thus increasing your sales anyway. If someone buys my item and shows it to someone who is crafty who loves it, they too are going to search out your pattern to make it.
So to me it is a no brainer about letter others sell their work from your pattern. It is increasing your business, not decreasing it. In fact it is a form of advertising for you that you haven’t had to pay for and waste time on.
I just wish many other designers would have your same attitude so that we could all benefit even more from the crafts we love.
Good on you Stacey.
Joyce :)
As a crafter (not a designer), I have to say I really like Stacey’s attitude towards licensing her patterns. To be clear, I don’t intend to ever do more than “sell” a couple animals here and there. Friends and family get them as gifts, friends of friends get charged a nominal fee to cover the cost of materials.
But, knowing that I have the option to “sell” my finished product based on her designs, generates a huge amount of good-will on my part towards using her designs and promoting her designs and classes to fellow crafters.
Just my 2 cents on this whole situation.
Thank you, Tammy! It’s helpful to hear views from crafters!
As a fellow designer (with a lot fewer patterns so far, admittedly), I’m in complete agreement with you, Stacy. I don’t put any restrictions on selling items made from my patterns for a few reasons. First, I’m not sure that putting a licensing (not copyright, since this is a different issue) statement on my patterns would even be legally enforceable, especially if the buyer wasn’t aware of it before paying – and from what I’ve seen, that happens with a lot of patterns.
Second, I agree that it’s really not going to stop a company that decided to rip off one of my designs – I don’t believe my designs can be replicated by a machine by following the pattern, so they wouldn’t be using my actual pattern anyway – they’d be replicating the look, and while I haven’t researched in any detail, I don’t believe there would be any legal way to stop them from here in the U.S.
And finally, and an independent small business, I’d rather support other independent small businesses. If someone buys my pattern, I feel they have reimbursed me at the rate I’m willing to set for my effort. If they knit any item, that’s their effort, and I don’t feel entitled to a cut from it. I also don’t feel they’re cutting into my profits because we service two different groups of customers – I’m selling to DIYers and they’re selling to people who want finished items. Someone who wants a finished item and doesn’t want to do the work themselves isn’t going to buy my pattern anyway…but maybe if a DIYer sees an item knit from one of my patterns for sale, they’ll decide “I can make that myself!” and buy the pattern instead. So I would like the person using my pattern to credit it and me, but that’s the extent of what I would ask for.
Thanks, Jen! You said it beautifully!
So here is the thing. IF I decide to sell items, they are to …. friends, friends of friends, coworkers. I don’t sell on etsy or ebay. To be honest, I don’t sell much. I find that more often than not, I’m gifting items. There are the occasional offers of commission that come my way and I’m free to say yes or no depending on the deal (that is, how much of my time it will consume, how much I like the project, and how much the “customer” is willing to pay. There are times when someone will make a request and the price, to them, is appropriately (intentionally) too high, and they then rethink their request.
I’m very good at crochet. Not confident enough to be writing up patterns and looking for publishers, but I’ve created a few gems in my 40 years crocheting. IF I WANT TO MAKE YOUR PATTERN, chances are I can, by looking at it. Also, if I want to purchase your pattern and make a few to sell, you’d likely never know unless you live in my town and run in my circles.
Its REALLY stupid to think that people aren’t going to find “an adorable” pattern and immediately set about making several for family and friends and inevitably someone sees it and wants one, or 2, etc. It happens.
As the story above relates, people rarely get wealthy selling crocheted items. I work full time. If I happen to sell the oft hat or such, its to buy more yarn, or make someone happy.
Were I to write and sell patterns, I could care less who worked them up and made a fortune on them.
Great post! As a designer, in the beginning I had the policy of personal use only but as time went by I started seeing the trend change to allowing sales of finished items so I changed mine as well.
I can’t say really that I got more sales out of it but as I can see that makes happier customers so I’m happier too.
Thanks for letting your fans know where you stand. I love to use your patterns but I’m slow enough that they are great gifts. Or if someone wants me to make one, I just have them supply the yarn. I enjoy creating something that can be hugged and loved. I don’t care about the money.
So maybe I’m talking crazy, but I remember reading an article about this about five months ago, during a similar discussion, about the legalities of copyrighting, with some copyright law experts being interviewed.
It said that you can, in fact, copyright patterns (i.e. don’t sell or distribute the document) but you can’t legally tell someone what to do with an item that they created from materials that they themselves purchased. Something analogous to/in the vein of ‘not ruling from the grave’… I wish I could find the link, because it struck me as very strange at the time…
That being said, I am someone who loves rules, and I support my independent designers, so if someone’s policy is to not allow sales, I follow it :-) But I appreciate when designers trust me to do the right thing, too.
Happy Hurricane, chica. Stay safe!
@Ellen-
Yes… I totally didn’t want to get into that issue in the blog post (because it’s very controversial), but my understanding of copyright laws is that you can’t ‘copyright’ a pattern so that finished items can’t be made.
From what I understand, however, you can establish rights… and if it’s clear before the purchase of a pattern that items can’t be sold, then the purchase of a pattern means that the buyer agrees to the arrangement. Anyway, I’m not a lawyer, and I totally don’t want to get involved in all that!
YOU stay safe!!!
