Yet another link dump

Posted by Amy at 1:22 p.m.

Well, this is what blogs originally were, right? I'm just being old school. Of course, blogs have changed...

Folksongs are your Friends - an absolutely hi-larious list of lessons you can learn from folksongs. If you're a folksong fan (i.e. you know what the Child collection is, who Barbara Allen was, or have ever sung, for any reason, the words "whack-fol-de-diddle") read not only the post but the comments.
You Knit What? - the dark side of knitting.
Mammatus Clouds - I miss seeing all the sky.
Knitted Art - by Freddie Robins. I want this.

The last one brings up something I was pondering. I would very much like to have that in my home (no, I don't know what I'd do with it. That's not the point. Did you see it? How could you not want that?). I could make it, fairly easily.

Is this legal? Is this ethical? It's different, I think, from a painting where even if you try to reproduce it yourself, it's probably going to be different. The pattern for making this is much more reproducible. Is it more like music, where you can easily play the same tune? Should there be a mechanical license to allow a "cover" (an unfortunately ambiguous term when it comes to knitting, but there you are)? Does the fact that I'd make only one, for me, make a difference? If I fully credit Ms. Robins at all stages, does that make a difference?

I suppose I could alter enough about it to make it mine, like cooks do recipies, but I want it just as it is. There would be differences; that picture gives no idea of scale, for example, but that's like me transposing "Yesterday" to a different key and calling it mine. Isn't it?

I also suppose I could just do some reading on knitters' copyrights but most of what I've found concerns written patterns. Techniques and ideas can't be copyrighted, apparently, and that's what I'd be using from that piece. But if it's a "copyrightable work of artistic craftsmanship" (and I'd definitely call it art, rather than something utilitarian) then I'd be doing something illegal. Maybe I should just ask Ms. Robins.


 

Labels: ,

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous said... 5:11 p.m.

    All this talk about knitting is creating a horrible Norman Rockwell mental picture involving a porch, a rocking chair, the cat toying with the yarn in a wicker basket, and perhaps a beehive hairdo.

    Get one of these. The 50" size would go in the basement. Knits at 1.3m/sec, decent memory, 8 yarn feeds and whole-garment capability.  

  2. Amy said... 5:27 p.m.

    Hah! "All this talk of knitting"? You have no *idea.* I made a conscious effort for this *not* to be a knitting blog. Maybe my next post *will* be a knitting post, just to show you what you're missing...

    And no, I'm not going to get a knitting machine any time soon even if I had a basement. To paraphrase Louis Armstrong, if you have to ask why machine knitting isn't fun, you'll never know.  

  3. Anonymous said... 10:37 p.m.

    Mammatus Clouds!

    So that's what's they're called! I have some photos of them from after a rain storm at camp, but they're not *quite* as impressive as those collected by that fellow.

    As hard to believe as it may seem--the photos are incredible--the clouds are an order of magnitude even more awesome (earlier meaning of the word implied) to see in Real Life.  

  4. Anonymous said... 5:34 a.m.

    Yeah, I get the creativity/relaxation/etc part of it - I used to sew parachutes for a living, remember? (I was always after a programmable pattern tacker to speed things up. Never got it, but I did get a puller for my twin needle machine. )
    But think of the geek factor of having a 3KVA, 1.5 metric ton Knit-O-Matic humming away doing the boring bits. Hook it up to the main computer, too. You can hand-knit the prototype and then turn it loose.

    And lets hear about some knitting!  

  5. Carl said... 12:40 p.m.

    ... and let's not forget that in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms Skopik has no basement to put such a beast in.

    Bizzare.  

  6. Anonymous said... 8:39 a.m.

    I think, in the interest of someone who deals with copyright as part of their jorb, I'd recommend asking the artist if s/he would mind if you made something *similar*, but different enough (colours, textiles) that it wouldn't be confused with the original. Then you can put on the little art tag "inspired by [insert title of original piece] by Robins", and anyone who asks, you essentially are promoting the original artist.

    And THEN, you can also say that you're not going to reproduce the work for profit; you're not going to sell the work; you just want one in your house, but you'd like to make it yourself because that's just the kind of girl you are.

    No, ideas aren't copyrighted, but as soon as they're expressed, they are, according to the copyright lawyer at our last professional development session.  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
 

Copyright 2006| Blogger Templates by GeckoandFly modified and converted to Blogger Beta by Blogcrowds.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.