Lovely Bits and Pieces posed the question on a social networking site about finding it worrying these days to put any photos of your work on the net, she said "all us crafters have load of designs and ideas, and some are very similar to others based on things we have seen when out and about, but sometimes ideas overlap, its a hard situation, here's hoping the crafting community doesn't start falling apart"
This made me think, with all the media coverage of the latest cases of copying, this whole thing about pinterest's T&C's not being moral and being sued for sharing ( has any case happened so far?) has things gone too far?, are we all getting too paranoid?, I love the net and all the diversity it brings but it makes me wonder if we couldn't share our ideas and photos on line how much of this would disappear, I wouldn't know what someone in another town had made unless that person had a shop or I knew them in real life. I think you have to question your beliefs about humans and the way in which everyone is scrutinised and made to feel like they have done wrong when they are genuine.
I think people are overreacting with all this coverage at the moment, agreed copying is awful, the Tatty Devine case is justified, as is some of the other blatant copying going on and this must be tackled and reported and shared. But I often have ideas, I draw them or talk about them and even make them and then lo and behold weeks later I see a similar/same thing in a magazine or on line. I know I have not copied but if the designer in the magazine or on line saw what I had designed or made I could be accused of copying, it's a shame that such a lovely community is becoming paranoid and has this "sue" mindset.
I went to a ladies shop the other day and her workspace was awesome, I asked if I could take a photo to put on my blog and asked if she wanted to be in the picture, she declined, I took all her details to share them on my blog I then was about to take a photo of her makes and she got quite bolshy and told me not to as I might copy her designs, I asked if she has a website (she does) so if anyone wanted to copy they could just go on there, its madness, I didn't blog about her and deleted my photos, I was surprised by her reaction, I thought I was doing her a favour spreading the word and recommending her work to my friends on line, to bring her more custom, how wrong could I be!
I think that in a world where an enormous amount of things have been made it is hard to find new ideas, it is rare nowadays that I am truly in awe of something someone has made because for the most part in one way or another I have seen the same things again and again.
The other more scientific part of this not considered is your long term memory which holds millions of bit of information, ideas and images, maybe you saw something briefly without even realising, it lodged in your memory without you being aware of it and then a time later you start designing, without knowing this memory comes back to you and you believe you have thought of it.
This is not meant to be a get out clause for copying someones work, its just another angle. Unfortunately people are scared and worried about saying and doing the right thing, not actually speaking from the heart in case it causes controversy, I am not one of those people, I say it how I think it is, if you don't agree, that's perfectly OK, share you opinions on my comment box, I would love to hear what you all think about this whether you agree or not, don't be shy and cautious, take the step and be bold!
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