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DMCA Vs. The Sewing Underground
Roundeye writes "So the folks at monsterpatterns.com dumpster-dive to get envelopes containing discontinued sewing patterns and sell the envelopes via their website. The sewing pattern company McCall invoked the DMCA to get the site shut down. Monsterpatterns is now suing to protect their 'fair use rights' to advertise and sell the discarded patterns. You might recall that this isn't the first time the sewing industry has cracked down on bootlegging grandmas and their suppliers."
How can this be considered piracy? He isn't reproducing the patterns, he is selling hard merchandise. I understand that "He did not pay for these patterns" as Mr. Herman from McCall stated, but doesn't that make it theft? Where I live, dumpster diving is considered tresspass which could lead to theft charges, but Mr. Gendron claims "they are abandoned property" and he may be right if that is what Detroit law says. This was an underhanded misuse of an already bad law to get the site taken down. Gotta love that whole consequences before proven guilt thing the DMCA has going for it.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
The old article stated that the Internet is responsible for declining sales of patterns for doilies and other sewing patters. Here's two reasons i think this is BS.
1.) Given the median age of the people who still knit and sew, i'd say that few of them use a computer, much less the internet.
1.) The people who do sew, are so old they're probably just dying off anyway, thus leading to the declining sales.
If , as reported, they are selling actual patterns and not copies of same, then McCalls or anyone else has no business in using the DMCA in this, it just doesn't apply. Heck, it doesn't apply anyway, maybe copyright law would (for bogus copies, not for factory originals), but there is no digital security to defeat in any sewing pattern I've ever seen. Sounds like a more extreme abuse of DMCA that has ever been reported before, and there have been some good ones. Only thing they might have a leg to stand on is simply theft of property, but apparently they don't think they can support that. I hope McCalls gets sued real good on this one.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
But, if your trash is on private property and NOT on the curb, its called trespassing at the very least.
Perhaps even theft..
But it don't have diddly to do with DMCA.. This is getting way out of hand.. 'guilty until YOU prove innocence'.. and no recourse for lost revenue during the process.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...because it just goes to show how ridiculous the DMCA is. Eventually, it's going to be obvious even to lawmakers that it should be repealed. Not that we're even close to that point yet, but it's nice to see that we're headed that way.
1. I find a bunch of old magazines in someone's trash.
2. I take the magazines and list them on my web site hoping to sell them.
3. I'm guilty of a DMCA violation?? This doesn't make sense! People are using the DMCA as a 'catch all' law to make EVERYTHING online illegal. This law must go away!
Apparently, McCall has a similar process for excess patterns. The understanding with the merchants is that the excess patterns are NOT to be sold. Monsterpatterns is disrupting this process. While other means could be used (e.g., shredding the patterns) this would increase costs for the merchants. And is not a good thing.
So while DMCA may be hated on Slashdot, I believe McCalls has a right to protect their copyrighted materials, which they want to have removed from the marketplace.
The understanding with the merchants is that the excess patterns are NOT to be sold. Monsterpatterns is disrupting this process.
But Monsterpatterns is not a party to the contractual agreement between the pattern manufacturer and the pattern retailer. If the retailer fails to execute their part of the agreement, no third party is bound to abide by the agreement in their stead.
"They're doing something that's not illegal but it's messing up our business model" is not a justification to sue. It's a sign that the business model needs to be altered.
('altered', ha... tailoring humor... thank you, I'll be here all week)
Is there software for generating needlework designs? Both repetitive patterns, and rendering of scanned pictures? The problems of arranging circuits on chips and displaying words & pictures with pixels seem similar. Software can handle those problems quite well, sometimes better than any human can.
I'm just speculating, but the problem may be related to the same problem that magazine publishers have with newsstands with regards to unsold issues. The newsstands get credit (or at least, used to) for the unsold issues-- at one time they would return the upper portion of the cover for proof, rather than send the entire issue back. Possibly what is happening here, is stores are getting credit for unsold patterns that the manufacturers don't want to pay to have returned, and expect the store to destroy them. If that is the case, then the stores are at fault for not sufficiently destroying them, but perhaps the pattern manufacturers realize that suing their stores is not particularly a good idea.
I've seen the same thing happen to magazines-- magazines with portions of the cover removed do sometimes get sold anyway, but I don't know what the legality of this is. It's probably less of a problem with a magazine publisher where a back issue of a magazine doesn't compete all that much with the current issue-- old patterns, on the other hand, could concievably be quite competitive with new pattern lines, thus making it a more significant issue with the pattern manufacturers.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out...
Is a used book a "licensed copy"? Can you sell a used book without the copyright owner's permission? If the answers to those aren't obvious, please remember that licensing of software was a mechanism invented by vendors to avoid the usual provision of copyright law that the buyer of the object (book, record, etc.) owns it and can resell it: the only thing copyright prevents the buyer from doing is copying it.
The DMCA is only meant to prevent the decryption of digitally encrypted copyrighted content. Although there may be copyrighted content involved here, there is no digital encryption. The DMCA cannot apply.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
With few exceptions, once the item has "entered into the stream of commerce", the holder of copyright can not prevent further sale. See: USA Copyright law And it's backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 1905 or so.
The doctrine allows the legitimate owner of a particular lawful copy of a work to "sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" without the permission of the copyright owner, and produce images of it for purpose of aiding the sale. It does not permit copying the item in its entirety.
If the city codes allow dumpster diving and if they declare that the contents are "abandoned property", then the divers ARE the legal owners of the patterns and can tell McCall's to take a flying leap.
This issue comes up frequently on eBay. One $$$ fabric maker was invoking the DMCA to get auctions for items made of their fabric shut down. Their claim was that the photos showed their copyrighted fabric designs. It only took a few sellers ordering eBay to restore the content and to tell the fabric company that it was fair use (citing chapter, verse and Supreme Copurt decision number) and to go ahead and file to convince them they were out of line.