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More Copyright Abuses: Yarn
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Saturday, November 30 @ 10:46:00 EST Copyright
Alice Starmore is an author of books on knitting and prolific designer of patterns. Following in the example of copyright empires many times her size, she's discovered that selling complete packages -- yarn, patterns, and pictures of the finished item-- is more profitable than selling them apart, and is seeking to use intellectual property laws to enforce her business model.

Thus, her lawyers have been sending out cease-and-desist letters to websites that display pictures of items made using her patterns. They've also been asking eBay to remove auctions containing the words "Alice Starmore" on copyright infringement grounds. According to this ace legal team, you're violating copyright if you resell Alice Starmore yarn and have the gall to describe it as "Alice Starmore yarn." So much for first sale, eh, Alice?

Similarly, Starmore & Esq. don't like people selling as a "kit" the (non-Alice Starmore brand) yarns you'd need to make one of her sweaters. After all, if you do that, then you're not buying yarn from her. Bothered by having what they see as perfectly legitimate auctions taken down, a group of knitting enthusiasts has banded together, gotten legal advice, and formed a legal defense fund. When it comes to the legality of licensing terms, knowledge is power. Perhaps this is why Starmore would like to suppress discussion of her trademarks.

Then again, if she could find a way of controlling access to her yarn with a technological measure (special knitting needles, maybe?), the DMCA would be implicated . . .

 
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· Alice Starmore
· cease-and-desist letters
· legal defense fund
· licensing terms
· suppress discussion
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