Selling my crochet

[Yarnentangled]

So my 13 yr old son has been wearing his single crochet skully cap and has been getting rave reviews from the junior high school crowds.

One boy told him he's been looking for a skully cap like his but can't find them in any store and then asked him where he got his. Son told him that I made it.

So this boy says he'd like one in black,blue and gray. I whipped one up in a couple of hours. I told my son to just give it to him as a holiday gift.

Other kids have expressed an interest in these things. This pattern isn't mine. I got it off the web. Do I have to ask for permission to sell the hats I made? I don't want to do anything illegal or unscrupulous. Do I need a permit or something? I am totally lost on this issue.

Thanks for any help you offer.

[Yarnentangled]

The particular pattern is copyrighted so I have to ask the designer for permission. Eek!

[Chiscrochetcrazy]

You could do your own pattern use any for inspiration and tweek it to make it yours I usually start using a pattern and then do my own thing.

[Ambersafghans]

Is it a big company? I've had some success with some big companies, and a lot with personal website owners.
Where's the pattern?
I know that Coats and Clark's (You might want to get this in writting, I did. ) will let you sell things from their patterns, as long as you use their yarn.
Amber

[emeraldmoon]

No you dont have to have permission to sell the hats.. Your not selling the pattern. Your just selling the item..
Geeze if that was a case , than everyone would not be able to sell alot of their crochet items, such as doilies, afghans etc..
SO YES YOU CAN SELL THE HATS WITH OUT PERMISSION...

[deneen]

Yes, you can sell the hats. You can't sell the pattern!

[RachelG]

It depends on the copyright notice. If you got the pattern on the internet, look at the site or write the owner. Some people do stress for personal use only and you cannot sell something you made using their pattern. Others don't care. Some people don't say, but are very willing to let you do whatever you want with your finished object when you send them a nice e-mail asking if it would be all right.

[Yarnentangled]

I went ahead and emailed a nice letter the designer. There is really nothing on the website but a copyright notice. No "I forbid you to..." messages.

Copyright laws are so vague. Its frustrating:th . I just want to give respect where its due.

If I don't hear anything in a day or so I am going to go ahead with my plan. Not like the pattern police will be knocking at my door.


Heres the simple hat the teen boys like
www.piece-by-piece.net/Patterns/fp45.htm (http://www.piece-by-piece.net/Patterns/fp45.htm)

[Donna]

Sorry I'm late in responding to this... the holdiays are always so busy. Anyhow, copyright law indeed can be fuzzy, but the safest answer to this is YES, you do need to get permission from the copyright owner to sell items crocheted from a pattern. Check out this article, Copyright: A Primer for Knitters (http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall03/FEATcopyright.html). Question number 5 in that article directly addresses this issue. The article was written by an intelluctual property lawyer.

Did you ever hear from the pattern designer? Let us know how it goes.

[Yarnentangled]

I received no response so far.

[MarvieN]

I've had the same thing happen to me, I made my 10 yo a skully and people have seen me making things and have started asking me to sell items, so what I've done is emailed the designers and asked for permission. So far I've only gotten "Yes" answers, though I have had to patiently wait for the reply in a couple of cases.

I save and print out the reply and put them in a file, just in case. I make sure that I include the entire email, complete with date and email addy etc. as well as my email asking for permission.

Better to be safe than sorry.

If you don't hear from them within a week I'd email again. If you still hear nothing, try another designer or maybe come up with your own design. It only needs to be 20% different from the original, that's not much really when you think about it.

Good Luck!!

Marvie