forum based in another country apparently posting patterns without permission

[EmEyeAaay]

This morning I learned about a forum in another country that contains many copyrighted patterns from American designers and designers of other countries, apparently posted without the designers' permission.

 

How do you combat this? I know some of those patterns are free, but a lot of them are not.

[Amy]

This morning I learned about a forum in another country that contains many copyrighted patterns from American designers and designers of other countries, apparently posted without the designers' permission.

 

How do you combat this? I know some of those patterns are free, but a lot of them are not.

 

 

The sad thing is, there really isn't anything we can do about sites like this that are based in some foreign countries. These countries do not have the same types of laws regarding copyright that the United States does. What is considered copyright infringement here in the US, is not considered infringement in those countries because they don't have laws against it. So the ISPs in those countries will not consider this a problem, and will very likely do nothing to remove patterns that have been posted without permission. There may also be other countries that may have laws protecting their own citizens against copyright infringement, but that won't put forth much effort to protecting the copyrights of citizens from other countries. Then of course, there are some countries with which the US does have reciprocal copyright enforcement arrangements, and the ISPs in those countries WILL do something to help. Unfortunately, at this time, I don't have a list of which countries will help.

 

But what CAN you do when you run across sites that appear to be blatantly infringing upon the copyrights of other people? Here are some steps that you can take:

1. For your own protection, it's best not to accuse these sites publicly of committing an actual crime. Many of these people know exactly what they're doing, and are prepared to come back at you (and whatever site you posted on) with guns blazing. They will contact their lawyers immediately and file suit against you for things like libel, harassment, defamation of character, interfering with their ability to do business, and all sorts of stuff. Since their crime hasn't been proven in a court of law, they may have grounds for this, depending upon how you worded your public posts. Their hope is to cause you enough legal headaches and expense that you'll back down and go away, allowing them to continue with their allegedly illegal activities.
   
2. So if you shouldn't call them out and identify them publicly, what can you do? You can send the URL for the site to me via PM. If I think they are allowing posting of material that doesn't fit with our guidelines (which is a different matter than actual law), then I can add the site to our filters, so that members who don't realize there's a problem with the site are unable to post a working link here. Adding a site to our filters just says a site doesn't meet our guidelines to be linked to from here, and is not a statement of any sort that the site is conducting illegal activity.
   
3. We can continue to educate members that patterns are copyrighted and should not be posted or distributed in any manner without permission of the copyright holder.
   
4. You can take note of any individuals/companies whose patterns appear to be being infringed upon at that site. Then you can contact those individuals/companies privately, with links to the appropriate URLs for their patterns posted there. It is then up to that individual/company to contact their attorney to take appropriate legal action, if any can be taken.
   
5. Depending upon the nature of the site in question, and whether you believe the pattern could have been posted by someone who just isn't aware of copyright law, then you could also contact the site owner directly if you like. Let them know that you're aware the copyright for that pattern belongs to someone else, and ask if they are posting the pattern with permission of the copyright holder. (Sometimes they may have received permission, and have just forgotten to make a public statement to that effect on their site.)

We aren't completely powerless in some situations like this. There are appropriate, constructive steps we can take to respond and hopefully reduce the amount of pattern copyright infringement that occurs on the internet.

[Amy]

Oh, I forgot to mention that it doesn't matter whether the original patterns were available for free or not. The copyright owner still has complete control over how/when/where/if the pattern may be distributed.

[Flia]

I live in Sweden, and Europe has about the same copyright laws as the US.

You may copy any pattern for your own use. In some cases you may also give away a pattern to a friend, but not sell it. You can never share the pattern online for anybody to download.

I suppose you are referring to the Russian sites. They are of course illegal, and have always been.

They're sharing patterns that are copyrighted worldwide, there are no local laws that can go around that.