This is great to read! It is impossible to get rich selling handcrafted items (at least in my experience) because nobody is willing to pay for the time it actually takes to make something (and that’s without taking materials into account!) I LOVE your patterns and have sooo many of them and want to make them ALL, but there’s 1.) Only so much space in my son’s room for stuffed buddies, and 2.) only so many people to give gifts to (specifically stuffed animals). I crochet your patterns first and foremost as gifts, but if there is a “dry spell” where no one is pregnant, having a birthday, Christmas, etc. I still WANT to crochet so at that point I will sometimes make a commissioned animal for the odd $20-$30. I just got hooked on your patterns this summer and at this point I’ve sold THREE and given SEVEN as gifts. I’m definitely making $1000′s! ;) lol (okay, so I’m just supporting the habit…)
I always wondered what your guidelines where. Personally I just love croching your animals. so i just ask that when people want a creation from me using your pattern. I don’t ask for money. I ask for two skeins of yarn. That way I use some of one of the skeins to make their animal. and use the rest to make free ones and other projects! I consider it the bargaining system. And money rarely crosses hands. Heck if anything a hook does! Because everyone I make for, soon wants to learn how I did it. and it helps YOU get a new crocheter to download your patterns, and helps me get more yarn and a new crochet buddy!
I’m not a designer and don’t currently sell finished items, but I like your policy. It makes sense and is a breath of fresh air. Yes, copyright infringement happens. It will always be so. But there seems to be more fear out there than is justified.
I am a designer and personally love to see people selling items crocheted from my patterns. I’m so grateful that I’m able to help support my family by designing and selling my patterns. Seeing others sell the items they make with my patterns makes me happy to think that my designs are helping them support their families too (or at least their crochet habit). Thanks for this post.
I agree 100% with everything that you said in your blog. I was just asked last week by someone if they could do that as they are going to start an Etsy store. And agree that crocheting is hard to mass produce so that’s not a fear at all.
This is a great post. I currently have a “personal use only” on my patterns, but your model makes a lot of sense. I think I’m going to change mine…
I’m a knitter and I’m not tempted to sell anything but that “no sale” policy so many designers have still bugs me! I have the skill to make whatever I want to make (and the money, it is the time that is lacking!), but there are loads of people who can’t make things for themselves. It seems to me that it only benefits the designer if finished objects can be sold, and I don’t understand what people are so afraid of.
I’m finally learning to crochet Amigurumi thanks to your Craftsy course and stumbled open this post. I agree with one of the earlier comments, your perspective on this matter is a breath of fresh air. I love making things for others to enjoy and recently decided to help support my family through selling items at local craft shows. I usually use simple stitch dictionary patterns or free LB patterns (they allow you to sell items using their free patterns).
I don’t have the design chops yet to make intricate patterns so it’s nice to be able to use nicely designed patterns to make items. This way I am able to sell nice items for others to enjoy, I support my family, and I learn from the designs. One day when I become a designer I can credit those whose patterns helped me to get there.
I personally feel we’re all in this toegether as a community and the more we help and support each other the better our community will be. So, thank you Stacey for your wonderful designs and support. I can’t wait to make wonderful stuffed animals for others to enjoy!
Copyright law states that once you buy a pattern, you are free to sell anything you make from that pattern. Selling licences is just a way to con customers out of some extra money. It’s totally unethical, and even if I have no plan to ever sell anything from it, I will never buy a pattern from a maker who sells them. I will not support deceptive people. http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/CopyrightLaw/Patterns.shtml
Also, “personal use only” is not legally enforceable. Again, once you sell a pattern, the purchaser is free to do with the final product as he/she sees fit. You can ask that people not sell it, but that’s the best you can do legally.
I occassionaly have my ami designs published in a craft mag here in Australia. I love to crochet and I love ami, I have tried selling my patterns at the local markets but have more luck selling the finished toy. I don’t mind people making and selling from my patterns but I do mind if they say its their design. I put a little blurb on my patterns that I don’t mind if they sell the finished product for charity and if they must use it to make money for themselves I would appreciate me being recognised as the designer and for them to link back to me.
I did come across someone on Etsy selling dolls made from my patterns and a quick email saying how much I loved what she had done with the pattern (it was from one published in the mag) and could she please put a statement on her page saying I was the designer resolved itself very easy, she was happy to do that and then we were all happy.
I always contact a designer if I want to sell a few items made from their patterns, I’m not going to be making heaps of them, I get bored pretty quickly with the same designs.
So many patterns are similar, it would be hard to say who the pattern actually belonged to. I know of someone who had an issue with someone copying her patterns and saying they were their own, it was only when it was discovered that she had copied word for word – including the mistake that the original designer had made – that she stopped.
On my embroidery designs that I had published I always put my initials worked into a flower or as part of the original design, only I knew where they were and I longed for the day when I could march up to someone at a craft fair and claim my design, it never happened and I stopped being paranoid.
It was a very interesting article you wrote, certainly made me think. Some of the replies also gave me food for thought. I always underprice myself and have just worked out that i am getting $3 an hour for the work I do. I am frequently told I am to cheap and I need to value my work more, maybe I should.
I have noticed in a few designer decor shops here that they are selling ami’s that have been made over seas, not always China – they have a label on them saying they have been made by a womens group in the third world to help them make money to feed their families, but I have also noticed the same designs in some shops having a made in China label on them and no mention of a womens group, so who do I believe. Both designs are overpriced, there is no way I could charge those prices…….so why would someone buy that over mine which is half the price and locally made. If I wanted the shop to sell my things they wouldn’t buy at the price I wanted if they were going to put nearly 100% mark-up on them. I made flower brooches for someone to sell on their website, she sold them for 4 x’s what she bought them for, she sold heaps and when I tried to sell them on a market stall I couldn’t sell them for half that price, I was told someone else was making them and selling them in a shop in the city and they had bought them there. Turns out they were my brooches. I was acknowledged as the designer on the website but not in the shop.
Like everyone else I’m not going to make my fortune at this, I get pleasure from what I do and if I can spread a little happiness around with my designs then thats okay by me and if they want to return that happiness by paying me lots of money then thats okay by me as well.
Thank you so much for all of your thoughts! :)